GardenDesignOnline

Versailles in the Back Yard

Well, why not?  If you want a vegetable garden, the latest hot trend in landscaping, put one in that's like the one at Versailles.  According to last Friday's Wall Street Journal, a homeowner in California put in a ten thousand dollar veg garden inspired by the gardens built for the Sun King.  And if that's not enough, how about the couple who spent $60 thousand on a veg garden at a weekend house in NY -- but since they are not there most of the time, the help gets most of the produce.  When the well-off decide they have to have something in the garden, you know it's a full-blown trend.  Read the entire article here by Ellen Gamerman, and take a wide-eyed look at the photos. 

Going Local: MA Driveways

Local Design Ideas: Ordinary to Unusual

Whenever I go to a different part of the country, I see local landscape design with a new eye. What I encounter in Massachusetts is usually something I'd never see in the Washington DC area or the mid-Atlantic. 

All designers get used to local materials, and because of that, when you travel you should take notice of what the landscape architects, designers, and landscapers are using.  It'll open your mind to new ideas that you can take back home -- ideas that will work just fine, in most cases, with your own local materials.  And what's ordinary in one place will look trendy and unusual in another state or locality.

The "driveway" pictured here is actually a small side yard perhaps 12 to 15 feet wide that was paved over with cobblestones.  The cobble entry is neat and spacious, patio-like, it has room for visitor parking, and looks much better than a worn-out lawn it likely replaced.  One of my favorite "driveways" in Woods Hole, MA.

Happenings August 08

Through Oct 13, "One Planet, Ours!", Washington DC
Exhibit on Sustainability for the 22nd Century, US Botanic Garden 202 225-8333
Through Nov 2, Moore in America, Bronx, NY
Monumental Sculptures of Henry Moore, NY Botanical Garden 718-817-8700

Aug 2-3 Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours: NY, IL, MA
Aug 2: Pawling, NY; Aug 3: W.Chicago, IL; Lenox & Stockbridge, MA
Aug 3 Naturally Beautiful Gardens, Boylston, MA
1PM-3PM, Lecture, Designer Dori Smith, Tower Hill Botanic Garden, (508) 869-6111
Aug 7, 14, 21. Tours of Celia Thaxter's Garden, Appledore Island, NH
Cornell University, Shoals Marine Laboratory. Boats leave from Portsmouth, NH (603) 430-5220 (ask for Pam Boutilier)
Aug 10 Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours, CT, MA, NY
CT: Plantsville, Meriden;MA: Marblehead; NY: Ancram, Ancramdale, Austerlitz, Millerton, Cold Spring.
Aug 10-14, Annual Conference, Assn of Professional Landscape Designers, Tarrytown, NY

Aug 14, Succulents for the Home Garden, San Marino, CA
2:30PM, Lecture by John Trager, curator of desert collections, The Huntington, Friends Hall. (626) 405-2100
Aug 16 Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours, NY, WA
NY: Rhinebeck; WA: DuPont, Olympia, Tenino
Aug 18, Garden Tour, Nutley & Short Hills, NJ
7:30-AM-6PM, Scott Arboretum tour of Greenwood Gardens in Nutley & two private gardens designed by Richard Hartlage, both very unique. (610) 328-8025
Aug 18, Plant Expedition to China & Japan, San Francisco, CA.
7:15PM, Lecture by Quarryhill Botanical Gdn Director William McNamara, County Fair Bldg, SF Botanical Garden
Aug 21-23 Farwest Show, Portland, OR
12PM-6PM, Oregon Convention Center, Nursery & Trade Show
Aug 23 Invasive Plant Removal Workshop, Washington DC
10AM-1PM, Volunteer workday removing invasives from Potomac Gorge; sponsor: US Botanic Garden (202) 225-1116
Aug 30, 25th Succulent Plants Symposium, San Marino, CA
9AM-5PM, The  Huntington, Panel of guest speakers discusses new developments in the world of  succulents. (626) 405-3504

 Lookahead:

Sept 19-22, Annual Conference, Garden Writers Assn, Portland, OR
Oct 3-7, Annual Conference, Am. Socy of Landscape Architects, Philadelphia, PA
Nov 13-15,  2nd Wave of Modernism in Landscape Architecture, Chicago, IL
Conference on modernist trends in current landscape architecture.  The Cultural Landscape Foundation, 202-483-0553.  Space limited.

A Great-Looking Seaside Veg Garden

Vegetable gardening is at the top of everyone's garden desires these days, but a lot of gardeners find it very frustrating.  Veg gardens don't often lend themselves to great-looking design unless the designer has an inspired eye.

So how about something like this asparagus "hedge" (backed with daylilies) as a preview of what's to come? In summer, it hides the wall of the raised swimming pool. 

This garden in Mattapoisett, MA, overlooks Buzzards Bay, and you enter it through an "orchard" planted with fruit trees scattered across the lawn and borders consisting of beds planted with blueberries, currants, raspberries, elderberries, and more.

