2010 Garden Lecture Reviews

From the Ground Up: Gardens Re-Imagined

The theme uniting this year’s lecture series at The New York Botanical Garden (www.nybg.org)

was sustainability.  

Sustainable garden designs. 

I can’t deny that all great garden designers have pretty much always practiced “sustainable, creative, practical garden designs” (as the NYBG brochure explained).

Nevertheless, the series was entertaining, informational and topical. 

The atmosphere surrounding the lecture is horticulturally collegial – we garden sprites get to mingle with fellow garden and plant lovers. 

Bookending my Lecture Series experiences was high drama and zen serenity. 

First Lecture:  Englishman Dan Pearson

Into The Wild

http://www.danpearsonstudio.com/

“You seem so calm… ”We’re so late,” I sidelined to Phyllis Odessey from Randall’s Island as we walked to the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) lecture from the train station. (Manhattanites must take the train from Grand Central a few stops north.)

Well, truth be told, I was scurrying and Phyllis was the picture of calm, garden peacefulness. 

“It doesn’t start till eleven. “ she said. 

“No, it started at ten.” I advised.    I wanted to explain, but was conflicted about slowing down to do so. 

“What?” Phyllis exclaimed.  If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have come…” 

While slaloming in around the parked cars, I shot back to her the drama of my commuting saga: missed the 9:25 morning train from Grand Central because my MetroCard came up “insufficient” funds from the swipe at Union Square that in turn made me have to reenter the subway station from the other side of the street.  

Finally, we were inside, ushered immediately through registration like VIPs. 

(Well, there wasn’t anyone else waiting at that point, either.)

As if on cue, we split up at the door to the lecture hall door to find any available seats. 

It’s packed.  SRO.

But what was bad news for the capacity audience, turned out to be great news for us:  NYBG’s vice president, Todd Forrest (in a “you can’t make this stuff up name game, he was the curator of the Garden’s Forest at one time!) kicked off the lecture – and talked a bit long, we were told later -- for about 30 minutes…

That overture, coupled with Dan Pearson’s preamble about his early childhood, put us in the perfect time zone for being seated just as the meat of the lecture got under way. 

Thanks for waiting for us.

Qu’elle chance, after all J

I could listen to Dan read the phone book (lovely British accent) and his dreamy, good-looking-Paul McCartney-Beatle countenance makes for added visual stage presence. 

Given his rock star status as an international landscape architect, the analogy is not too far off the mark. 

Dan visually displayed work from his portfolio while providing the back story of how he got the jobs – very amusing tales; his inspiration for the garden designs: employing a very strong sense of place, amplifying that with indigenous plants, along with manifesting the owner’s garden style.

You had to be there to appreciate Dan’s demeanor. 

In part, it helps explain his seemingly spiritual, ethereal commitment to natural gardening -- to creating gardens found in your dreams. 

Dan is the kind of artist who always knew his calling. 

Early on, he recalled, he was told to “Follow your heart.”  

After seeing Wisely and Sissinghurst gardens and the Valley of The Flowers, it’s no wonder he claims to have known then he wanted to emulate nature– not control garden spaces. 

Dan took the opportunity to speak about his devotion to using a collection of plants. 

He prefers to employ a very large palette of plants in his designs. 

He plants to encourage wildlife in the garden and to maximize an outdoor space to better experience every season. 

He reminded us of the sheer beauty of a garden’s ability to constantly change. 

It’s never boring.  (Don’t over manage a garden.  It’s silly)

He regaled the audience with the story of how he was hired to redesign a family estate garden in Torrecchia, Italy. 

The wife saw his work at the Chelsea Flower Show while in attendance; phones him the next day to confirm he’ll take the commission; June 1^st he is flown to Rome and she picks him up in her small red convertible sports car.

Drives very, very, very fast to the “medieval hill village of her family – while chain smoking!

In describing a Los Angeles garden design – especially the hardscape - he demonstrated how good gardens reflect that ‘sense of place’  -- a contextual classicism that is never out of style -- that unique “only-here” feeling that mimics Mother Nature’s local “look.” 

He also said “A garden is like a good clothes horse.”

In other words, the plants will make the structure - - or the “bones” of the garden sparkle in every season, while always connecting with the owner’s style.

Did I say I loved Dan’s use of fashion-as-style metaphors and artsy references?!

His work went on to embrace large land forms – architectural gems he creates that are vast, rugged. 

One of his earlier designs like this is the Yorkshire Broughton Hall, located not far from Leeds in England. 

I was charmed by his research for the dry stone walls – part of the local vernacular of course.  English estate landscapes employed a series of similar walls – they were called a Ha Ha and used to keep the livestock from getting too close to the “house.” 

