GardenDesignOnline

Happenings April 2022

Exhibitions:

Thru April 10, The Landscape Legacy of Dan Kiley, Tampa, FL
Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, The Cultural Landscape Foundation
Thru May 16, A Garden of Words,
The Huntington, San Marino, CA
Thru June 19, Chihuly in the Desert, Phoenix, AZ
Desert Botanical Garden, 480-941-1225

Events:

April 6-10, Plantasia, Charleston, NC
"Celebration of Green," Charleston Hort Society
Lectures, Garden Tours & More

April 7, Beatrix Farrand: Garden Artist, LA, ONLINE
2-3pm Eastern, Lecture, Garden Conservancy
April 7-10, Rhode Island Home & Garden Show, Providence, RI
Rhode Island Convention Center

April 9, "Paradise in Palm Beach," Palm Beach, FL
10am-1pm, Tours of 4 gardens with LA Jorge Sanchez
Garden Conservancy
April 9, Garden Conservancy Open Days, Tours Spartanburg, SC

April 16, Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours, Essex Cty, NJ
April 16, Garden Dialogues, San Francisco, CA
2-5pm, 2 garden tours with landscape architects, TCLF

April 21, "Ecological Horticulture," ONLINE
2-3pm Eastern, Lecture, Garden Conservancy
April 22, EARTH DAY -- Find Events Near You
April 23-24 California Native Plant Tour
various locations around Los Angeles
April 23-30, Historic Virginia Garden Week
Various locations throughout Virginia
April 23, Garden Dialogues, Houston, TX
10am-noon, Tours with OJB Landscape Arch, TCLF
April 23-24, Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours: CA, NY, VA
CA: Pasadena; NY:Westchester Cty; VA: Lynchburg

April 26, "Garden Elements & Styles," ONLINE
11am EDT, Lecture, author Toby Musgrave, NY Botanical Garden
April 28-May 1, 75th Colonial Williamsburg Garden Symposium
Williamsburg, VA

Orchid Shows:

Thru April 10, Orchid Daze, Atlanta, GA
Atlanta Botanical Garden
Thru May 1, Jeff Leatham's Kaleidoscope, Bronx, NY
NY Botanic Garden

LOOKAHEAD:

Garden Conservancy Digging Deeper Events
Reserve NOW for future months

May 6-7 Making Landscapes Symposium, ONLINE (Free)
9am, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC
May 13-15 Tamiami International Orchid Festival, Miami, FL
May 24-28, Chelsea Flower Show, London, UK
May 28, Behind the Garden Gate Open Days, Charleston, SC
9am-2pm, Garden Conservancy, Repeats June 4.

June 3-5 Mount Vernon Symposium, Mt. Vernon, VA
Lectures, Events on Colonial Gardening & Landscaping
June 11-19, Philadelphia Flower Show, Philadelphia, PA

Gold Medal Plants 2022

The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society has released the list of its Gold Medal plants for 2022.  Plants are selected for the mid-Atlantic region, but many will be fine in other parts of the country.  Winners are noted for their suitability for home gardens, ease of cultivation, and weather tolerance.

This year's list:

Abelia x grandiflora 'Little Richard'
(glossy abelia)

This small shrub has white flowers that appear in spring and last for most of the summer.  In the fall, the leaves turn an orange-pink hue.  It grows fast, works well in containers, and is deer resistant as well.  3-4' high or less.  Zones 6-9.

 

Ilex opaca 'Maryland Dwarf'
(American holly)

This native holly is a low-growing shrub that does best in sun, but also tolerates shade.  For small garden spaces that need evergreen presence, this plant is a winner.  It's deer-resistant, spreads broadly, and does well in average soil.  Two-3' tall x 4-6' wide. Zones 6-9.

 

Cornus kousa 'Scarlet Fire'®
(Kousa dogwood)

With deep pink to fuchsia blooms, this kousa dogwood stands out in the garden and is a great candidate for a medium-sized tree used as a focal point in almost any garden.  It's deer resistant and is also resistant to many diseases that plague dogwoods, including anthracnose and powdery mildew.  About 20-25 feet high, 15-20 feet wide, zones 5-8.

 

Acer x freemanii 'Autumn Blaze'®
(Freeman maple)

You can't beat the fall color on this native shade tree -- spectacular shades of orange and red.  This maple attracts native birds, is tolerant of wet or dry soil, and is deer resistant.  A great tree for a large yard. 50-60 tall x 40 wide, Zones 4-8.

