GardenDesignOnline

June Happenings

June 1-3 Native Plants Conference, Millersville, PA
16th Annual "Native Plants in the Landscape" Conference Millersville University
Cornell's Bernd Blossey and Steven Handel on invasive plants and restoration of the urban landscape; designer & author Leslie Sauer; Jim Plyler of Natural Landscapes nursery.

June 1 - June 30 History of Flowerpots & Gdn Containers in America, Philadelphia, PA
Exhibition, Bartram's Garden (215) 729-5281

June Garden Conservancy Garden Tours, CA, CT, IL, MA, MI, NJ, NY, OR, VT, WA. CA: San Francisco, Marin Counties; CT:Hartford, Middlesex, Fairfield, Litchfield, New Haven, New London Counties; IL: Cook, Lake Counties;MA: Nantucket County; MI: Oakland County; NJ: Hunterdon, Somerset, Morris, Bergen Counties; NY: Onondaga, Westchester, Tompkins, Ulster, Suffolk, Columbia, Dutchess Counties; OR: Multnomah County; PA: Montgomery, Philadelphia Counties; OR: Multnomah County; VT: Addison, Chittenden Counties
June 10 Weird Plant Sale. Tuscon AZ
Tuscon Botanical Gardens Tuscon Botanical Gardens (520) 326-9686

June 16-17 Secret Garden Tour, Newport, RI
Up to 10 special gardens (401) 847-0514 or Newport Visitors' Ctr, 23 America's Cup Ave.
June 17 Floral Design Show, Clovis, CA.
Am. Institute of Floral Designers, SW Region
June 17 Summer Solstice Celebration, West Tisbury, MA
Polly Hill Arboretum (508) 693-9426
June 24 Hidden Gardens of Carroll County, Carrollton, GA
Eight terrific gardens. (770) 832-2446

LOOKAHEAD:

JULY 7-9 International Orchid Fair, Santa Barbara, CA
Santa Barbara Orchid Estate (800) 553-3387
July 16-22 APLD Summer Conference , Philadelphia, PA
Annual Meeting, Assn of Professional Landscape Designers
July 17-21 Landscape Architecture and Community Design Conference, Chatauqua, NY Landscape Architect James van Sweden, author Sarah Susanka and more.

July 28 Woody Plants Conference, Swarthmore, PA
Scott Arboretum, Lectures by Tony Avent, Julie Moir Messervy, & more.
August 6-20 Lecture Series, Framingham, MA
New England Wildflower Society 
August 25-28 Garden Writers' Assn Annual Conference Valley Forge, PA
58th Annual Conference featuring architect and author William McDonough and others.
October 6-9 Am. Society Landscape Architects Annual Conference Minneapolis, MN

A Memoral Day Rose

Happy Memorial Day ... and nothing's more appropriate than this hybrid tea rose named "Memorial Day." 

It was an All America Rose Selection winner in 2004, developed by Weeks Roses of California.  It has a strong damask fragrance, is medium tall, upright and bushy, with about 50 orchid pink petals per bloom.  Just one flower is said to be enough to perfume an entire room.

(photo: Gene Sasse courtesy of Weeks Roses)

A Chance for American Chestnuts

There's an exciting new possibility that American chestnut trees may once again populate eastern forests.  Last year, Nathan Klaus, a wildlife biologist with the Georgia Dept. of Natural Resources, was hiking on Pine Mountain near Warm Springs, GA, when he spotted an extremely rare stand of healthy American chestnut trees. 

More than four billion trees from Maine to Georgia and west to Indiana and Illinois were wiped out by an Asian fungus that made its way into the United States in 1904. While some trees still survive -- an estimated two or three per county in the former range -- they almost always succumb to the disease.

The tree found in Georgia is about 40 feet tall with a diameter of 8 to 10 inches, and it is thought to be about 30 years old.  There are also several other chestnuts within 50 yards or so that are big enough to produce flowers and fruit.  "I've never seen one this big in a condition this good," said David Keehn, breeding coordinator of Georgia chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation.  "There's no sign of blight on it, and there is blight in the area, so we think the tree probably has some level of resistance."

