GardenDesignOnline

Happenings June 2014

SELECTED EVENTS AROUND THE COUNTRY:

June Garden Dialogues: CT, MD, NJ, NY, PA, RI
Garden Tours with the landscape architects who designed them. TCLF, 202-483-0553

June 1, Secret Gardens of Cambridge, Cambridge, MA
10AM-4PM, semi-annual self-guided garden tour.
June 1, 23rd annual garden tour, Columbia & Ellicott City, MD
10AM-4PM, "From Manor to Modern," Hort Society of MD, 410-821-5551
June 1, Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours: MA, NY
MA: Middlesex, Worcester Counties; NY: Westchester

June 4, A Talk on Beatrix Farrand, Bronx, NY
10AM-noon, Lecture by author Judith Tankard, NY Botanical Garden, 718-817-8700

June 5-7, Native Plants in the Landscape Conference, Millersville, PA
23rd annual conference, Millersville Univeristy, 717-872-3011

June 6-7, Great Rosarians of the World Conference, NYC Area
Lectures, discussions, more.  2014 Award to Danielle Hahn of Rose Story Farm
June 6-7 Concord Museum Garden Tour, Concord, MA
9AM-4PM, 25th annual tour, 978-369-9763
June 7, Water-Wise Landscape Tour, Dallas, TX
9AM-3PM, 20th annual self-guided tour, 214-670-3155
June 7, Enchanted Gardens of NW Denver Garden Tour, Denver, CO
9AM-4PM, 20 gardens, 14th annual self-guided tour, 303-433-4983
Putnam County Secret Garden Tour, Putnam Cty, NY
10AM-4PM, self-guided tour, 10+ gardens, 845-225-5650
June 7-8, Landscape Pleasures Symposium, Water Mill, NY
Parrish Art Museum, Symposium & Garden Tour, 631-283-2118
June 7-8 Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours: CA, CT, IL, MA, NJ, NY
CA: Marin; CT: New Haven, Hartford, Fairfield; IL: Madison; MA: Suffolk; NJ: Hunterdon, Somerset; NY: Columbia, Nassau, Putnam, Westchester

June 13-14, Gardens by the Sea Garden Tour, Stonington, CT
10AM-4PM, self guided tour, 10 gardens,  860-531-8687
June 14: Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours: CT, NJ, NY
CT: Litchfield, Hartford, New London; NJ: Bergen; NY: Dutchess

June 18, A Talk on Marian Coffin, Bronx, NY
10AM-noon, Lecture by author Mac Griswold, NY Botanical Garden, 718-817-8700

June 20, Women and the City from the Landscape Perspective, Bronx, NY
10AM-noon, Symposium, NY Botanical Garden, 718-817-8700
June 20-22 Dwell on Design Conference, Los Angeles, CA
LA Convention Center, Speakers, Tours, Exhibits, More.
June 20-22, Secret Garden Tours, Newport, RI
10AM-5PM, Tours of the city's most prestigious properties. 401-439-7253
June 21, South End Garden Tour, Boston, MA
10AM-4PM, 21st annual self-guided tour, 617-542-7696
June 21-22, Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours: CA, CT, IL, KY, ME, NY
CA: Mendocino, San Francisco; CT: Litchfield, Hartford; IL: Cook, Lake; KY: Fayette; ME: York; NY: Rockland, Suffolk
June 26, Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours: Nantucket, MA
June 26-27, The Planted Landscape Symposium, Glencoe, IL
9AM-4PM, Concept to Choices, Chicago Botanic Garden, 847-835-5440

June 27, "The Living Landscape," Washington DC
3:30-6:30PM, Seminar & book signing, Rick Darke, GW University, 703-299-0199
June 27-29, Newport Flower Show, Newport RI
"Journey: Grand Vistas," - 19th annual show.
June 28-29, Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours: NY, OR, PA, WA
NY: Columbia, Dutchess; OR: Multnomah; PA: Bucks; WA: Kitsap

LOOKAHEAD:

July 18, Annual Woody Plant Conference, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA
July 28-Aug 1, Perennial Plant Symposium, Cincinnati, OH

Gardens are Forever ... Or Are They?

photo courtesy Laura Bibler

They call it the "Forever Garden," ... the newly-restored perennial garden at the Stevens-Coolidge Place in North Andover, Massachusetts.   This photo, taken in the summer of 2013, shows the restoration of the garden's original 1907 bed outline, designed by landscape architect Louisa Bancroft Stevens, one of the first women admitted to MIT's landscape architecture program.

