GardenDesignOnline

Garden at Wood Farm

You're not going to see too many cut-leaf Beeches (Fagus laciniata) in your life -- it's at the end of the butterfly border, left -- and it's just one of the great plant specimens in this central Maryland garden.

The garden itself is five acres, fashioned over the past 25 years from an old tobacco farm.  When the owner first encountered it, the landscape was completely open, except for just a couple of large trees.

This is a garden with everything ... even hens and peacocks ... and there are so many special trees that you could call it a private arboretum (Cunninghamia lanceolata, Magnolia 'Jon Jon' with huge pink blooms in spring, an enormous Franklinia alatamaha, Styrax japonicus and obassia,  a rare East coast Sequoiadendron giganteum -- and that's just to mention a few).

In addition, there's a lily pond surrounded by lush, magnificent borders, a woodland garden overflowing with oakleaf hydrangeas and other shade-loving plants, a magnolia orchard, a nuttery with hickory, horse chestnut and pecan trees, a camellia garden, a cutting garden, a vegetable garden, a dogwood garden ... and ...  many more special gardens tucked around the five-acre property. 

There's an entire lilac border that runs along one side of a generous barn (that houses the hens) ... and if that's not enough, a Japanese Lilac Tree bursts into bloom when the blooms on the lilac shrubs have faded for the season. 

The dwarf conifers planted some years ago are now not so dwarf, a lacebark pine  shades a picnic table, and there are wisteria "standards" and a sizeable bottlebrush buckeye.

A cinnamon-colored rooster hangs out around the deck from time to time, there's a duck house, and also beautifully designed containers around the house and pond.  It's a garden you won't want to miss when it's next open.

(photos ©Jane Berger)

Happenings June 09

Selected Events Across the Country

June 3-5, Green Roofs Annual Conference, Atlanta, GA
Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, Hyatt Regency Atlanta.  Lectures, Classes, Presentations, Tours & More. 416-971-4494
June 4-6  Native Plants in the Landscape Conference, Millersville, PA
717-817-2189
June 5, Urban Agriculture Symposium, Glencoe, IL
9AM-5PM, Chicago Botanic Garden, 847-835-5440
June 5-6 Garden Tour, Concord, MA
9AM-4PM, 20th annual self-guided tour, 8 gardens 978-369-9763
June 5-7 Stone Carving Workshop, Washington DC
10AM-4PM, US Botanic Garden, with sculptor DJ Garrity 202-225-1116
June 6 "Great Rosarians of the World," Brooklyn, NY
10:30AM-5PM, Symposium, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, (718) 623-7200
June 6 Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours: CT, MA, MD, NJ, NY, OR, VA
CT: Burlington, Simsbury, Meriden, Middlebury; MD: Potomac; MA, Stow, Boylston, Grafton; NJ:Woodcliff Lake; NY: New Paltz, Saugerties, Briarcliff Manor; OR: Dexter, Eugene, Springfield; VA: Great Falls, McLean
June 6  Water-Wise Garden Tour, Dallas, TX
9AM-3PM, self-guided tour, Dallas & surrounding cities 214-670-5378.  First 150 visitors at tour headquarters receive a free hose nozzle & rain gauge.  

June 7, Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours: CT, NY, WA
CT: Bethel, Greenwich, New Canaan, Westport; NY: Bedford, Katonah, N.Salem; WA: Graham, Orting
June 8, "The Garden as Companion," San Diego, CA
7PM, Lecture by George Little & David Lewis, San Diego Hort Society, 760-599-0550
June 13-14 Essence of Landscape Design, Boylston, MA
9AM-4:30PM, Workshop with Landscape Architect Walt Cudnohufsky, Tower Hill Botanic Garden, 508-869-6111
June 13, Garden Conservancy Tours: AL, DC, MD, NY,OR
AL: Birmingham; DC: Washington DC; MD: Bethesda, Chevy Chase; NY: Claverack, Hudson, Livingston, Amenia, Stanfordville, Danby, Ithaca; OR: Portland
June 13-14 Landscape Pleasures, Southampton, NY
9AM, Symposium on Color, Garden Tour 6/14 631-283-2118

Books: The Way to Live Outside

Every time there's a new book from celebrated landscape designer Julie Moir Messervy, I tell myself and my readers that it's my favorite one. I truly didn't think she could top Outside the Not So Big House,  but her new book is surely the one that every homeowner and would-be designer has to have on their bookshelf.

In Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love (Taunton Press, 2009), Messervy gives you all the tools you need to analyze your landscape and bring it to life. In the book, Messervy reveals how any property owner can create "a welcoming front yard, a backyard that feels like an oasis, a place outside to entertain, a contemplative area, and a way to 'flow' effortlessly throughout the house and landscape."

She outlines many of the techniques that landscape designers use to turn run-of-the-mill properties into magnificent outdoor havens, using plants for color, texture and impact, and selecting the right materials.  She's even devised a design test to help you design a garden that fits your personality. (Something all designers try to do without talking about it explicitly).

The "before and after" photos in this book illustrate all of her main concepts very clearly, and the images themselves will give you tons of ideas to use and adapt in your own front or back yard, no matter where you live.

The final chapter is a case study of a small New Jersey garden that demonstrates the book's main ideas.  Messervy walks you through all the methods used by landscape architect Nick Cavaliere to fashion an outdoor space that looks just like a cottage in the woods.  As Messervy puts it, "the owner of this house was able -- over time -- to transform a nondescript landscape into his own true pleasure ground."  With this book in hand, anyone will be able to do the same.

(click on text link to purchase book).

Parts of this review previously appeared in The American Gardener magazine.

Seeding Around & Other Garden Miracles

Many years ago, I read a garden column in the Financial Times by classical scholar and garden writer Robin Lane Fox, and I never forgot it. He wrote that there's nothing that beats a mass planting of white Dame's Rocket (Hesperis matronalis) in the evening, because the white is so pure it lights up the entire border.

I searched and searched for the white version of Dame's Rocket, and finally found seed at Thompson & Morgan, a British company that has a branch in the US.   It's now happily ensconced in one of my borders next to the peonies, and I love the fact that it seeds around -- popping up here and there around the deutzia, the lilacs, the witch hazel and other plantings. 
I've often read that it can be invasive, but in my garden it stays put in that one border, and it's easy to pull out if too many appear in the spring.  I'd hesitate to plant it if I lived in an un-fenced garden near an open area or a park, but in my urban-suburban garden, it's one of my favorite plants.

Trade Secrets Event

Show, Sale & Garden Tours
May 16-17, Sharon, CT

The 9th Trade Secrets show is Saturday -- featuring rare plants, garden antiques, and garden tours from 10AM-3PM.
Last year's event drew more than 1200 people from around the country.

Held at Lion Rock Farm, it's an event that' often attended by Martha Stewart.  More than 50 vendors of garden plants and ornament, and Sunday tours to gardens of renowned designers Bunny Williams, Michael Trapp, Judith Murphy & Nancy McCabe.

And -- an additional plus -- proceeds benefit Women's Support Services, a non-profit that assists victims of domestic violence in CT, MA, and NY.

(photo: Lisa Sheble)

In the Magazines May June 09

American Gardener May June 09

• Interview with Colorado plant explorer Panayoti Kelaidis of the Denver Botanic Gardens
• Profile of Salvia expert Betsy Clebsch by Carole Ottesen
• Designing with benches
• All you need to know about Carex
• Book review by yours truly: Home Outside: Creating the Landscape you Love by Julie Moir Messervy
• And don't forget -- a subscription to this mag comes with membership in the American Horticultural Society.

GardenDesign May 09

• Main Line traditional garden .. with edgy modern sculpture
• The Short Hills, NJ garden of Mara Seibert of Seibert & Rice... designed by landscape architect Richard Hartlage
• A California Mediterranean meadow garden with help from John Greenlee & landscape architect Ron Herman
• New Euphorbias of every color
• Way Hot Plants

Horticulture June-July 09

• The southern California rose garden of Sharon Milder
• How to design driveway plantings
• profile of garden writer Barbara Damrosch
• Tropical ornamental grasses
• Install plants with brown leaves for impact

ASLA Awards 09

Crack Garden San Francisco
Wow! This is a garden that can be created almost anywhere ... in any neighborhood ... for practically nothing. 

With only a miniscule budget ($500). CMG Landscape Architecture of San Francisco designed this 800 square foot garden for residents of a four-unit building, who did the work on the project themselves.  They jackhammered "cracks" in the concrete which are now filled with vegetables, flowers, herbs or weeds as the homeowners desire.