You're then welcomed into the veg garden by the asparagus hedge, an echo of an innovative "fern garden" at the front entrance.  The veg garden is 20 x 20, more than enough room to grow almost anything you want.

The garden is surrounded by boxwood, and an espaliered apple tree at one end is flanked by a rooster and an angel that frame the view and pick up color from flowers interspersed among the veggies. It's neat, it's colorful, it's everything a vegetable garden should and can be.

This entire garden was designed and planted by the owners, a structural engineer and his wife, who obviously has a very artistic eye.  Just around the corner from the veg garden is a 20 x 20 "checkerboard" garden planted with blues and purples:  lavender, delphinium, lamb 's ears, perovskia & more.  The wife explained that the house was built on 20 x 20 modules, and so is much of the garden.

Skyscraper Gardening

More and more people around the world are moving off the farm and into cities ... and if the world's population keeps growing, will there be enough land to grow the crops needed to sustain all the people?

Columbia University Public Health Professor Dickson Despommier, a microbiologist and ecologist, has been asking those questions and coming up with some interesting answers.  For the past several years, Dr. Despommier has been advocating vertical farming -- on skyscrapers -- and has lined up some architects to design "living towers" where urban residents could raise food crops.

An article in today's New York Times, which you can read here, says the idea has caught on with Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer, and his office plans to urge the mayor's office to think about a vertical farming pilot project.

According to Dr. Despommier's website, The Vertical Farm Project, 80 percent of the world's cropland is now in use, and by 2050, there will be an additional three billion people on earth.  One solution for farming could well be vertical farming, with new cutting-edge technologies to make the "farms" economical and sustainable. "The time is at hand," he says, "for us to learn how to safely grow our food inside in environmentally controlled multistory buildings within urban centers.  If we do not, then in just another 50 years, the next 3 billion people will surely go hungry."

Food for thought.  And check out some of the stunning architectural designs on the Vertical Farm Project website.

(images: Vertical Farm Project)

The White House Grows

Roosevelt Redux?

Presidents like to rip up the records of their predecessors, and that includes changes on the grounds of the White House.  Reagan ripped off the solar panels that Jimmy Carter installed on the mansion, and there's no trace today of the Victory Garden planted by the Roosevelts. 

So in this time of climate change and high fuel prices, Roger Doiron thinks it's time to "Eat the View" at the White House.  In an interview with Garden Design Online, Doiron, founder of Kitchen Gardeners International, said he's urging the next president to re-plant "an edible landscape" at the White House as an example to all Americans to conserve energy.

Doiron points out that it takes 10 calories of fossil fuel to produce every one calorie of food consumed.  Put another way, the average food item in the United States travels 1500 miles to get to your plate -- and costs 400 gallons of fuel.

Greening the Dog

For all green roof fans afraid to try one on your own home:  experiment with your dog.

The June 3rd Home & Garden section of the Los Angles Times has an article about dog houses with green roofs designed by landscape designer Stephanie Rubin and her partner, sculptor Chris Isner. They go for around one to four thousand dollars, but the article says you can make one yourself for much less.  They keep the dog cool, and the roofs are planted with natives that are animal-friendly.  Read more about it here.  Or try the company's web site, www.sustainablepet.com.

Garden Mosaics

Garden Art by Metamosaics

This "sun" mosaic by Mark Kretzmeier marks the entry to a residential theme garden in Seattle, WA that pays homage to the four basic elements: earth, wind, fire and water.  Kretzmeier started Metamosaics in Portland, Oregon, about 12 years ago, combining his twin interests in art and construction. "I always liked geometric patterns," he said, "and anything that was pixelated."

Kretzmeier learned his craft by studying the classic book on pebble mosaics, The Art of Pebble Mosaics by British artist Maggy Howarth. He recently finished a design of sea creatures for the Zoo in Jacksonville, FL.  It depicts a redfish, a dolphin, a turtle, a pelican and more, among the waves of the nearby Trout River.  That was his largest project to date, but he's now working on a design that's twice as big for a children's park in Memphis, TN.

Kretzmeier says that most of his mosaics are used as highlights in residential gardens, or sometimes as doorsteps.  He uses local stones wherever he works, all tightly packed into a flat plane that's easy to walk on, even in high heels, he says.  The photo at left is of a mosaic in a courtyard at a transitional residence for women and children -- and it measures about five feet in diameter.

Sometimes he uses recycled glass or even glass marbles as components in his designs.  Each element in the mosaic is individually selected and tightly packed into a dry concrete mix that is "activated" once the design is completed.  According to Kretzmeier, the mosaics do fine in northern climates as well, where he uses a high strength concrete that will withstand the cold weather.

This photo is a vine motif used in a front walkway, a nice touch for a garden entry.  Kretzmeier designs most of the mosaics himself, although he's willing, of course, to work with clients to get the kind of design they want.  He usually works on location, and designs begin at $50 per square foot.  Mosaics might not work in every garden, but if your clients truly desire something unique, you should give Kretzmeier a call.  In the past, he has manufactured some mosaics that can be shipped all in one piece.

(photos: Metamosaics)