GardenDesignOnline

Happenings Nov 2020

NOTE:  Most gardens across the country are now open, most with timed entry tickets required.  Many online classes are available, but the majority of in-person events have been cancelled for the remainder of the year. Let's hope that normal activities can resume some time in 2021. Check the website of your favorite garden for online classes and other events.

EXHIBITIONS:
Sept 8-Nov 3, Women Who Shaped the American Landscape, Boston, MA
Boston Architectural College, Photo Exhibition, TCLF, 202-483-0553

EVENTS:

Nov 5, Lecture, Designer & Author Page Dickey, ONLINE
2pm EST, Garden Conservancy, Literary Series  845-424-6500
Nov 7, 14 &21, Apartment Gardener's Saturday ONLINE
9:30-11:30am EST, NY Botanical Garden, 718-817-8700

Nov 8, 15 & 22 Native Plant Sunday, ONLINE
9:30-11:30am EST, NY Botanical Garden, 718-817-8700
Nov 10, Lecture, LA Kofi Boone ONLINE
7pm EST, Penn Design, 215-898-6591
Nov 11, "Living Wild with HIlton Carter, ONLINE
7pm EST, Lecture, Author & Plant Stylist H. Carter, NY Botanical Garden, 718-817-8700

Nov 17 "The Year-Round Garden," ONLINE
1-2pm EST, Lecture, Author & Designer David Culp, NY Botanical Garden, 718-817-8700
Nov 17 & 24, Plant Extinction Conference, ONLINE
11-12:30pm EST, NY Botanical Garden, 718-817-8700
Nov 19, Lecture, Photographer Larry Lederman, ONLINE
2pm EST, Garden Conservancy LIterary Series 845-424-6500
Nov 24, Lecture, Designer & Artist Hanna Kim, ONLINE
7pm EST, Penn Design, 215-898-6591

HOLIDAY SHOWS:

Nov 11-Jan2 Garden Glow, St. Louis, MO
Missouri Botanical Garden 314-577-5100
Nov 11-Dec 30, Holiday at the Arboretum, Dallas, TX
Dallas Arboretum & Botanical Garden, 214-515-6615
Nov 12-Jan 31 Holiday Train Show, Bronx, NY
NY Botanical Garden, 718-817-8700
Nov 13-Jan3, Lightscape, Glencoe, IL
Chicago Botanic Garden, 847-835-5440
Nov 14-Jan 16, Garden Lights, Holiday Nights, Atlanta, GA
Atlanta Botanical Garden 404-876-5859
Nov 20-Jan 10, A Longwood Christmas, Kennett Square, PA
Longwood Gardens, 610-388-1000
Nov 23-Jan 10, Gardenfest of Lights, Richmond, VA
Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, 804-262-9887
Nov 27-Dec 27, Gardens Aglow, Sandwich, MA
Heritage Museum & Gardens, 508-888-3300
Nov 27-Dec 31, Las Noches de las Luminarias, Phoenix, AZ
Desert Botanical Garden, 480-941-1225

 

Hollander Design Fellowships

You are all familiar, I'm sure, with Hollander Design of NYC and Chicago. The firm has just announced the first recipients of its Hollander Design Fellowships for selected students at City College's Bernard & Anne Spitzer School of Architecture.

The scholarships go to NYC students from communities and demographics historically under-represented in the field of landscape architecture.  The firm's president, Edmund Hollander, FASLA, said that "In times that are full of not-so-wonderful news, nothing gives me greater joy than learning about supporting these students .... Their focus, passion and commitment are so important to the future of our city, our profession, our world."

Each student will receive $4000 annually during their enrollment in the MLA program at City College.  The fellowship is designed to support students who are from Black/African American, Latinx, Alaskan Native, American Indian, and other under-represented cultural or ethnic groups.  The director of the graduate LA program, Catherine Seavitt Nordenson, was the chair of the selection committee of City College alumni.