(Can you guess why they were called Ha Ha?  You have to love that English sense of “humor.” ^:^)

Here Dan worked in a limited style, using sweeps of perennials, and was mindful of the garden’s maintenance for this 2-acre site (there are one to two gardeners a week to do all the work.)

But what must be his favorite project – certainly it seemed his most dramatic—is the Millennium Forest, (http://www.tmf.jp/index_en.html)

Curiously, or ironically, or logically, the project to maintain and, in some areas, reproduce the area’s pristine forest that is being encroached by farmland, is funded by a successful newspaper magnate… (trees=paper—I know you get it, but just in case…)

Dan’s description of how he got involved in the Millennium project sounded somewhat like a friendly fraternity hazing. 

About 10 years ago, Dan was contacted by Mr.Takano, the landscape architect for a prominent newspaper magnate.  

In the Japanese tradition, there were a series of meetings before any formal agreement was considered.  Mr. Takano was gauging how he and Dan and their client might work together – spiritually, philosophically and physically. 

Finally, lured to the Forest by Mr. Takano’s invitation, the two experienced the forest in a -35 degree Fahrenheit winter evening final “test” including hot springs and – what else – a shared beer.

It wasn’t long after that when Mr. Takano asked Dan to prepare a master plan to create a sustainable environment there – that would last for 1,000 years and at the same time, become an ecological park where people would be prompted to ask, “What does it mean?”

Acknowledging there is a national Japanese reverence for nature, Dan suggests it can more often than not, be one step removed.  Not unlike most of the rest of the world’s increasingly urbanized populace, most Japanese lived in an environment with little connection to nature. 

So while Dan and Mr. Tanaka and the team may have changed the topography, created mystical pools and paths and siting areas for visitors. 

Dan also created the land forms that seem to touch the sky. 

One of his favorite recollections about dealing with his on-site Japanese team from his remote English location – was after the first snowfall, was getting a call from saying his natural, land form mounds were said to look like  “a series of meringues.”

Come on, does it get any frothier than that?   Sigh…

Dan employed 19 different planting combinations – each has 5 or 6 different plants sizes and blooming times (depending on vigor or “like DNA”

He used 35,000 perennials (hakone to hosta to cimifuga)

He used natural trees and a palette of perennials – many North American -- and mixed them with Japanese natives to combine native and exotic has general, global values so that visitors will note than their own natives.

Moving on to the Q&A, Lyndon Miller asked, “How does the Japan project sustain itself?”  Dan said, “ Good question.” Then elaborated.  “Education – they’ll develop programs and classes to attract a paying audience in addition to generating visitors.” 

The benefactor/magnate will continue to fun the project for 10 years.

Dan signed books for the attendees.  

Here I am with Dan:

Phyllisodessey.com

A Glamorous and Exuberant Book on Gardens and Floral Design

“Garden Bouquets and Beyond”

Creating Wreaths, Garlands, And More In Every Garden Season

 

Suzy Bales’ latest book is exhibit A in the case to be made why coffee table books need to be renamed. 

True, the book’s gorgeous, jaw-dropping color images hypnotically capture your imagination and render you motionless. 

You are under its charmed spell. 

So there you sit – presumably with that cup of coffee at your “coffee table” -- not wanting to turn the page, but like a good dream, you are led to the next unexpected adventure.

On the other hand, “Garden Bouquets and Beyond” is a How -To book – a veritable pocket book of seasonal design tips and ideas and care instructions you can use every day. 

You’ll look at your garden in a whole new way, too. 

Suzy introduces you to the idea to view the garden as a treasure-trove of unlimited cutting garden gathering opportunities. 

“Why stop at the blooms when there is foliage?” She posits.  Or bird baths to fill with spring blossoms or a “posy topping a gift-wrapped package.” (Source: afloral.com)

The creations are all the more exciting because Suzy helps us, the reader, discover plants and blooms commonly found in most gardens, including honeysuckle, blueberry, witch hazel, sage, allium, yarrow, hosta (as a table cloth ^:^), ivy, nandina, seedpods, ornamental grasses. swamp maple, dogwood, viburnum, and azalea blossoms.  Betcha’ never thought of these candidates for glamorous floral arrangements!

 

What Suzy designs with floral foam confirms her reign as Eden’s sorceress. 

Her creativity sparkles with suggestions that range from wet and dry wreaths to candelabra confections and joyful runners and Anais Nin headbands, eye candy garlands, and mock topiaries – she literally “paints with nature’s palette” to borrow a heading from the book.

There are tips on color, texture, proportion, balance. 

