GardenDesignOnline

Happenings May 09

Selected Garden Events Across the Country:

May 1, Natural Rhythm of Gardening, Williamsburg, VA
9AM-5:30 PM, 63rd Annual Symposium,with Landscape Architect James van Sweden, Felder Rushing, Renee Shepherd & others 757-220-7255
May 1, Plant Biodiversity, Boston, MA
6PM, Lecture, Dr. Peter Raven, Exec Director, MO Botanical Garden, Harvard Museum of Natural History, Agassi Lecture Hall, 508-877-3658
May 1-2 Garden Tours, Tallahassee, FL
10AM-5PM, 15th Annual Garden Tour, Alfred B. Maclay Gardens State Park, Lecture, Breakfast, Tours & More 850-487-4115
May 1-3, 17th Annual Antique Garden Furniture Show & Sale, Bronx, NY
10AM-5PM, NY Botanical Garden, 35 exhibitors, one of the biggest annual garden antique shows 718-817-8616
May 2, Garden Festival, Monkton, MD
8AM-5PM, Ladew Topiary Gardens. Rare Plants & Garden Ornaments, Lectures by Joe Eck & Wayne Winterrowd and Bunny Williams. 410-557-9570
May 2, Venice Garden Tour Garden Tour, Venice, CA
10AM-5PM, 25-30 gardens, self-guided tour, 310-821-1857
May 2-3. Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours: CA, NY
CA: Palo Alto, Atherton; NY: East Hampton, Wainscott, Cutchogue, Chappaqua, Mt. Kisco

May 3, 26 Yrs of Amazing Roses, San Marino, CA
2PM, Lecture, Rosarian & author Claire Martin, The Huntington, 626-405-2100
May 6, Gardens that Heal Symposium, Glencoe, IL.
9AM-5PM, Chicago Botanic Garden, 847-835-5440
May 8 National Public Gardens Day, USA locations.
Local events at public gardens all over the country. Check local gardens for specific listings.
May 9 Spring Garden Symposium, Boothbay, ME
Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens 207-633-4333
May 9, Garden Tour, Fort Bragg, CA
10AM-5PM, 5 private gardens, Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens, 707-964-4352
May 9 Gardens on Tour, Austin, TX
9AM-5PM, one public & five private gardens, self guided tour. 512-232-0100

Unusual, Common Garden Containers

The next time you're in a kitchen equipment store, take a hard look at containers ... especially those with little holes -- strainers and the like.  They could be just the thing for your garden ... and perhaps a great, inexpensive, long-lasting container for -- well, big tropicals, flowering annuals, and maybe even vegetables, depending on the container's size.

A recent New York Times article, (read it here), notes that landscape architect Ken Smith often visits kitchen supply stores to look for garden containers, and finds them in other unexpected places as well. 

Smith thinks a lot of garden containers are just plain boring, so he's always on the lookout for something unusual. He says that if you put plants in a wagon, you can easily wheel them around into sun or shade, or even bring the wagon inside if the weather turns too cold for them.

So let your imagination take wing!

(photos: www.bari.com, www.farmtek.com)

Trees & the Carbon Footprint

Not exactly a big surprise to those in the know ... but yes, trees can play an important role in reducing carbon dioxide emissions, one of the major culprits in global warming.

The University of California San Diego reports that its 200 thousand trees are reducing CO2 emissions by 10 thousand tons a year, five percent of the university's total annual CO2 output.  A forest study conducted by Urban Ecos in San Francisco says UC - SD is saving more than $ 2 million a year because of its trees (a 112-acre eucalyptus grove is shown above).

The forest study is the latest part of the university's effort to promote sustainable practices and research on climate change.  UC San Diego was named a "Tree Campus USA" last year by the Arbor Day Foundation, and the university accepted the honor by planting 100 more trees, including sugar gums, magnolias, and Torrey pines.  It was just one of nine schools around the country cited for healthy urban forest management.

The university's campus forester Samuel Oludunfe said that trees not only provide spatial definition, but also "enhance the quality of life by removing air pollutants, reducing energy consumption, facilitating erosion control ... and increasing property values."  He also said the university's urban forest serves an important educational role as a living laboratory.

In addition to reducing carbon emissions, the forest study said the trees also trap and filter 140 million gallons of storm water runoff every year; they support a diverse ecosystem home to more than 100 species of birds, small mammals and plants -- and they serve as a winter site for the monarch butterfly.