This year's recipients include:

Miguelina Portorreal, a lifelong resident of the Bronx, who wants to promote economic development and community revitalization in marginalized neighborhoods.

Jeana Fletcher, treasurer of the ASLA student chapter at City College, who wants to support ecological systems while designing accessible and evocative spaces.

Mathew Brown Velasquez, a Bronx resident from Colombia, who wants to pursue a career in forest management and support inclusive community engagement.  In addition to his CCNY studies, he is completing an arboriculture certificate at the NY Botanical Garden.

Three other students received a one-time grant of $4000.

I hope other landscape architects will join the effort to support outstanding students who can help protect the world's landscapes for the benefit of all people and our threatened planet. 

 

Books: British Gardens (2)

If you thought for a moment that you would never need another book on Sissinghurst, well ... just think again.

In this new book, Sissinghurst: The Dream Garden (Frances Lincoln, 2020), author Tim Richardson offers a fresh perspective and new insights into one of the most famous gardens in the world. 

In a foreword to the book, landscape designer Dan Pearson says the relationship between Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson, the garden's designers, manifested itself in the garden, which he describes as "a blend of experimentation and daring, and a means of personal expression and partnership," ... a garden that's changed over the years, but with "a strong enough blueprint to have stood the test of time."

In the introduction to the book, author Richardson explains that neither Vita nor Harold were trained in horticulture or landscape design.  The result was that Sissinghurst "was conceived in an intensely personal way -- with every planting decision by Vita, and every angle and vista designed by Harold, expressive of their innermost emotions, hopes, and desires." 

Following their deaths, the garden was passed on to the National Trust, and over a series of years and various head gardeners, the garden was tidied up.  "For some visitors," says Richardson, "the garden seemed to have lost something of the old Vita magic over the years." In the past several years, however, there's been a movement to bring back the garden's authenticity, and a more "relaxed and romantic" style. In the pages that follow, you'll discover the intellectual, historic, and literary elements that drove the creation of the garden.  The book includes scores of beautiful photographs as well as garden and planting plans.  If you want the definitive book about Sissinghurst, look no further than this.

 

As familiar as you may be with British gardens, you probably have not seen many of the ones featured in this new book, as some are only open one or perhaps a few days or months per year.  In Secret Gardens of Somerset: A Private Tour (Frances Lincoln, 2020), author Abigail Willis and photographer Clive Boursnell profile 20 gardens off the beaten track of most garden tours.  There are modern gardens designed by Piet Oudolf and the American landscape design firm Oehme van Sweden, but most were designed by dedicated homeowners.  Some of the gardens date back hundreds of years (including the Hobhouse garden), but of course these have now been renovated.  As the author says in the introduction, gardeners asked to define Somerset's appeal responded that "It's unpretentious," ... "it's a working county, not a museum," ... "It's not been tidied up."  Willis describes Midney Gardens in Somerton as "bracingly non-conformist," with a combination of "plantsmanship, flair for color and a quirky do-it-yourself ethos."  The Newt in Somerset, now a hotel, is the historic Hadspen estate owned by the Hobhouse family and designed in the 1960s by the famed garden designer Penelope Hobhouse.  The estate is now owned by a South African couple, who hired Italo-French architect Patrice Taravella to re-do the gardens.  The new gardens were inspired by garden history and they include geometric baroque gardens, prairie-style grass borders, a restored Lime Avenue, and vistas reminiscent of an 18th century landscape park.

Essays on each garden's history and lovely photos accompany each entry.  In the back of the book, there's contact information on each garden, and info on when they are open to the public.

Plant Extinction Threat

NY Botanical Garden's Native Plant Garden

A new report organized by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in Britain, estimates that 40 percent of the world's plant species may go extinct.

The report was produced by a research team of 210 international scientists from 42 countries, including one at the NY Botanical Garden.  The report, State of the World's Plants and Fungi calls for improvement of the world's plant research collections and better access to some 400 million preserved plant specimens in order to combat biodiversity loss and climate change. 

