GardenDesignOnline

Garden Accessories: Mod Wildlife Habitats

 

images: Terra Trellis - click to enlarge

We all know we need bees to pollinate those vegs, flowers and fruit trees, especially since the honeybee population is in such trouble.  But the bee houses I've seen are usually pretty ugly.  Now, Terra Trellis has introduced several mini wildlife elements that will help you attract the kind of wildlife you want in your garden.

 

This bee bungalow is designed to attract Mason bees and other beneficial insects.  It's sitting here atop a garden tuteur, but it may be purchased without the tuteur and screwed into a common wooden post. 

You also want a lot of birds in your garden, who will eat all the non-beneficial insects.  This bird cafe may also be mounted atop a colorful garden tuteur or purchased separately.  Natural steel oxide finish, dimensions nine-inch diameter and five inches deep, holding a good amount of bird food.

I also like the bird bungalow, shown here, to attract birds you'd like to hang around most of the time.  It also has a natural steel oxide finish and the back of it opens easily for cleaning when the babies have flown the nest.

 

Check out all the offerings -- any many others ... on the TerraTrellis website.

Books: Decking Out the Garden

As any designer will tell you, there's much more to a garden than hardscape and plants: benches and tables, chairs, fabrics, containers, cushions, and much more.  But how to select the right accoutrements to go with your house and garden?

Who better to tell you than Vanessa Nagel, APLD, NCIDQ, a professional interior designer and landscape designer. In her latest book, The Professional Designer's Guide to Garden Furnishings (Timber Press, 2013), Nagel turns her attention to materials and garden style -- the things that can make an ordinary garden into an extraordinary one.

 If you're tempted to install a glass tabletop, light fixtures, or a glass screen, she explains the type of glass you need for each one, along with tips on how to maintain it.  And likewise for wood and metal furnishings, along with a description of each type of material, its sustainability and care.

Nagel also focuses on a variety of garden styles -- contemporary, Asian, country house, colonial, naturalistic, shore, woodland, victorian and more -- and guides you through the materials, plants, furnishings, and colors that fit best with each one.

In the section on fabrics, she unravels the difference between natural and synthetic fibers, lets you know how each one performs outdoors, how the dyeing process works, and the best performance standards.

The book also includes chapters on wicker, ceramics, stone, concrete and synthetic materials.

It's an invaluable book for any designer and for any homeowner who's interested in buying quality outdoor materials that will stand the test of time.

Happenings August 2013

Selected Events Around the Country:

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

Thru September 2: Composite Landscapes Exhibition, Boston MA
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

August 1-2, Wetlands Conservation, Framingham, MA
9AM-4PM, Two-day workshop, Garden in the Woods, 508-877-7630
August 2-4, APLD International Design Conference, Detroit, MI
"Growing Green, Flowing Blue, Pushing Through" 717-238-9870
August 8, The Tree That Time Forgot, Boothbay, ME
2PM, Lecture Botanist Sir Peter Crane, Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, 207-633-4333
August 10, Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours: NY, VT
NY: Westchester County; VT: Bennington, Windham Counties
August 15, Stone Carving Workshop, Stockbridge, MA
10AM-5PM, Berkshire Botanical Garden, 413-298-3926

August 16-19 Gardenwriters Association Annual Symposium, Toronto, Canada
August 17-18, Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours: NY, WA
NY: Columbia, Dutchess, Putnam Counties; WA: Thurston County
August 22-24, Farwest Show, Portland, OR
Landscape Trade Show, Oregon Convention Center
August 23-24, Speaking of Gardening Symposium, Asheville, NC
8:30AM-4:30PM, North Carolina Arboretum, 828-665-2492

 LOOKAHEAD:

Sept 21-22 What's Out There Weekend Berkshires, MA
Special tours of significant landscape sites, The Cultural Landscape Foundation, 202-483-0553
October 18, Perennial Plant Conference, Swarthmore, PA
October 23-26, Cities Alive, San Francisco, CA
11th annual green roof & wall conference, Green Roofs for Healthy Cities 416-971-4494

Nov 15-18, ASLA Annual Meeting, Boston, MA
"Gaining Ground," Lectures, Tours, Trade Show, More 866-229-3691

Books: French & British Inspirations

You might want to have this book just so you can put it on display on your coffee table ... a beautiful hint of what's inside.  In Claude Monet's Gardens at Giverny (Abrams, 2013), author Dominique Lobstein introduces the reader to many prominent people who played an important role in Giverny during Monet's lifetime and afterwards.

Lobstein is the head of the library at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris and is an expert on mid to late 19th century art.  Based on historical references, Lobstein has written a series of texts that bring alive the voices of those who knew Monet at Giverny and those who worked to save the gardens from ruin.  In all, the ficitional texts tell the story of the gardens at Giverny, from their creation and near loss to their restoration.  The text is accompanied by dazzling photographs by Jean-Pierre Gilson, throughout the seasons at the garden.  

This book would be an exceptional gift for anyone who loves gardens, France, Impressionist Art.

Why is it that so many Americans are still so enthralled with "English" gardens?  You may find the answer in America's Romance with the English Garden (Ohio University Press, 2013) by garden columnist and author Thomas J. Mickey, who is also a graduate of the Landscape Institute in Boston and a professor emeritus of Communications Studies at Bridgewater State University.

Mickey has done a tremendous amount of research to tell us the story of the spreading popularlity of English garden style in America during the 19th century.  Nurserymen and seed merchants sold the English style to America in their publications. and many sold the idea of the English-style garden as a form of art.

