GardenDesignOnline

Christmas Books 2011 -- II

My top picks for books this year -- all volumes that I have in my permanent collection and wouldn't want to be without.  Perfect gifts for any designer or garden enthusiast.

Envisioning the Garden by Robert Mallet (W.W. Norton & Company). Transformative book on how to "see" design.

My full review is here.

 

The Artful Garden by James van Sweden (Random House).
Van Sweden explains how the arts (literature, painting, ballet and more) can inspire design that makes for simply fabulous landscapes.

My review is here.

Dirr's Encyclopedia of Trees & Shrubs by Michael Dirr (Timber Press).
If you're in the design business, you can't be without this book... the latest in cultivars and plenty of gorgeous photos.

Review here.

Christmas Gifts 2011 -- I

The best gift you can give to anyone interested in gardening & design: a membership to a local garden or arboretum of your choice.  The gardens always need support, and the membership will give months of pleasure to the person who receives it. I belong to the Garden Consesrvancy, and to several other gardens, some that are not remotely near where I live.

(click to enlarge images below)

From the NY Botanical Garden Gift Shop:
Clematis platter for someone with lots of vines.
Sandcast re-cycled aluminum.  Environmentally-friendly 12"x12" platter with felt bag for storage. Also available, a pine branch platter.

 

Blue Flower Pot for herbs or small plants.
Galvanized steel pot that'll fit on a windowsill. Also available, a matching watering can and a round tray.

Magnolia Placemats.
Cork-backed, wipe-clean placemats that would look great on any patio or porch table. Set of four, each slightly different. Other available designs for lovers of tulips, roses, peonies. And coasters, too.

Fern Tray.
Earth-friendly, 15"x15" tray that's resistant to heat, moisture and alcohol.  Comes with hangtag and bio of CA artist Alexis America. Tray design also available in poppies, dragonfly and blooming cereus.

Paper Fern Napkins.
Perfect for summer outdoor parties, design by French textile designer Paule Marrot. Cocktail, luncheon, and large dinner sizes. Other designs available: fruit, Tabulae Botanica.

Just to get you started.

Christmas Books 2011 - I

Two problem solvers from Timber Press for anyone on your holiday list who's interested in water-wise gardens.

From author and plantsman Graham Rice, his new book, Planting the Dry Shade Garden: The Best Plants for the Toughest Spot in Your Garden profiles 130 plants that will tolerate some of the most problematic areas in the garden.  Garden beds shaded by walls and buildings and those under trees, whether deciduous or evergreen, are some of the most difficult planting sites.  Yet Rice provides a variety of easy-to-follow cultural solutions to prepare the way for myriad beautiful plants to thrive.

Chapters that follow offer profiles of shrubs, climbers, perennials, groundcovers, bulbs and annuals that do well in dry shade, from aucuba and boxwood to heuchera, epimedium and chionodoxa.  A welcome book for any gardener looking forward to spring.

Another very useful volume is the latest from authors and designers Lauren Springer Ogden and Scott Ogden, Waterwise Plants for Sustainable Gardens: 200 Drought-Tolerant Choices for All Climates.

The book features 200 plants that will tolerate drought at some time during the year and remain attractive with just one inch of water every two weeks during the hottest part of the growing season.

Each plant gets a full page, with a photo, cultural requirements, description of the plant's best attributes, design ideas and related plants that will do just as well.

Can't imagine a designer or avid gardener who wouldn't this on their bookshelf.

Holiday Garden Shows 2011

Nov 18-Dec 30 Fantasy in Lights, Pine Mountain, GA
Callaway Gardens, 706-663-5153
Nov 19-Jan 4 Merry & Bright, Columbus, OH
Franklin Park Conservatory, 614-645-8733
Nov 19-Jan 16 Holiday Train Show, Bronx, NY
NY Botanical Garden, 718-817-8700
Nov 19-Jan 7, Garden Lights, Holiday Nights, Atlanta, GA
Atlanta Botanical Garden, 404-876-5859
Nov 23-Jan 2, Gardenland Express, St. Louis, MO
Missouri Botanical Garden, 314-577-5100
Nov 24-Jan 2, Season's Greenings, Washington DC
US Botanic Garden, 202-225-8333
Nov 24-Jan 8, A Longwood Christmas, Kennett Square, PA
Longwood Gardens, 610-388-1000
Nov 25-Jan 8 Garden of Lights, Wheaton, MD
Brookside Gardens, 301-962-1400
Nov 25-Dec 31 Winter Show, Cleveland, OH
Cleveland Botanical Garden, 216-721-1600
Nov 25-Dec 31, Holiday Garden Railway, Philadelphia, PA
Morris Arboretum, 215-247-5777
Nov 25-Jan 1, Wonderland Express, Glencoe, IL
Chicago Botanic Garden, 847-835-5440
Nov 25-Jan 9, Dominion Gardenfest of Lights, Richmond, VA
Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, 804-262-9887
Nov 26-Dec 30, River of Lights, Albuquerque, NM
Rio Grande Botanic Garden, 505-768-2000
Dec 1-30, Las Noches de las Luminarias, Phoenix, AZ
Desert Botanical Garden, 480-941-1225
Dec 8-23 & 26-30, Garden of Lights, Encinitas, CA
San Diego Botanic Garden, 760-436-3036

In the Magazines Nov-Dec 2011

Fine Gardening Dec 2011
As usual, the magazine is packed with articles about plants -- and how to use them.  In this issue:
*Ornamental grasses, and combo plants to go along with them.
*Simple ways to improve the look of your planting beds.
*Plants for creative winter containers.
*New & improved:  lilac, daylily, hosta, viburnum, forsythia, phlox.

