GardenDesignOnline

New Plants for 2012: II

The following -- just a short selection -- of new plants from Spring Meadow Nursery in Grand Haven, MI.

Pinky Bells™ Abelia
(Abelia 'Lynn')

I've always been a great fan of abelia, particularly because it blooms away well into fall.  The problem has always been the smallish flowers -- maybe until now.  Pinky Bells is said to have the largest flowers of any abelia, and new growth on the leaves and the stems takes on a reddish hue in spring and again in fall. Easy maintenance, to Zone 6, 2-3' tall by 3-4' wide.  Sounds like a very promising groundcover, and it's deer resistant to boot. Available in retail centers in spring 2013.

Calycanthus 'Aphrodite'

Don't know why more people don't plant sweetshrub, and now they have no excuse. Aphrodite has large flowers reminiscent of magnolia blooms, it is extremely fragrant, and it's a re-bloomer. Five to six feet tall and wide, to zone 5. Developed by Dr. Tom Ranney of NC State. Available spring 2013.

Bobo™ Hydrangea
(Hydrangea paniculata 'ILVOBO')

This dwarf panicle hydrangea is just 3 feet tall and 3 to 4 feet wide, but it has huge white flowers that lengthen as they bloom, and they're supported on strong stems. In fall, the flowers take on a pinkish color.  To zone 3, seems like a terrific showy plant for small gardens. Available spring 2013.

Green Roof Design Awards 2011

Green Roofs for Healthy Cities presented its annual design awards for 2011 recently at its annual conference last month.  This post describes a selection of winners, but you can see all of them and read about them in more detail at the Green Roofs website here.

click to enlargeThe Extensive Residential award went to Hadj Design for a 3200 square foot roof on a coastal residence in Quilcene, Washington. Plants and soil were selected carefully with the objective of supporting local birds that live on the water nearby and in the surrounding forest. According to the designers, the residence has already become home to a variety of local insects and birds.

 
click to enlarge Intensive Residential award: Durante Kreuk Ltd, for Milennium Village in Vancouver. Covering eight city blocks, the project is the first LEED gold certified neighborhood in North America. The green roofs are actually a series of courtyards that allow residents to relax, featuring a variety of elements from fountains and waterfalls to ponds and fragrance gardens.  The design also incorporates many edible plants, many native varieties with a high tolerance for drought, and others that attract wildlife.

 

2011 ASLA Awards

The American Society of Landscape Architects has announced the winners of its professional awards for 2011.  In all, 37 winners were selected for their work in designing residential and public spaces, campuses, parks and urban planning projects.  Some of the residential award winners are profiled here. (Click on images to enlarge)

How would you like to be on this roof terrace in NYC, atop a contemporary townhouse in Carnegie Hill?  Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects of Charlottesville, VA, created a series of outdoor terraces, a "nest" that's a retreat for the owners and their children, as well as a habitat for migratory songbirds.

A green wall on the 6th floor, shown here, was designed as a work of art.  Framed in teak, the wall, just above the children's sandbox, is planted with herbs and other edibles (including strawberries) at lower levels, within easy reach of the children.

 (photos: Eric Piasecki/ASLA)

 

In Little Compton, Rhode Island, Landscape Architect Michael Vergason of Alexandria, VA, renovated the landscape of a 70 acre oceanfront farm to honor its historic 18th and 19th century components. New stone walls were integrated perfectly with existing stonework, and a fountain and watering trough for two cows marks the intersection of new and old elements.

Plantings, mostly native, were kept to a minimum in keeping with the original agrarian nature of the landscape. As the judges noted, the plan feels "both contemporary and permanent... All the stone is salvaged from the site and the water is made visible from the house."

(photos: Nic Lehoux Architectural Photography/ASLA)

Best Website 2010

Margie Grace has done it again ... last year, she won the 2009 award from APLD (The Association of Professional Landscape Designers) as International Designer of the Year.