Then she throws it all to the wind and claims “there are no rules.” And in the same breath, admonishes us to have fun! 

Then there are the words – the text!  This is a book, after all J

Who couldn’t love chapter titles such as “Naked Ladies,”  “Belting Out The Blues,” “Dahlia Daze” “Berry Madness” and “Get the Joint A-Jumpin?”

So much of the book reads like a best girlfriend’s diary she lets you peek at. 

She refers to the morning glory’s flowers as a “perpetual wink.”  

Amassing flowers for a vase she says is akin to a “group hug.”  

These cute as a button, down-home sparklers reflect the conversational style and wit Suzy “gifts” to the reader.

You just know she’s a dame you want to share a cocktail with.  Over an irresistible and eye-catching arrangement that is…

But for all the charm, the book offers a very serious, well-researched series of conditioning flower guidelines, an entire section devoted to how long a cut flower’s Vase Life is, seasonal favorites “at a glance,” and tips on water quality and extending blooms.  There is a source page too. (www.michaels.com, www.save-on-crafts.com, www.potterybarn.com)

And it seems every other page has an easy to understand highlight box explaining things we were too self conscious about asking, including “bugs,” debunking myths or old wives tales. 

Buy this exuberant book for its fun and charm. 

Refer to it and use it for its garden and floral design inspiration and expertise. 

I love the book jacket blurbs from some of my favorite garden journalists.  They say it best.  Here’s what Valerie Easton wrote:  “We’ve learned that fresh, local organic food is best, so why are we still buying hothouse flowers, shipped halfway around the world for our home?” (Why indeed?)  … “Only Suzy could transform pachysandra into a showpiece of a wreath?”

Mario Bosquez, host of “Living Today” on Martha Stewart Living Radio, says “Suzy Bales always strikes the right note in making gardening and arranging accessible and educational, and, most of all, the ultimate in all things fabulous and floral.”

And be sure to check out how to dress up the ice “bucket” for a magnum of champagne. How glamorous!

The Horticultural Society of New York (www.hsny.org) hosted author Suzy Bales’ launch of  “Garden Bouquets and Beyond” as part of their Important Books and Author’s Series.  Suzy’s has authored 14 books.

The evening was a fundraiser held at the swanky Sherry-Netherland Hotel in New York City.

Friends and supporters mingled.

Cocktails and hors d’ouevres passed while Suzy autographed her book. 

Me and Suzy:

The lecture was the main event, with an introduction by the Hort Society’s executive director, Sara Hobel, who also noted that the evening’s fundraising would go to help support HSNY’s varied programs including the Rikers Island program.

With great humor and self-effacing wit, Suzy led us through the research, writing, and production of her delightful new book, accompanied by seductive images from the book.  The oohs and ahhs from the guests confirmed the designs' drama and appeal. 

The lecture was followed by a robust Q&A.

Check out author Suzy Bales’ web site for a calendar listing of her upcoming national lecture and book signing schedule, including the New York Botanical Garden (www.nybg.org), April 15^th, Shepard Pratt Conference Center in Baltimore, The Hampton Garden Club, and The Cosmopolitan Club, NYC, November 15^th.  (we love your namesake cocktail, the Cosmo!)

www.suzybalesgarden.com

  

Spring Fever

Spring Fever

Now it starts to get really good. 

It wasn’t that long ago that the spring catalogs arrived -- not Saks, silly -- rather the seed and garden catalogs with their seductive photo spreads and promises of color and style.

 

Up next in the spring fashion show were the newly arrived spring seed packets.  So classic and artistic looking:

 Got the soil test kit from Rutgers at the Garden State Flower Show.

                                                           

First we sowed the spring peas – right after St. Patrick’s Day, followed by the arugula seeds.

Indoors: started the Beefsteak & Heirloom tomatoes, along with the Thai peppers and basil and chile peppers, including Thai and Pequin.

Back outside, the shallots – Picasso Dutch and Yellow Moon Dutch bulbs were planted. 

For the second year, we ordered the shallots and potatoes from The Maine Potato Lady in Guilford ME.  (http://tinyurl.com/yf6dzb7)

The potatoes arrived via UPS and are “backstage” in the garage, acclimating, getting ready for their red carpet moment.

We ordered the superstars Kennebec (sold out), Chieftain and Cortland. 

In the meantime, tools were sharpened and prepped.

Ornamental grasses were cut.

The Back Forty Edible Garden was prepped

Laid in manure, peat and lots and lots of homemade Compost! We composted all winter. No problem.

And today is pure, unadulterated joy!  The warm sunshine and clear sky is “The promise of spring. “

Off to the nurseries to see those happy blooms nodding, “pick me, pick me.”