  Sunset Nov 2011
The focus is Thanksgiving & winter getaways, but there is an article about a fabulous garden by designer Rob Steiner of Los Angeles. It includes:
*A buff-colored concrete fire table.
*A classy outdoor sink/sideboard faced with ipe.
*A raised boardwalk that leads you through the space.
*Plantings that complement the modern design.
Also in this issue, a lovely sunken dining patio with a built-in firepit, design by Jeff Pervorse of Venice.

Horticulture Nov-Dec 2011

*New plant introductions for 2012: perennials, trees & shrubs, annuals, vegetables
*Profile of garden writer Anne Raver.
*Fabulous ferns for color and texture.
*How to design with native plants.

Garden Design Nov-Dec 2011
*Two of this year's winners of design awards from ASLA - the American Society of Landscape Architects: Design Workshop and Nelson Byrd Woltz.
*A make-over for the garden at the James Beard Foundation in NYC.
*The garden design philosophy of author, editor & interior designer Deborah Needleman (@debbieneedles).

 

 

 

 

Books: Botany You Need & Want

Anyone in the design business has a copy of the classic botany reference book by Brian Capon -Botany for Gardeners: Third Edition.

But the book you really want, as a designer, is a brand new one by landscape architect and horticulturist Kimberly Duffy Turner - Botany for Designers: A Practical Guide for Landscape Architects and Other Professionals (W.W. Norton & Company, 2011). 

Turner covers all the basics, from nomenclature and plant classification (with very easy-to-understand explanations!) to cultural requirements (light, water, soil, temperature) and plant anatomy.

But as a designer, she reminds you about the things that are important to remember.  Just one example:  you need to know which kind of fruit a plant might produce because fleshy fruits often fall from branches, staining patios, sidewalks, and cars, or producing unpleasant odors. Likewise, you don't want to put a sweetgum tree in an area where people might be walking in bare feet. 

New Plants for 2012 : I

From David Austin Roses, two new ones for 2012.  At left is Rosa 'Princess Anne', a shrub rose about three feet tall and two feet wide with deep pink blooms.  According to D. Austin, the flowers eventually fade to a purple-lilac shade, which creates a rather dramatic effect since the blooms tend to flower in large clusters.

The rose also has a medium tea-rose fragrance, and it's one of the roses in a new line that's said to produce plants of strong vigor and health.The other new Austin rose, Rosa 'Skylark', is also pink, and the same size, but it has a more informal, light and airy habit.  It's free flowering, with clear pink blooms that fade to a paler shade,  and it has a fruity scent reminiscent of apples and cloves.

The other new Austin rose, Rosa 'Skylark', also has pink blooms and is about the same size.  It's one of a new line bred particularly for vigor and good health.  It has a light and airy form, a bit more informal, and it's free flowering with blooms that have a fruity scent reminiscent of apples and cloves.

 

From Monrovia, this new variegated beautyberry, Callicarpa 'Summer Snow', is part of the new 2012 Dan Hinkley collection. Clusters of pink flowers in summer turn to purple-blue berries in fall, a great standout if planted in masses in the front of the border.  Zones 6-10. 

A new holly, Ilex 'Emerald Colonnade', is an evergreen male holly that can be used as a screen, a specimen, a hedge or windbreak.  It's 10-12' tall, six to eight feet wide, and needs only occasional water, once established. (Doesn't that sound like the perfect plant!).  It also produces small, creamy-yellow flowers in late March or early April.  Zones 7-9. 

 (photos: Roses: David Austin; beautyberry: Dan Hinkley/Monrovia; holly: Monrovia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plant More Trees

Scientists at the University of Michigan say that forests in North American appear to have a greater capacity to absorb carbon dioxide than previously believed, and they now think the forests may be able to slow the pace of global warming.

During a 12-year study at an experimental site in northeastern Wisconsin, microbial ecologist Donald Zak and other colleagues pumped extra carbon into the canopies of trembling aspen, paper birch and sugar maples.  Some of the trees also received additional levels of ground-level ozone to simulate the effects of increasing pollution in the future.

Sustainable Greenhouse Design

It sure doesn't look like a traditional greenhouse, but it could be the wave of the future. Now on display at the American Philosophical Society Museum in Philadelphia, it's a greenhouse designed by architect & artist Jenny Sabin, a 2010 Pew Fellow who was honored for her work "at the forefront of a new direction in architectural practice."

The 52' long x 14' wide by 12' high structure has no glass and no heating system, but instead relies on an old method of controlling temperature: growing plants out-of-season in 125 brightly colored acrylic cold frames.  The greenhouse itself, including the boardwalk floor and the curving ribs, is built of recycled and recylable materials. 

The greenhouse is actually part of a series of programs at the museum inspired by a current exhibition on French natural history.  Empress Josephine Bonaparte, a skilled botanist, had greenhouses with a glass roofs that were heated by coal and wood. They were built on her Malmaison estate to house tropical plants sent to her by French explorers.  Sabin was called upon to build a greenhouse for the 21st century. "New tools allow us to explore complexity in a new way," she says.  "We can examine natural forms and then use visualized data to help build bridges across the disciplines." The greenhouse is open through mid December.