This, year, her website has just won the gold award from the Garden Writers' Association for best website of 2010.

Check it out at  www.gracedesignassociates.com

Design: The Genius of Bryant Park

Whenever I'm in NYC's Bryant Park, it still amazes me that it's filled with people, reading, having lunch, lounging around on a lunch break.  I can remember when no one would dare venture into Bryant Park ... it was simply too dangerous.

All that changed with the redesign of the park in 1992 by Laurie Olin ... and that design has just received a Landmark Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA).  The firm was cited for its transformation of a derelict space into "a model of urban sustainability," a place where thousands now enjoy year-round activities, including ice skating, concerts, movie screenings and other performances. 

As the New York Times put it in a 1992 article, "Where once the park was the home of derelicts, drug dealers and drug users, it is now awash with office workers, shoppers, strollers and readers from the New York Public Library next door."

Even better, the park is actually a huge green roof, built over a new extension of the library's book stacks which houses more than three million volumes. Olin's design includes smoke vents hidden in the floral borders and a hidden fire escape as well. You can see the plan for the design, and more photos on the ASLA website awards page here.

Betty Ford Garden Award

Betty Ford Alpine Gardens in Vail, Colorado

Vail's Betty Ford Alpine Gardens, the highest botanical garden in the country (8250 ft), has received this year's Award for Garden Excellence from the American Botanical Gardens Association (APGA), sponsored by Horticulture magazine. The APGA award honors a public garden every year for excellence in commitment to plant collections, outstanding horticultural displays with top design, and gardening practices appropriate for the regional environment, among other criteria.  APGA executive director Dan Stark cited the garden for its hard work in "creating, maintaining and growing a truly wonderful botanic garden in such a trying environment."

The garden, founded by the Vail Alpine Garden Association in 1985, is located in Gerald R. Ford Park.  It was named in honor of former first lady Betty Ford in 1988 because of her  contributions to and association with Vail Valley. (Remember ... when Ford was president, he often vacationed and skiied at his home in Vail).

Since its establishment, the garden has been recognized as the country's foremost authority on high-altitude plants in natural and cultivated environments throughout the Rocky Mountains. The garden also promotes conservation throughout the region and is home for many threatened exotic and rare plants and alpine wildflowers.

Green Roof Awards 09

Annual Awards, Green Roofs for Healthy Cities

Big Sur, CA

This guest house and garage complex is just 200 yards from the Pacific, and the challenge was to disturb the site as little as possible.  The buildings are set into the landscape, and they feature a number of "green" materials as well as an extensive green roof, ie, a roof with low lying plants that provide maximum water retention and ground cover, as well as resistance to erosion.  Extensive green roof plants are usually no more than six inches high and are supported in soil two to four inches deep.

This particular green roof and its surrounding area were designed and installed by Fred Ballerini, and the plant palette was selected from the surrounding habitat prior to construction.  Several endangered butterfly host and nectar plants were chosen for the rooftop location, as well as other species that provide habitat for birds, reptiles, and insects.

The judges noted that the most exciting part of the project was the effort to reduce the building impact by re-using native plant communities and taking care to recreate local flora and fauna habitats.  They also said the Big Sur project is a "superior example of a green roof that can minimize the impact of building by attempting to heal the ecological disruption that its construction caused."

Boston, MA

The 12-story Macallen Building residential condominiums are located between South Boston and an expansive industrial area. Landworks Studio Inc designed two separate green roofs for the complex, including an upper sloping roof with shallow-rooted plants, and a recreational terrace with planting medium of six inches to five feet.  This is an "intensive" green roof, or one that supports a more natural landscape with trees and shrubs and many other types of plants.

The recreational terrace includes a lap pool, and the design team also wanted to make the roof attractive for those in surrounding buildings.  The judges cited the project for different environments at different tiers of the building, and noted that there was an educational component to it during construction ... a class offered in green roof development at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.