Pollen was recently collected from the specimen, and it will go into the breeding program of the American Chestnut Foundation.  According to Keehn, the new trees will be crossed with a Chinese chestnut that's not affected by the blight -- then crossed back until scientists have "a tree that's indistinguishable from the American chestnut with high blight resistance."

The American chestnut was highly prized for its rot-resistant hardwood and for its abundant nuts, which were sold during the Christmas season and for livestock feed.  It was also one of the country's most impressive native trees, reaching 100 feet high with a diameter of four to eight feet.  If the breeding program is successful, these magnificent American natives will again be introduced to native forests.

(image: USDA)

Olmsted Park Restoration

Riverside Park in Buffalo, NY is getting a state grant to construct a pedestrian walkway and garden, reviving part of Frederick Law Olmsted's original 18th century design.  The Buffalo News carried the story about the $100,000 grant to the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy, which is working to restore the park to its former glory.

(photo: Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy)

Native Americans & Others Go Green

Green Roofs for Healthy Cities has announced its 2006 green roof award winners, and the roof pictured at left is certainly a winner!  It's atop a museum and research center at the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation in southeastern Connecticut. The architect was Polshek Partnership Architects of New York City.

The facility is located at the edge of the Great Cedar Swamp, and the tribe wanted a perfect transition between the museum roof and the adjacent swamp, a 500 acre wetland of historical significance and cultural importance to the community.  The roof is used for educational and cultural events and the roof garden will eventually supply the museum kitchen with seasonal foods traditionally used by Native Americans. Among the original plantings were low bush blueberry, daylily, strawberry, wormwood, spearmint, tansy, and sage.

A special recognition award went to Koch Landscape Architecture in Portland, Oregon, for the courtyard roof at the 10th at Hoyt Apartments. It was planned to comply with the City of Portland's guidelines for on-site stormwater runoff.  This inspiring design is reminiscent of Persian water features:  water channels, cascades, and fountains are activated for about 30 hours after a rainstorm.  The water is cycled into and through shallow detention basins, cisterns, and lighted boxes, and then it's slowly released into the city water system.  This enclosed courtyard roof garden is 8500 square feet and it's open to the street on one side.

(top photo: Green Roofs for Healthy Cities and Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center;
bottom photo:  Green Roofs for Healthy Cities and Koch Landscape Architecture) 

New 9-11 Rose

The fourth of nine roses to be named in honor of  9-11 victims has now been released by "Remember Me" Rose Garden, a non-profit group that is creating rose gardens in New York City, Washington DC and near the site in Pennsylvania where United Flight 93 crashed into a field. This yellow rose, called "Forty Heroes," is named in honor of the crew and passengers on Flight 93.  Sue Casey, president of the organization, said "Each person on Flight 93 was on their own journey in life, and for whatever reason, they were brought together to change the course of our lives and history. It is with pride that we honor them with "Forty Heroes."

The rose was developed by Ping Lim of Bailey Nurseries. Ping is of Laotian origin and immigrated to the United States in the early 1980's after earning a horticulture degree in Taiwan.  Since 1992, he's been hybridizing and selecting new lines of roses for Bailey and has won awards for his hybrid tea "Love & Peace" (R), "Macy's Pride"(TM), and "DayDream" (PPAF). 

"Forty Heroes" follows the release of the red hybrid tea "Firefighter" in 2003; "Soaring Spirits," a cream and pink striped climber honoring all 9-11 victims in 2004; and "We Salute You," an orange-pink hybrid tea of 2005 in memory of the Pentagon workers who died on September 11th.

(photo: Remember Me Rose Garden)

A Rose Classic Returns

If you're a fan of roses and you haven't heard of Stephen Scanniello, where have you been all your life?  Now, the famous rose book that received the American Horticultural Society's (AHS) annual book award in 1998 is back in an updated version with a new section on pruning, more info on companion plantings, new illustrations and discussions on new roses.