Other large universities could take a cue from UC - San Diego.

And PS ... Today is Arbor Day -- so buy a tree and plant it!

In the Magazines April - June 09

Garden Design April 09

• Profile of landscape architect James Corner, Chair of Landscape Architecture at U-Penn's School of Design
• A San Rafael, CA garden by "passionate plantsman" and designer Davis Dalbok: art, tropicals, entertaining
• A four seasons Long Island garden by landscape architects Oehme van Sweden Associates
• Secret gardens to visit in Philadelphia

Sunset April 09

• Sunset's April issue is almost all gardening on every page, and even this month's travel section focuses on gardens and nurseries that shouldn't be missed:  Phoenix's Desert Botanical Garden; Kahanu Garden in Maui, Hawaii; the Denver Botanic Gardens; Red Butte Garden & Arborteum in Salt Lake City & more.
• Author Amy Stewart's rendezvouz with dramatic plants from history
• Veg gardening in your back yard, in pots -- and a how-to on designing with edibles with author Rosalind Creasy
• Dream Garden Awards: a pool with a submerged deck and dramatic views of Phoenix's Camelback Mountain by landscape architects JJR Floor; a natural garden to go with landscape overlooking Morro Bay, CA by landscape architect Jeffrey Gordon Smith;a tiny two-level SF garden by Greg Unti; A Seattle garden that's a journey down a 12-foot drop, complete with "pebble" rill by designer The Nussbaum Group, and others.
• Color combos for containers, and much more.

Fine Gardening June 09

• • Very reliable shrubs
  • Color combo that works: burgundy & gold
  • Creating a "wild" garden that also looks good
  • Easy veg growing
  • Alliums for all seasons
  • Shady foliage for all regions of the country

America's Front Yard: "An International Embarassment"

A panel of top design experts led by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), has called for a comprehensive plan to re-vitalize the National Mall in Washington DC.  According to the panel, the Mall, which stretches two miles from the US Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial, is now in a state of crisis.

At a Washington news conference, ASLA president Angela Dye  said the Mall's "deplorable conditions" make it an "international embarrassment." She said that wear and tear from 25 million visitors a year has made the soil as "hard as concrete" and reduced the average life of newly-planted trees to no more than seven years.  In addition, she noted, stagnant water in the reflecting pool at the base of the Capitol is a "danger to wildlife."

The six-member ASLA design panel issued its report after a two-day meeting and tour of the Mall in March.  While the panel strongly supports a preliminary National Park Service plan to improve the Mall, it urged a broader vision that would also preserve the legacy of the original 1791 design plan by Pierre L'Enfant.

As panel member Gary Hilderbrand put it, "We need a comprehensive urban design plan that venerates the Capitol and venerates the Grant Memorial, one that accommodates our democratic tradition of public assembly... and one that re-connects these great symbolic components with the larger urban fabric of the District of Columbia."

Hilderbrand said the National Mall should be a "model of sustainable urban ecology," and he added that a plan is needed to re-vitalize the soil, improve the water quality, and revive or replant the "most significant stand of American elms in the United States," (600 of them).

The panel's report strongly supports the current standing ban on any new memorials or museums that have not already been approved; proposes an international design competition to reconsider plans for the Union Square/Reflecting Pool area at the base of the Capitol; calls for a centralized interpretation or visitor orientation center; and agrees with the Park Service plan to re-build the crumbing seawall around the Tidal Basin and calls on Congress to come up with the funds to bring the Mall back to life.

As the panel members noted, Congress should certainly consider using some economic stimulus funds to support the plan -- and create jobs in Washington DC in the process.

 

NYPD 9-11 Rose

A new rose from Bailey Nurseries, named 'The Finest'™ (Rosa 'BAlnest') is the latest selection for the "Remember Me" rose gardens that are to be created in memory of those lost in the 9-11 terrorist attacks in 2001. 

This hybrid tea honors the NYPD's 23 members who died in New York City while trying to save others on 9-11.

The new rose is ever-blooming, with full, pure white flowers and a spicy fragrance.  It's grown on its own roots (a very desirable trait), reaches a height of about 3-4 feet, and is hardy to zone 5.  It's also said to have disease-resistant foliage. It was hybridized by Bailey's Ping Lim.

The rose is available this spring at retail garden centers, and a donation from the sale of each one goes to the "Remember Me" rose gardens in New York City, Washington DC and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. So far, roses selected for the gardens have been tested, but final sites for the gardens have not yet been chosen.

