GardenDesignOnline

Happenings July 2013

Garden Dialogues - various locations and dates in U.S.
Landscape architects discuss their projects on site. 202-483-0553

July 6, Heronswood Open House, Kingston, WA
10AM-5PM, 2nd annual Garden Open & Plant Sale, 360-297-7410
July 6, Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours: NY
Delaware County

July 8-14 Crested Butte Wildflower Festival, Crested Butte, CO
Hikes, garden tours, classes & more 970-349-2571|
July 11-13, AHS 21st Children & Youth Garden Symposium, Denver, CO
Denver Botanic Gardens, 703-768-5700
July 12, Hooray for Shade, Walnut Creek, CA
9AM-2:30PM workshop, The Garden Conservancy, 415-441-4300
July 13-14, Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours: CT, MA, NH, NY
CT: New London, Tolland Counties: MA: Bristol County; NH: Hillsb orough, Merrimack, Rockingham Counties; NY: Suffolk, Ulster Counties

July 14, Gardens in the Watershed Tour, Rockland, ME
10AM-5PM, 22nd annual tour, 207-594-5166
July 18, Meadow Gardening, Stockbridge, MA
9:30AM-12:30PM, Workshop with meadow expert Larry Weaner, 413-298-3926
July 19, Woody Plant Conference, Swarthmore, PA
9AM-5PM, Scott Arboretum, 610-388-1000 x 507
July 20-21, Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours: CA, CT, IL, MA, NJ, NY, VT
CA: Alameda, Contra Costa Counties; CT: New Haven, Hartford, Litchfield Counties; IL: Du Page, Kane Counties; MA: Middlesex, Worcester Counties; NJ: Hunterdon, Middlesex Counties; NY: Putnam County; VT: Bennington County

July 21, Dearborn Garden Walk, Chicago, IL
Noon-5PM, 55th annual Gold Coast garden tour, 312-632-1241
July 21, West Seattle Garden Tour, Seattle, WA
9AM-5PM, 19th annual garden tour, 206-324-2061
July 21-27 Perennial Plant Symposium, Vancouver, British Columbia
July 27, Preserving Beatrix Farrand's Gardens, Bar Harbor, ME
8:30AM-4PM, Seminar, College of the Atlantic, The Garden Conservancy, 845-424-6500
July 27-28, Gardenwalk, Buffalo, NY
Largest self-guided tour in the country. 350+ gardens.

July 28: Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours: IL, ME, MA, NY
IL: Lake County; ME: Hancock County; MA: Berkshire County; NY: Columbia, Westchester Counties

 LOOKAHEAD:

August 2-4, APLD International Design Conference, Detroit, MI
"Growing Green, Flowing Blue, Pushing Through" 717-238-9870
August 16-19 Gardenwriters Association Annual Symposium, Toronto, Canada
October 18, Perennial Plant Conference, Swarthmore, PA
Nov 15-18, ASLA Annual Meeting, Boston, MA
"Gaining Ground," Lectures, Tours, Trade Show, More 866-229-3691

June Events Update

June 29. Coastal Maine Botanical Garden

9th Annual Garden Symposium, 10am-3pm
"Trees in the New England Garden and Landscape"

Keynote speaker:  Dr. Michael Dirr will lecture on "Noble Trees," accompanied by many images.

Also, the garden's horiticulture director Rodney Eason will discuss the essential details for buying and planting trees, and Renae Moran of Maine Cooperative Extension will discuss how to incorporate fruit trees into the edible landscape.

Garden Accessories: Outdoor Fabric

Recently, I received some samples of terrific indoor-outdoor fabrics from Carnegie Fabrics, and you should definitely check out their website.  This red design, "Pullman" is in the company's sustainable line, and I liked the botanical theme.  It also comes in other colors. 

"Serene" is a sheer, patterned outdoor fabric made for windows, and it also comes in various colors.   If you're interested in high-quality fabrics that are gorgeous and yet meet a lot of environmental standards, these are the fabrics for you.  Also, check their website for info on the artists who design their fabrics. 