For all the gold medal plants, including this year's gold medal perennials, see the PHS website here.

 

Books: Lilacs & More Lilacs

The lilacs are not yet blooming in the DC area, but they soon will be. And if you're thinking of planting one, you'll want to consult this comprehensive new book by Naomi Slade with photos by Georgianna Lane.

LILACS Beautiful Varieties for Home and Garden (Gibbs Smith, 2022) profile more than 60 varieties in all the lilac hues, along with a fascinating history of the plant and tips for growing and maintaining the shrubs.

Each entry has a description of the particular lilac's characteristics, including flowering time, parentage, and the best way to use it in the garden.  And there's a photo of the blooms as well.

You'll find some of the old favorites here -- President Lincoln, President Grevy, Sensation, Pocahontas -- and some that will likely be harder to find.  But no matter what, lilacs belong in almost any garden simple for their beauty and their sensational scent.

And ... if you're in Washington DC during the lilac season, you may want to visit Lilac Hill at the US National Arboretum.  In recent years, they've developed several new cultivars, including Betsy Ross, Declaration and Old Glory -- all that have improved disease resistance and do quite well in warmer climates.

 

 

 

 

Books: 21st Century Parks -- Transformed Landscapes

This book is a testament to the important work landscape architects are doing to transform abandoned, polluted, and former industrial sites into dynamic public spaces that foster urban renewal and improve the local environment.  In Parks of the 21st Century: Reinvented Landscapes, Reclaimed Territories (Rizzoli, 2022), architectural historian Victoria Newhouse and landscape designer Alex Pishka profile 52 parks around the world -- former despoiled sites that are now vibrant new parks attracting thousands and sometimes millions of visitors every year.

The authors divide the parks into nine categories that describe the conversion of certain types of industrial sites into usable landscapes:  railways, airports, highway caps, manufacturing areas, quarries, and former military installations.  There's also a chapter on future parks that are not yet finished or are in the planning stages. You're likely familiar with some of the new parks in the United States: Brooklyn Bridge Park in NYC (Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates); Dequindre Cut Greenway in Detroit (SmithGroupJJR); Renaissance Park in Chattanooga, TN (Hargreaves Jones). But you'll discover parks you've probably never heard of in other parts of the world or in lesser-known sites in the United States.

New parks in Europe, China, and Mexico are well represented, but the authors note that time limited their ability to include other notable parks in Australia, Japan, the Middle East and Russia.

As the authors note in the introduction, "These new green spaces occupy terrain that has long been considered worthless -- industrial riverfronts saturated with chemical residue, airport expanses ironed smooth and stripped of vegetation, and ironically, waterlogged quarries .... This spurned land has been transformed into public open areas that in their turn reinvigorate underused or undervalued urban areas."

Here are just a few takeaways from the authors:

In Detroit: "That one of the nation's poorest cities would look to a landscape to improve the state of its finances fired my interest in the role of nature in reviving abandoned sites worldwide. The Dequindre Cut (part of the Joe Louis Greenway) has expanded the possibilities of repurposed railroads. It introduces green spaces to areas of the city where it was lacking, and, like other linear parks, it connects widely disparate neighborhoods.  For a fairly modest project, it has had a powerful local influence in its creation of public space, its embrace of public art, and its demonstration of options for increased green space." LA: SmithGroupJJR

New York, a future park: "Freshkills Park is a remediation of the biggest garbage dump in the Western World. It is one of many of the increasingly frequent attempts to reclaim landfills.  The most pressing concern occupying James Corner Field Operations and city officials is how to accomplish a rehabilitation that will allow public access and also restore the ecosystem in a way that will sustain wildlife."

In Mexico City, the Parque Bicentenario, a former oil refinery, includes five different themes: Nature (botanical garden); Wind (sports arena); Earth (open space for recreation and events); Sun (alternative energy museum); and Water (large artificial lake). LA: Grupo de Deseño Urbano

In Zurich, the Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon Park occupies a site where tanks and munitions were manufactured. It has 104 species of climbing vines; a fountain sitting on a bed of recycled dark blue crushed glass; a huge steel structure on four different levels with walkways and balconies encourages birds to fly in and out; each level, where picnickers gather at lunch-time and in the evenings, offers different views of Zurich and the surrounding neighborhoods. LA: Raderschall Partner

That's just a quick sample of what you'll find in this book -- one that should be in every designer's library.

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