Some of the subjects covered in the report include endangered plants, new species, uses of plants for food, fuel, and medicine, and global research plant collections. The William and Lynda Steere Herbarium at the NY Botanical Garden is the second largest in the world, with 7.8 million specimens. In general, specimens are pressed and dried and mounted on sheets of paper, with info about the species, and when, where, and by whom they were collected.  In recent years, DNA studies have increased demand for DNA samples and digitization of data from specimens is making it easier for scientists to access information from global collections.

Barbara Thiers, Director of the Steere Herbarium, says herbaria "preserve a record of life on Earth" and foster international collaboration in research, conservation, and education.  "Working as a community to share specimens and digitized specimen records and images amplifies the power of these resources for addressing our current environmental challenges," she said.

The report estimates that 39.4 percent of plants are now threatened with extinction. Scientists recommend "fast-tracking" risk assessments so that key areas can be protected and species can be conserved without delay.  Some species are threatened by the global demand for naturally-derived medicines, including Brugmansia sanguinea, used for circulatory disorders; Nepenthes khasiana, used to treat skin diseases; and the black pepper bark tree (Warburgia salutaris), used for coughs and colds. The report says that worldwide, four billion people rely on herbal medicine as their primary source of health care. In China, 40 percent of health care services rely on herbal medicines.

The report also says that thousands of plants could be used as food, while only 15 species today provide 90 percent of humanity's food. Four billion people rely on just three crops: rice, corn, and wheat. The scientists also identified 2500 plant species that could be used for fuel or bioenergy. Today, only six crops -- corn, sugar cane, soybean, palm oil, rapeseed and wheat -- account for 80 percent of industrial biofuels.

Read the entire report here.

Books: Great Gardens of NY & CT

Whenever we visit gardens, what we see is just a snapshot in time.  We're left wondering what the garden might look like at other times of the year. Some years ago, when I visited Innisfree, I vowed to go back in another season ... and still haven't made it. 

But now, in his latest book, Garden Portraits: Experiences of Natural Beauty (Monacelli Press, 2020) photographer Larry Lederman shows us how to appreciate what we see and what to look for when we re-visit some of our favorite gardens.

Lederman has photographed 16 landscapes in Connecticut and New York's lower Hudson Valley.  You may recognize some of the public gardens: Innistree, the masterpiece by the late LA Lester Collins, or the Japanese Garden At Kykuit, the Rockefeller Estate in Pocantino Hills, NY. But there are also many private gardens, including those owned by jazz great Dave Brubeck, classical antiquities dealer Edward Merrin, philanthropist Lewis Cullman.

In a forward to the book, NY Botanical Garden President Emeritus Gregory Long says "the owners of the gardens in this book will see vistas, patterns, designs on the land they did not know they possess."  And he adds about Lederman's work: "The garden portraits here are also very clearly offered up as visual tone poems inspired by places he has come to love."

Each garden portrait includes an essay about the garden itself, accompanied by stunning photographs that catch the gardens in all their glory.  There is much to learn about the placement of plants and garden elements ... and you'll turn to this book again and again for landscape design inspiration.

Join Lederman and Long for a lecture on the book via zoom at 1pm EST

 

Chinese Garden - Huntington

The final phase of The Huntington's Chinese Garden (Lui Fang Yuan, the Garden of Flowering Fragrance), in San Marino, California, opens to the public on Friday, October 9.  The new features add 11.5 acres of new gardens, pavilions, and other elements, making the landscape, at 15 acres total, one of the largest classical-style Chinese gardens in the world. 

Some of the new features include a Stargazing Tower, at the highest elevation in the garden, where visitors can enjoy distant view of the mountains beyond and the Mount Wilson Observatory.  Astronomer Edwin Hubble's papers are part of the Library's holdings.

The Verdant Microcosm is designed for the display, study, and creation of penjing, (the Chinese counterpart to Japanese bonsai) and also scholar's rocks.