Stevens-Coolidge place, once known as Ashdale Farm, was the summer home of John Gardner Coolidge and his wife, Helen Stevens Coolidge (no relation to Louisa).  Coolidge was a diplomat  -- a descendent of Thomas Jefferson and a nephew of Isabella Stewart Gardner.  Helen Coolidge transformed the farm into a gracious country estate with help from preservation architect Joseph Everett Chandler ... and her sister hired Louisa Bancroft Stevens to help with the design of the perennial garden.

photo: Wikipedia

Mrs. Coolidge left the estate in 1962 to the Trustees of Reservations in Massachusetts, but after more than 50 years of public visits, the garden was showing signs of wear and tear.  Landscape designer Laura Bibler of Andover was brought in to oversee the restoration with the help of many volunteers.

According to Bibler, the original plan by Louisa Bancroft Stevens -- a formal design of 19 symmetrical beds on either side of a wide grass path -- was "meticulously dimensional and sited within relation to the house."  Bibler added that it's "amazing" that Stevens was able to create the plan "without any technical computerized assistance."

The perennial garden contains many of the original selections, including phlox, iris, peonies and foxglove, and it's surrounded by a privet hedge.  Volunteers spent weeks in the library doing research on the garden and plantings, and the plan going forward is to maintain the gardens as closely as possible to the original 1907 plans.  But gardens inevitably change over time, as do plants, so "forever" may be more in spirit than in actuality. But the genius is often in the original plans, and those can last forever.

 

 

 

Books: Small Garden Blueprints

Some of the best books on design are the ones that show you (in plan view) how the garden is put together, and this new book by British designer David Stevens is no exception.

In Backyard Blueprints: Design, Furniture and Plants for a Small Garden (Sterling Publishing, 2014), Stevens outlines all that's necessary for a good-looking, useable backyard. As he says in the introduction, a backyard should not be "some fancy and impractical vignette from a glossy magazine, rather a slightly haphazard, comfortable, and eclectic composition.  It may be vibrant or cool, chic or crisply architectural, but it will certainly represent you and your ideas and needs." 

While geared toward the homeowner, this book is also very useful for designers, who will certainly appreciate the photos and some of the great ideas:  how about a pop-up hydraulic dining table that rises out of the deck?

From formal to freeform, Stevens takes the reader through design styles, a designer's tricks for manipulating space; and many of the different materials that can be used to build a garden.  There are separate chapters or sections on outdoor furniture, water features, garden ornament, lighting, arbors and arches.

The final chapter on designing with plants is a basic primer on layering, color, texture and plant combinations that have real impact.

Photos and blueprint drawings throughout illustrate all of his major ideas and make a wonderful, quick reference on the subject of small gardens.  Check out the photo on page 130 of the irregular stone path that's interwoven with grass and yellow tulips.  If you want imaginative design, this is the book for you.

 

Plants: May Days

Thomas Rainer is usually right about plants ... and you have to read his latest re May plants on his blog, Grounded Design.

And am I jealous? Yes.  Up here in my Cape Cod garden, the daffodils & forsythia have faded, the leaves are JUST BEGINNING to come out on my Cornelian cherry and my paw paw trees, but the lilacs are beginning to bloom.  Patience, patience, patience.

Landscape Design: Classic Country Serenity

click to enlarge images

Properties in the Litchfield Hills of Connecticut, off in the distance, can be quite farm-y, and this garden, on a recent Garden Conservancy tour, was no exception. (But too bad not much was yet in bloom, likely due to the cold winter and chilly spring).

This 1840s farmhouse, as is usual for homes this old in this part of the country, sits right on the road.  So the main garden areas areas are all to the side and extend for some distance in back of the house, way down a hill to a pre-Revolutionary War sawmill.

Most gardens that I have seen in this part of CT are in the more-or-less English garden style, and this one was no exception:  wide swathes of lawn edged by perennial beds, and some lovely, old flowering trees.

  The stonework was also quite nice -- very rustic -- and the trellises will look great when the clematis flowers and the many roses come out, probably late May or June. 

The stone stairway leads up to this nice little patio with fountain on the side of the house and right next to the greenhouse in the previous photo.

But someday it would be nice to see a modern take on one of these gardens ... one does tire of the British style when you have seen it again and again. (Although I do have admit it is what a lot of clients want).

Books: Designed Vegetable Gardens

 

Most people who want to grow edibles simply find a sunny place somwhere and stick some plants in the ground.  But it doesn't have to be that way.

In his latest book, Jamie Durie's Edible Garden Design: Delicious Designs from the Ground Up, author and designer Jamie Durie notes that sustainability is becoming part of everyday life, contributing to a healthier future for our planet and ourselves.  

Vegetable gardens are notorious for looking like ... well, vegetable gardens ... but Durie points the way toward incorporating edibles into outdoor rooms that are beautiful as well as an extension of the home.

As Durie puts it, the more liveable that edible gardens are, the more time you will spend in them and the more you will value them.  He lets you know which vitamins and minerals are in which fruits and vegetables; the basics for planning a functional outdoor space; how to fit your garden to your lifestyle; and how to design for vegetables.