Those little “show offs” will dazzle the spring container compositions I’ll design today.

Enjoy!  

Sex on the Roof at Gramercy Park Hotel

From the moment you turn the corner and experience the undulating boxwood garden border fronting the entire block of the Gramercy Park Hotel (www.gramercyhotel.com) you are transported.

I was reminded of the opening scenes of “The English Patient” where the screen is filled with sensuous, undulating, curving landscapes.  Never mind that the movie focus was of sand dunes. 

To my mind’s eye, the elegant spare landscape of that cinemascope was the artistic twin to this Gramercy Park Hotel urban landscape.  (Planted in just 12 inches of soil I learned later.)

And this was just foreplay! The real piece de resistance is the roof top landscaped garden.

With heightened anticipation, I entered the lobby of the hotel not for the first time.

But with a different purpose. 

I was meeting Lynn Torgerson (www.lynntorgersongardens.com), the garden designer for the hotel’s front border garden and its roof top terrace garden. 

At a recent MetroHort event, Lynn invited me to visit the garden.  I love this hotel and had wanted to see the celebrated roof top garden for some time but the stars were never aligned. 

Gramercy Park is Ian Schrager’s luxury Hotel in New York City’s Union Square area. The art collection that adorns the colossal walls is sensuous and commanding. The room lobby and bar look like a castle, albeit a glamorous sexy one – with sparkling chandeliers, bold red carpets, sumptuous velvet furniture and heavy drapes, cavernous fireplaces and sweet, sultry scented candles seemingly everywhere.

I had graciously accepted Lynn’s kind offer, saying spring wasn’t toooo far away.

Not pausing, Lynn said, “Come anytime.”  Sensing a slight faux pas or egads, a missed trick on my part, I squinted a follow up.  “What do you mean, anytime?” 

She reiterated. “Anytime.”

Hmmm. Now I’ve got to ask.  “I thought it was a rooftop garden?”   With great patience she nods. “It is.”  Pause.  “But it’s all enclosed in the winter – so anytime you want to come, it’s good.” 

Winning the lottery can’t feel as good. J

I think seeing a garden like this in winter makes it even more special than if I experience it when everything around is green too. 

So now this all gets even better than I had hoped. 

Come on – when all is cold and grey to others (I like the city in winter, thank you very much) but I am privy to a warm garden with iconic views of Gotham—be still my beating heart!

We agree to a scheduled date. Follow up will happen. But we have a plan.

Carpe diem!

The day of the planned tour, I am inspired to email Roberta, the unparalleled floral designer for Danny Meyers’s restaurant empire.  Danny’s latest restaurant is the Tuscan inspired Maialino

which is seemingly part of the Gramercy Hotel and in fact, occupies the space next door and yet is still attached. (Don’t ask – just go!)

More serendipity as Roberta has agreed that -- with relatively no notice – she can do it!

I met Roberta when we were photographing Chef Michael Anthony at Gramercy Tavern restaurant – another shining star in Danny Meyers’ restaurant portfolio. 

I was there because of a photo shoot for my book about master chefs and their gardens.

My photographer, Jennifer Calais Smith (www.jennifercalais.com) and food stylist, Patty White (www.pattywhitefoodstylist.com) were working with me to photograph Chef Michael’s amazing culinary art. 

At the same time, I couldn’t help be drawn to the floral design compositions that Roberta was divining and arranging. 

I had to include her in the book!  Chef Michael agreed as did my editor, Kari. 

When you visit any of Danny Meyers’s restaurants, please let me know how much you love Roberta’s amazing interior garden designs.

She is an artist.

So the evening of the first rooftop garden tour, I was looking forward to great interior garden design AND great exterior garden design.

And to seeing and having networked two amazing plant women.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I was meeting a former colleague and friend, Joanne Trout, who was treating me to a birthday dinner at Maialino restaurant.  Maialino is Myers’ latest culinary tour de force. Maria, my garden design client and Italian language linguist told me maialino means “little pig.”  How cute!

It just doesn’t get any better  :) 

Maialino is located just to the downtown side of the hotel. As a guest, you’d think they are part of the same establishment. 

Roberta took us on a quick tour of the restaurant. We could better appreciate its simple, elegant yet casual environment – punctuated by Roberta’s floral designs.

Private dining room and Roberta's floral creations

Cuccina:

Well, we were drinking our Prosecco and Roberta and Lynn were having such a good time getting to know one another  --- and I was enjoying it all. 

Yet, as a garden sprite, I knew we had to get to that roof.  There wasn’t much winter daylight left…

A tad late, we hop in the special elevator transporting us up 16 floors to the Hotel Rooftop Bar – a Private Club and Garden.  Only members are admitted to this level so I’m feeling very VIP.