I also liked "Siesta," with a more durable, rugged texture that would be great on outdoor cushions.  Cleanable with water and bleach as well.

If you check the Carnegie website, you'll find environmental specs for scores of fabrics, and you'll also want to check out their bio-based Xorel fabric made from sugarcane.  All of their fabrics are PVC and vinyl free.

Urban Gardens: Asian Serenity

click on images to enlarge

Step into this garden and you're stepping into another world...far from the traffic, the crowds, the din of city life.

The homeowner, an artist, hired another artist to design this garden around 10 years ago and to update it very recently. The design is the work of John Farrell, a puppet theater artist and owner of hanamichi design in Freeport, Maine.

The miniature bonsai trees sit on a unit tucked in near the spiral staircase to the deck above, and yes -- it ingeniously conceals the central air conditioning units.

The red fence encloses the garden on three sides and hides the neighboring buildings as well.

This garden was one of many on the recent South End Garden Tour in Boston, and the artist here is painting a scene of it that was later auctioned off for a very worth cause -- community gardens in the South End  and Roxbury.

Hard to believe, but there's a two-person sauna hiding in the corner next to the bedroom windows.

And what a great view of the garden from behind those floor-to-ceiling glass panels.  Not to mention the view from the upper deck.

Besides the small bonsai collection, the garden features a Japanese maple, a Korean maple and several stands of bamboo, ferns, and a small water feature.  This is one of simplest and loviest gardens I've ever seen.

 

 

Tiny Garden, Big Details

 

click on images to enlarge

If I can remember, I always try to take a photo of the front entrance to a garden, no matter what its size.  This is a back yard garden, with the entrance off an alleyway, but it looks pretty charming all the same. A simple Boston ivy vining up to the Juliet balcony, along with the ironwork and the lamps, let you know there's something nice behind the wall.

 

This garden, also on the Boston South End Garden Tour, was designed by Perennial Gardens LLC of Boston. (And kudos to the writers of the garden tour program, who bothered to find out who designed the gardens!).  Note the nice  steps and edging that provide relief from all the brick.

The real centerpiece of this garden is the old stone wall. It's actually the rear side of a two-car garage -- a real rarity in the neighborhood --  and it's a wonderful backdrop for the entire garden.  A serviceberry tree in the corner offers dappled shade and a nice pattern on the old wall.

Simple plantings, mainly hostas -- and I think some upright laurels -- surround the Zeus figure mounted on the wall and they look great against the brick. 

And finally, I loved the shape of this bed ... an arbor on the right leads right into the garage door -- and at the left end of the bed is the garden entrance.  River birch, hostas, ferns,and a climbing hydrangea complete the picture.

This garden also has a music system and night lighting -- a perfect place for summer entertaining, and it proves the point that you don't need a lot of space for a terrific garden.

 

 

 

 

 

Tiny Front Gardens

 

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There were some very nice townhouse gardens on last weekend's South End Garden Tour in Boston -- but there were also some very nice, tiny front gardens that were not on the tour.  This carefully designed front has a nice curve of boxwood and an upright plant in the window box that matches the color of the Japanese maple on the far side. The color compliments the brick as well.

 

  And ... just a couple of blocks away .... what could be simpler than boxwood in front, a golden Japanese forest grass (Hakonachloa macra spp) in the middle, and an urn filled with a flowing fern. 

This front garden was on the garden tour ... it's actually the front garden of a B&B on West Brookline Street .. simple shade plantings, a Japanese maple in an urn, and a tiny pond.

Here's a better view of the water trough that recirculates water into the pond, and some of the river stones that give it an Asian air.

Garden Art: Glass

all images ThinkGlass

Into my email box from ThinkGlass ... and I began wondering why designers don't, indeed commission more glass objects for the garden.  Light shines through it beautifully, at night it shimmers, and of course it has great reflective quaities. 