The book also includes profiles of successful edible gardens, from a vertical green wall at the Atlanta Botanical Garden to an outdoor dining room in LA to a rooftop farm in Brooklyn.

Durie also includes many horticultural tips, from seed saving to the art of espalier and which plants work best for which locations.

A great reference for any designer or any homeowner who is thinking about a healthier lifestyle.

Landscape Design: Simple Solutions

 

click to enlarge images

Sometimes very simple things can make a design really come together.  This garden is in a very farm-y setting in the Litchfield Hills of Connecticut, and I saw it just last weekend.  I loved the unembellished metal arches that serve as a kind of railing on the raised bed and would warn visitors (or gardeners) not to step off the edge.  Think how silly a wooden railing would be in this kind of atmosphere!

Front to back, the garden was quite steep, and I also liked the granite planter boxes built into a side patio between the front and back of the house. Again, very simple, but also quite charming.

 

And who would have thought that a hammock could actually be fashioned from wood?  Look closely at the construction.  I'm not sure how this was made, but it looks terrific against the green grass and fits perfectly with the woodland setting beyond. It also looks to be quite comfortable for reading or snoozing.

Sometimes it's just the plain, unelaborate elements that make a garden stand out from all the others.

 

 

In the Magazines May-June 2014

Fine Gardening June 2014

* The best campanulas
* Alternatives to troublesome plants
* Design: Plant pairing for impact
* Tips for a successful garden from two seasoned gardeners

 

Horticulture May/June 2014

* Designing with black plants
* Designs to extend the view
* Classic patterns for vegetable gardens

 

Landscape Architecture May 2014
* Sketching on the ipad with the Trace 2.0 app
* Profile of Maarcel Wilson, ASLA, of San Francisco
* The lighting issue:  features on new types of lights, lighting design, night lighting, creating mood with lights

 

Better Homes & Gardens May 2014

* The garden of award-winning designer Heidi Heiland of Minneapolis: right plants for right place, attracting pollinators, catching the rain, permeable paving, softening the hardscape.

* New coneflowers: showier than ever
* Great combos for containers

 

Groundbreaking Women Landscape Designers

photo: NYBG

Groundbreakers: Great American Gardens and the Women Who Designed Them
May 17-Sept 7, NY Botanical Garden, Bronx, NY

You won't want to miss this ground-breaking series, which includes a symposium, lectures, a horticultural exhibition, photography, poetry and much more.

It's a celebration of the work of Marian Coffin, Beatrix Farrand, and Ellen Shipman, three pioneering women who paved the way in the early 20th century for the thousands of women designers who have followed.

In addition, the exhibition will include vintage photographs by three distinguished female garden photographers, Jessie Tarbox Beals, Mattie Edwards Hewitt, and Frances Benjamin Johnston.  Their work helped define landscape architecture as a profession and popularized the professionally landscaped garden.

In the garden's conservatory, there will be a display that evokes the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden in Seal Harbor, Maine, designed by Beatrix Farrand and still open to visitors today.  

 

Design: What Would You Do?

NGS - East Molesey

Opening my weekend Financial Times, I was reminded by  garden columnist Robin Lane Fox that garden tours are a must for designers.  According to him, it's "the single best training"  for discerning gardeners and designers. The biggest problem for new designers, he says, is that they've simply not seen enough gardens.

I would have to agree.  And wouldn't it be nice if we could all afford a trip to Britain every year to see some of the 3800 gardens open to visitors through the National Garden Scheme (NGS), a group that lines up gardens for public visits and donates the proceeds to charity.  You can order their annual "yellow book" listing dates and locations of open gardens, but if you plan on going this year, Lane Fox says you'd better hurry, because the flowering in Britain this year is running about three weeks ahead of normal.

Of course in this country, the cold weather has delayed almost everything. In my Cape Cod garden, the only things flowering at the moment are forsythia, daffodils, quinces and two Cornelian cherry trees. However, next weekend I'm off to my first Garden Conservancy Open Days tour in Connecticut, and although I'm not sure much will be in bloom, that's not why I'm going.  As Lane Fox says, rather than asking yourself "What's here for me?," the better question about any garden you visit is "What would I have done with it?" (Or perhaps, "Could I have produced a design as good as this one?"). Therein lies many answers to memorable design, no matter what kind of garden you are visiting.

I saw this garden on a Boston tour last summer, and although I didn't much care for the plantings or the decor, I did like the fence and the way it sets off the evergreens.  I keep a folder with photos of things I like and consult it from time to time when I need a little inspiration. 

Look for local tours in your area, and check out the Garden Conservancy's Open Days, the closest thing we have in the US to Britain's NGS.  But would that we had 3800 open gardens to visit.