The Reflections in the Stream and Fragrance of Orchids Pavilion:  a place to pause and reflect and be inspired by poetry. 

The Courtyard of Assembled Worthies is paved with pebble mosaics and links the Clear and Transcendent Pavilion on the north side of the lake with a new exhibition complex.

An art gallery will open in May 2021, and later, the garden will open a Library in the style of a scholar's studio and a casual restaurant with outdoor seating.

Philip Bloom, curator of the Chinese Garden, said one of the new garden's primary goals is to "make Chinese gardening traditions -- including landscape design, architecture, art, and poetry -- accessible to a wide audience of both Chinese and non-Chinese visitors."

Plans for the expansion were developed by Los Angeles architect Jim Fry, and they were based on conceptual designs of the Suzhou Institute of Landscape Architecture Design in China.

Happenings Oct 2020

NOTE:  Most gardens across the country are now open, most with timed entry tickets required.  Many online classes are available, but the majority of in-person events have been cancelled for the remainder of the year. Let's hope that normal activities can resume some time in 2021. Check the website of your favorite garden for online classes and other events.

EXHIBITIONS:
Sept 8-Nov 3, Women Who Shaped the American Landscape, Boston, MA
Boston Architectural College, Photo Exhibition, TCLF, 202-483-0553

EVENTS:

Oct 5, LA Thomas Balsley, ONLINE
6:30-7:30pm, Lecture on NYC projects, NY Botanical Garden, 718-817-8700
Oct 6, "Activ-ISM," ONLINE
7pm, Lecture, LA Kate Orff, Penn Design, 215-898-6591

Oct 15, "France Sketchbooks: The Need for Hand Drawing ONLINE
7pm, Lecture, LA Laurie Olin, Penn Design, 215-898-6591
Oct 19, "Design as an Act of Optimism," ONLINE
6:30-7:30pm, Lecture, LA Gina Ford, NY Botanical Garden, 718-817-8700

Oct 28, ELA Season's End Summit, ONLINE.
Oct 28, "Activ-ISM," ONLINE
7pm, Lecture, LA Anne Whiston Spirn, Penn Design, 215-898-6591
Oct 29, "Landscape and Community," ONLINE
6:30-7:30pm, Lecture, LA Walter Hood, NY Botanical Garden, 718-817-8700

Books: New Style Cottage Gardens & Native Plants

Cottage gardens never seem to go out of style, but there's always a need for a style update. In The Modern Cottage Garden: A Fresh Approach to a Classic Style (Timber Press, 2020), author Greg Loades says a "modern" cottage garden celebrates "the best of old and new," and also celebrates diversity by combining the contemporary and the classic.

He gives you a brief history of traditional cottage gardens, moves on to the "new" perennial garden style favored by Piet Oudolf, and then to the  "modern" cottage garden, with looseness, flow, self-seeding plants, and surprising color combinations.

There are some nice takouts in the book:  plant combos for small spaces, how to make garden spaces seem larger, and yes, cottage gardens in containers. He includes the basics on soil. plant care and pruning, and a list of 50 "essential plants."  A great guide for a modern take on an old classic.

Every designer needs a few good plant books, and this is one you'll want to add to your collection.  In The Southeast Native Plant Primer: 225 Plants for an Earth-Friendly Garden (Timber Press, 2020), authors Larry Mellichamp and Paula Gross profile 225 plants that are southeast-friendly, but will also grow in many other locations. The plants are divided into trees, shrubs, sun-loving perennials, woodland wildflowers, grasses, vines, and ferns. Each plant gets its own photo, description, bloom time and more. There are also useful lists of things like plants with fall and winter appeal; rain garden plants; plants for wildlife; alternatives to invasive species.

 

And if you live elsewhere, check out The Midwest Native Plant Primer: 225 Plants for an Earth-Friendly Garden by Alan Branhagen.