ThinkGlass creates custom artworks or panels from glass that are four or even six inches thick ... think fountains, wall panels, outdoor cooking areas.

In all the years I've been visiting gardens, I've only seen a couple of mirrors ... and one pool fence made of glass panels ... it was definitely a show-stopper ... something we should consider far more often than we do.

 

 

Books: A Top Designer in Italy

I'd never heard of Cecil Ross Pinsent, but he's a designer certainly worth knowing.  Pinsent was an English expatriate who lived in Italy during the first part of the 20th century, an architect and landscape designer whose clients included princesses, counts and countesses and many Anglo-Americans who lived in Italy at the time. 

Edith Wharton sought him out for advice; Vita Sackville-West and her husband were influenced by his work; and British landscape architect Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe called Pinsent "his first maestro on the placing of buildings in the landscape." 

 Now, garden historian and author Ethne Clarke, in her latest work, has written a biography of Pinsent,  An Infinity of Graces: Cecil Ross Pinsent, An English Architect in the Italian Landscape (W.W. Norton & Company, 2013).

It's a fascinating look at expatriate life in Italy in the early 20th century, particularly in Florence, where Pinsent designed the gardens at Villa I Tatti for Bernard and Mary Berenson.  That commission led to many others, including Villa Le Balze in Fiesole, La Foce in Tuscany; and many smaller projects around Florence. The book is filled with Pinsent's drawings, photographs, and plans, as well as portraits of his many famous clients. 

As Clarke notes, "Pinsent's sensitivity to landscape and his ability to shape his work according to its needs was one of his greatest design strengths ...he created areas of dignified spatial harmony closest to the house, while establishing the drama of disclosure with concealed vistas framed by shadowy hedge 'walls' or 'frivolous' flower gardens.  And therein lies his success."

Great reading for the summer.

New BBG Native Plant Garden

photo: © Albert Vecerka/ESTO - BBG

Native Flora Garden Expansion Opens June 12

It's been called an experiment in habitat re-creation that will unfold over time:  the new, one-acre addition to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's 100-year old Native Flora Garden.  A mature tree canopy in the original garden shaded out plants that require more sun, necessitating the garden's expansion. 

The new garden, designed by landscape architect Darrel Morrison, features a meadow, upland and lowland pine barrens, a pond, a serpentine outcrop and woodland edge, representing ecosystems nearly wiped out by a centuries of urban development.

 

R.A. Howard @USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database

Horticulturists gathered specimens from the wild in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and on Long Island to populate the area with 15 thousand plants (plus grasses grown from 16 lb. of seed) of 150 species, including rare plants that are of special conservation concern like the pixie-moss (Pyxidanthera barbulata), pictured here,  sandmyrtle (Leiophyllum buxifolium) and the swamp pink (Helonias bullata). 

Designer Darrell Morrison said the project will allow visitors to see recreations of transitions that occur in nature. "As you move from the existing, wooded area, you'll pass through a grove of birches that will act as a woodland edge, and the light continuum and the moisture continuum will change and give way.  You will really see and feel it open onto the sunloving garden area," he said.  The garden includes a curving central boardwalk, a circular overlook, and a series of winding footpaths through pine barrens and bogs, meadows and woodland edges. 

The garden includes North America's only representation of the unique pine barrens of southern New Jersey and a coastal plain meadow that is modeled after the Hempstead Plains on Long Island.  It'll be a rarefied experience for nature lovers for decades to come.

 

 

 

Plants: A Great Sight in Bloom

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You may wonder why you should plant a smoke tree (Cotinus spp).  I'm not sure exactly which one this is -- it's next to the parking area at the Gotelli Collection in the US National Arboretum in DC -- but I've always wanted to see it in bloom, and it was in its full glory when I was in DC in late May. An incredible sight.

This one has been around for awhile, so if you plant one in your yard, check the cultivar and leave plenty of room for it if it's one of the ones that tends to get large.

And, just another great combo from the "dwarf" conifer collection.  My favorite part of the arboretum, I think.