CMG says the inspiration for the design came from the tiny plants that occupy the cracks in urban landscapes, and it's aim is to reveal the "potential for beauty" beneath the concrete and asphalt in urban areas.  CMG also installed a stainless steel cable trellis across a fence and a garage, supporting a potato vine and a Five-Leaf Akebia vine for texture and color.  The garden also has a jacaranda tree, which helps the define the space and provides a little shade, as well. 

It just goes to prove that you don't have to spend hundreds of thousands -- or millions -- for a garden that adds pleasure and beauty to a harsh and unforgiving environment. As the jury put it, "A profound project for the future we are about to embark upon."

It's notable that of the nine "honor awards" for residential design, six of them were in California.  It's obviously the place where the latest in landscape architecture is happening, as this year's Cooper Hewitt award for landscape design also went to a CA landscape architect.

Bulb Glory in New York

I like my own yard full of daffodils in spring ... but if only I had the advance planning time & skills to create a bulb display that looks like this.

This, of course is the work of renowned Dutch landscape designer & author Piet Oudolf, who collaborated with his Dutch colleague Jacqueline van der Kloet to create this spectacular display at the New York Botanical Garden. The display in the Enid Haupt Conservatory runs through June 7th, and it commemmorates the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's voyage from Amsterdam to New York in 1609.

The design for the show was inspired by the gardens at Keukenhof, near Amsterdam and features the usual tulips, hyacinths, lilies, daffodils, squill, snowflakes, and alliums. However, there is also a display of antique tulip cultivars donated by Holland's famous treasury of historic bulbs, Hortus Bulborum -- and these you won't see anywhere else.

Oudolf and van der Kloet also planted a four-season bulb installation on the garden's Seasonal Walk, which features spring and summer blooming bulbs accompanied by flowering perennials and ornamental grasses, many of which were introduced by Oudolf.

(photos courtesy NYBG)

Lawn Popularity Dropping

If it's really true, it could be the start of new gardening revolution.  A new survey by the Garden Writers Association (of which I'm a member) Foundation says consumers are planning to spend more this year on vegetable & fruit gardening than on their lawns!  It's the first time since 2003 that spending on lawns has dropped to second place.

Thirty-five percent of consumers said they anticipated spending most on fruits and veg, while 29 percent said top spending would be on lawns & grass.

HOWEVER, a very cautionary note:  when the top two spending categories are combined, lawn and grass still comes out on top -- at 53 percent -- compared to 47 percent for veg and fruits.  Overall lawn spending stayed around the same as in 2008, but there's been an eight percent increase over the past year in spending on fruits and veg. People mostly opted for more spending on vegetable gardens because they believe they'll get better quality, taste and nutrition.  But they also said that growing your own is cheaper than buying produce in stores, and they also believe home-grown is safer.

Nevertheless, we garden writers certainly need to do more to persuade clients to convert their lawns into groundcovers, shrubs, perennials, what have you ... anything else is better than all those chemicals spent for no good reason.

(image ©Jane Berger)

Design Awards - Cooper Hewitt 09

The Cooper Hewitt Museum has announced its 2009 design awards, and the top honor for landscape architecture goes to Hood Design of Oakland, California, founded by Walter Hood in 1992.

The firm was cited for its commitment to "issues that address the re-construction of urban landscapes within towns and cities."  The jury noted that Hood's approach is "multidimensional, exploring the role of specific landscape typologies and topologies that together reinforce and re-make landscapes that are specific to place and people."

Shown here is Hood's design for Splash Pad Park in Oakland, which connects the park to the nearby commercial district through a series of walkways under the freeway -- and through visual elements that link it to Lake Merritt.

Hood is the former chair of the Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning program at the University of California, Berkeley.

Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture of San Francisco was a finalist in the landscape design category. 

Shown here is a photo of the Brookvale residence in Hillsborough, CA, typically spare, with a limited plant palette and clean lines that emphasize geometry, light, texture and color.

Rios Clementi Hale Studios of Los Angeles, CA was the second finalist. And isn't it interesting that all of this year's winners are based in California ... perhaps that says something about leading-edge design and where it's really happening. 

Rios Clementi Hale covers a lot of ground in its multi-disciplinary studio:  landscape design, architecture, graphic and interior design, and much more.  This photo shows Chess Park in Glendale, CA, a pocket park that accommodates the city's large chess playing community and serves as well as a public performance space for theater and literary groups.

Couldn't ask for much more in a public park.

For complete information on the design awards, check the Cooper Hewitt website here.

(photos top to bottom: Tom Bonner, Marion Brenner, Marion Brenner courtesy Cooper Hewitt)