Update March Events DC

April 17. Symposium, "Landscape Architecture in the Nation's Capital, Washington DC
8AM-4PM, GW University, Media & Public Affairs Bldg, 21st & H Sts, Jack Morton Auditorium.
In celebration of National Landscape Architecture Month, the Potomac Chapter of ASLA is sponsoring a series of round-table discussions -- this one featuring the chapter's senior members.
9AM  Session One:     Defining the Local Landscape
10AM Session Two:    The Importance, Identity, and Role of Today's LA
11AM Session Three:  A Critical Assessment of Today's Sustainability
1PM  Session Four:     The Perception of the LA
2PM  Session Five:      Principles of the Principals
3PM  Closing, Refreshments

For more info, contact the Potomac Chapter, link above.

 April 24 -26 18th annual FONA Garden Fair & Plant Sale, Washington DC
Location: US National Arboretum.  The big kahuna plant sale of the year, sponsored by the Friends of the National Arboretum. There will be plants on sale that you won't find on sale anywhere else. (I can attest to that, as I have several in my own back yard purchased at the FONA plant sales over the years).
Friday, 11AM-6PM, Members only -- worth purchasing a $35 membership to FONA to get a first crack at the plants on sale.
Saturday 9AM-4PM. Open to public
Sunday 10AM-noon. Remainders, if any.

Click on above FONA link for more info.

(Image: FONA)

Garden Sculptures for the Modern Age

Terra Sculpture

Jennifer Gilbert Asher is a California landscape designer who couldn't find good-looking and moderately priced contemporary sculptures for her clients.  As Asher succinctly put it, "I was utterly shocked at the lack of accessible outdoor sculpture and the abundance of tacky, mass-produced garden 'art.' "  I couldn't agree more.

Asher, however, decided to do something about it.  She teamed up with her friend Karen Neill Tarnowski, an art collector, and they launched Terra Sculpture several months ago.  It's an online art gallery and art studio, and Asher now designs art and produces new works with metal artist Mario Lopez.

All of the sculptures are hand made at their Los Angeles studio, in limited editions, and most pieces are 4-1/2 to about 6 feet tall, suitable for most residential landscapes.  They do, however, take commissions for larger pieces, and the sculptures can be shipped anywhere in the United States.

Asher studied art in Italy for a time, and it shows in her modern designs. All the sculptures are made from stainless, weathered, or powder coated steel.  "Embrace," shown above, and "Tempest," left, are priced in the mid $2000 range, and that's likely why the Terra Sculpture motto is "Modern Art for Everyone."

I can imagine these sculptures in many a landscape, and if you visit the Terra Sculpture website, you'll find something to fit almost any garden and any client's personality.

Artworks always give life to a garden, and these sleek and tasteful works are among the best I've seen in a long, long time.

If you're in the LA area, some of Asher's works will be on display at the LA Arboretum  garden show May 1-3.

Books: Gardens & Humanity

From the beginning of time, humans have inextricably been linked to gardens.  In his new book, Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition (University of Chicago Press, 2008), author Robert Pogue Harrison, professor of Italian literature at Stanford University, examines the human need for gardens.  "For millennia and throughout world cultures," he says, "our predecessors conceived of human happiness in its perfected state as a garden existence."And without a doubt, many of us feel exactly the same way today.

Pogue writes about Greek and Italian gardens, the Garden of Eden and gardens of homeless people in New York City.  He reminds us that history "has no memory" of most of the gardens that have "graced the earth," but he notes that "apart from a few lofty exceptions," gardens don't exist to "immortalize their makers or defy the ravages of time," but rather "to reenchant the present."

The book surveys continents and centuries, and draws upon writings about gardens from Epicurus and Homer to Dante and Boccaccio, Edith Wharton to Camus, TS Eliot and Shirley Hazzard.  It's a daunting world tour of nature and perception, and the creativity that goes into garden making and appreciation.

You'll discover entire literary worlds about gardens, right down to Harrison's epilogue about Malcolm Lowry's novel, Under the Volcano. If you're a gardener or a garden designer, this book will reaffirm why you do what you love.  And even if you're not into gardening, it'll make you think about why you love to walk through a park or forest, walk down a street filled with stately trees, or admire a simple bloom in a neighbor's front garden. 

(click on link to purchase book)