It's an engaging story that will delight almost any avid gardener, and it makes great summer reading.

Classic Design on the Bay

click on images to enlarge

Two grand houses, linked by landscape, designed by landscape architect Warren Manning & gardens by Ellen Biddle Shipman. (Described first by me a couple of posts ago).

The current owners have Shipman's original plans, and they are planning to restore them.  But remnants of her genius are visible before work has really begun on the site. 

Here, tree-sized Viburnum sieboldii underplanted with hydrangeas, (and twin plantings on the opposite side of the lawn). And just imagine what it looks like in the fall.

There is stunning stonework throughout the gardens, taking full advantage of the slope, and with views from the upper patio out to Buzzards Bay.

I don't really know if this perennial garden has been restored, but it's fenced to keep out the rabbits, I believe, and it certainly makes the tennis court much more inviting ... I can't recall seeing another home with a tennis court that looked anything like this.

The second house is linked to the first by a long asphalt drive, ending in a circle.  Note the beautifully pruned wisteria climbing around the front of the main entrance.

This garden has notable huge shrubs -- rhododendrons on either side of the arch that leads to the full-sized croquet court.

 

The view from the back of the house, and again, there is gorgeous stonework (hard to believe it's over 80 years old), and a beautiful walk out to the bay.

There's also a little frog pond on the property, and I loved this quirky garden shed covered with an old-time green roof. (Yes, we keep inventing the wheel in garden design).

In the Magazines July-Aug 2013

Sunset July 2013
*The Water-Wise Beach Garden: Great Solutions for a beach-side garden from Jeffrey Gordon Smith Landscape Architecture in Baywood Park, CA: pavers, plants, planters, design tips & more.
*A beach cottage in Laguna Beach: the "garden" is mostly hardscape and blends perfectly with the inside of the house, and the easy-care "garden" is all contained.

Horticulture  July-Aug 2013
*How to design with bold plants like Canna, Fatsia, Giant butterbur
*Restoration of a Spanish colonial house & garden in Altadena, CA
*Plants that dodge drought
*A plant collector's garden in NH

Fine Gardening July-Aug 2013
*A stunning variety of drought-tolerant catmints
*Focal Points: Focus on Containers
*Ground covers that take walking
*How to design with conifers
*Great midsummer plant combos

Perhaps a Chestnut Revival

I'm not old enough to have known what it was like when streets across the eastern United States were filled with American chestnut trees (Castanea dentata).  This image from the National Agricultural Library celebrates the beautiful structure of the tree ... and they must have been glorious before the Chestnut blight struck in the early 1900s and in just a few decades wiped out most of the trees.

Now, efforts by the American Chestnut Foundation and Syracuse University to create a chestnut that can withstand the blight are showing some promise. The ACF is focusing on a chestnut that's an American-Chinese hybrid, while scientists at Syracuse University are hoping that a genetic modification will fight off the Chestnut blight.

You can read a full story that appeared in the Sunday New York Times on the twin efforts and Chestnut trials here.

And there's an NYT slideshow here.

 

Garden Design: A Classic

 I could hardly believe my ears: While on a Garden Conservancy tour this past weekend, two ladies told another group that the first two gardens on the tour "really weren't worth visiting." 

What do they know? There are two houses on the site (in South Dartmouth, MA), and the original layout for the property was designed by Warren Manning in 1910, including the "pleasure drive" (the dotted line that runs to the rear and around), tennis courts, apple orchard and bathing beach on Buzzards Bay. They were designed for ambassador Alanson B. Houghton and his brother, Arthur, as a summer place for their families to congregate.

In 1937, the garden to the right, above, was redone by Ellen Biddle Shipman, and her design for an all-white garden is now being restored by the current owners, who have her original plans.  Shipman also designed the gardens for the second house (to the left in plan above).  Although neither garden today is filled with flowers -- apparently what garden tourists want to see -- there are magnificent plants  (a full-size Sourwood tree, gorgeous evergreens, and Viburnum sieboldii that are the size of trees) -- just to mention a few.  The thrill of seeing these gardens is to look carefully at the integrated structure for both.  It's not very often that you get a chance to see private gardens like these.

More on them in a future post, with many photos.

 

Garden Accessories: The Moveable Bench

Saw this bench in Metropolis Magazine ... the latest issue.

Not for everyone, but if you have children, or a client with children, it would be the perfect thing.  Or if you'd like a new view, you can just wheel the bench to a new location. By Dutch designer Rogier Martens -- www.weltevree.com

Made of oak, with the wheelbarrow attached.

Garden Design: Urban Serenity

 

click on images to enlarge

Simplicity rules in this tiny garden ... another of the ones on last month's South End Garden Tour in Boston.  There's beautiful detail in the fence on the right and in the paving, and as you step down to the main terrace area at the end of the walk, there's a drain to take care of excess water when there's a lot of rain.

 

Boxwoods interspersed with climbing hydrangeas line the fence, and the boxwoods are repeated in the main garden area, the raised bed to the right.  Note the weeping cherry at the end of the raised bed ... it must be charming when it's in bloom. 

Along the fence on the right side are river birches, and the beds along the lawn are edged with vinca minor.  The all-green theme works particularly well to create an air of calm serenity.

And although it's a little bit low, I can imagine that the low stone wall, in a pinch, could be used as a seat wall if you had an overflow crowd.

The garden was created by Leone Landscaping of Newton, MA ... and a large deck across the upper story was replaced by a long stairway that leads up to the kitchen ... and by walls of glass that offer great views of the garden below.  It would be a delight to look out  in any season.