Scanniello, a NY based design consultant, was former rosarian at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden 's Cranford Rose Garden and is president of the American Heritage Rose Foundation.

In this book, you'll find the most straightforward explanation you've ever read on different kinds of roses; how to plant them; where to cut them (whether for a floral arrangement or to remove a faded bloom); and how to use them in garden design (and which ones).  Best of all, Scanniello outlines numerous ways to deal with rose insects and disease without using potent chemicals.

If you like roses, you can't do without this book.

You might also consider Scanniello's 2005 book, "Rose Companions: Growing Annuals, Perennials, bulbs, Shrubs, and Vines with Roses" (Cool Springs Press). The book is pretty well explained by the title, but it has terrific photos, great plant lists, and wonderful suggestions for getting the most out of your roses.

(click on image to purchase book)

ASLA Design Winners 2006

The latest in landscape design is modern and trendy, traditional with a twist, bold and dramatic.  The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has announced its 2006 design awards, and most are very 21st century.  Landworks Studio Inc. of Salem, MA won a general design award of excellence for the garden courtyard (left) at the Court Square Press Building in Boston. A wood and aluminum pathway zigzags through a bamboo forest, and light boxes and oversized benches create various gathering spaces which at night is reminiscent of a campfire experience.

The design is organized around fragmented views, and on upper levels of the building, steel cables and a web of yellow fiber optic lines will cast colored light into the bamboo canopy. As the jury put it, it's "Wonderful, playful, original, and will only get better with time."

In the residential category, the top award of excellence went to Steve Martino  & Associates of Phoenix, AZ, for a "welcoming space... sustainability in residential design," and innovative use of "native plants and shade trees."  Martino completely transformed a 40-year-old house with a 4300 square foot asphalt parking area and a drive-through carport into a house and garden at one with each other.  The house now embraces the surrounding desert landscape; covered terraces cooled by ceiling fans provide seamless transition between indoors and outdoors; native plantings were used throughout, and non-native hedges and trees were removed to open the views to mountains in the distance.  A concrete wall fountain on the dining terrace obscures the sound of traffic on a nearby road, and glass pocket doors can be opened or shut to physically separate the house from the garden.

(Court Sq. image courtesy of Landworks Studio, Inc.; Desert house, photos by Steve Martino, FASLA)

Tray Table Elegance

What a perfect garden addition ... an elegant tray table. The top lifts off so you can take it back & forth to the kitchen.  This one, from McKinnon & Harris, has scalloped edges reminiscent of the shells of Virginia's Tidewater region, although it traces its origins to the Gilliam family of the Virginia Piedmont. According to McKinnon, the table was originally placed in front of a window with sweeping views of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and family members recall that it was often filled with mint juleps to be shared with friends.

Now, it's been adapted for the garden in wrought aluminum, and it comes in all of McKinnon's traditional colors, from taupe and red to shades of green, blue, and more. Diagonal slats on all the horizontal surfaces add a stylish detail and also allow rain and spills to drain away.  Especially perfect anywhere in the South, but I think it would fit almost anywhere. (29" x 17" x 22" high).

(click on images for larger view; photos: McKinnon & Harris) 

DC Garden Tours

May 15th -- 10AM-5PM  Don't miss the annual Georgetown Garden Tour, this year featuring eight little masterpieces, including one designed by James van Sweden with an unusual water feature, multi-levels and overlapping rectangles; a small Asian-style garden with teahouse and pond; and (there has to be one!) a traditional G'town garden with lots of boxwood and a pergola. Tickets on the day of the tour at Keith Hall, 31st & O Sts. NW.

May 21st, 1-4PM, head on up to Shepherd Park (straight north on 16th Street) for eight more gardens, several created by local area landscape designers and featured on national tours. They include a romantic "European" garden with a water feature invisible from the street, lush plantings and diverse texture; and a late 19th century English garden with tons of perennials & deer-resistant plants.  Tickets available noon at Shepherd Elementary, 16th & Kalmia Sts NW.