Like a Broadway stage whose curtains rise to reveal a carefully crafted other world of make-believe, the elevator doors opened to reveal a magical garden in the sky.

The anticipation matches the reality. 

This garden is a fantasy. A dream. 

It was dusk.  The sky was pink. The nearby skyscrapers loomed as architectural sentinels.  All this drama was mere backdrop for the garden at Gramercy Park Hotel. 

There, the entire length of the garden sparkled with tiny white lights on the ceiling, peeking through the green overhead and on the shrubs and trees in containers bordering the garden walls.

As we walked, I was awestruck.  My head was like a scope – turning upwards – left and right – all the while listening to Lynn describe the design work and maintenance that is integral to this unique garden. 

I defy anyone, of any age, to not be rendered speechless by this garden. 

It has the magic of Disney, of countless movies of Manhattan, and is a gardener’s dream world.  We gardeners can appreciate the design and work that goes into a living room such as this.  

For everyone else, the garden embraces you in a very intimate way and stimulates the senses.  This is especially so on a winter day simply because it’s a paradox.  But Lynn has made this impossibility just so natural.

The garden wraps around three sides of the building. In the warmer weather, the hotel has the option to open up part of the glass roof, or all or provide an awning to cover part of the garden in the sky to block the sun with the use of the retractable roof. 

When I was the Director of Communications at a major NYC botanic garden, I had recommended Lynn to New York Magazine as the ideal candidate to redesign NYC’s marriage bureau.  She nailed it: http://tinyurl.com/yjsdh9s

Sexy too, no?

Here at the Gramercy Park Hotel, Lynn’s brilliant work is not only on display in the design, but in the ongoing maintenance.  As you can image, it’s not in the least bit easy to keep up a good garden considering the inhospitable conditions.  There is the weather to consider of course and on a roof top terrace, weather can be extreme.  In addition, because it’s club, guests often “see” the plants as backdrop and don’t always treat them with great care, resulting in glasses in the pots or broken branches…

Her team is there two times a week – at a minimum.

“I want perfection,” Lynn said, not surprisingly.  They over-service their clients here – as elsewhere  -- because they love their work and have a passion for the plants.

The garden was launched in 2006.  Lynn and her team designed the container garden to adhere to owner Ian Schrager’s fondness for Italian gardens. The miracle on the roof is that with a series of containers, fruit trees, fragrant vines, including jasmine, ficus plants, palms, dracenas, ferns of all kinds and overhead silk leaves, Lynn captured the look and feel of the beauty of Rome or Tuscany.  “I wanted a lot of citrus plants to really get the feel of an Italian garden,” Lynn explained.

She was also able to use a lot of red color - prized by owner Schrager – even down to a red furniture composition.

Keen gardeners will want to know how all this green beauty is achieved and maintained – on a budget. 

Lynn chose containers that are lightweight; some of the seemingly hundreds of planters are fiberglass and zinc.  

The quality is terrific – the pots look like terracotta or the real deal, there is no doubt.

Lynn noted she sourced most of the containers from Evan Peters & Co., direct importers of garden pottery and are located in Long Island City http://tinyurl.com/ykym96o

Lynn had to establish a formal watering system and so installed a drip design for the containers.  In addition, the team supplements the irrigation systems and does hand watering too.

In terms of pest control, they employ an integrated pest management (IPM) approach because it’s the smart way to do it and also, this is a dining area.

Even though there can be lots of wind in the summer, Lynn has positioned pots of plants all along the windowsills – in fact, she changes them out with the seasons—usually every six months.  She loves the kalanchoes for their red color (a nod to the client) and for their water-wise needs.

Under extraordinary conditions, Lynn has employed a variety of plants, containers, and elegant garden design to create a sustainable, intoxicating garden. 

This is a seductive, mysterious world that Lynn has created – from traditional ladybugs and green plants, to the urbane, sophisticated “Lady Bugs" ^:^ and their escorts = quintessential New Yorkers and urbane tourists enjoying nature, seen poised throughout the garden terrace’s stylized conversation compositions – or as Schrager describes it, “lobby socializing.”

This chandelier is the size of the room it adorns and is breathtaking. 

                                                  Roberta (left) and I are dazzled by the light!

Because our first garden tour was abbreviated due to diminishing daylight, I asked Lynn if we could come back.  I also wanted to share the garden tour with EunYoung Sebazco, Duchess Designs’ lead horticulturist and extraordinary garden designer and Randall’s Island park manager. Lynn agreed. 

The garden is just as exhilarating in the daylight.  

The perfect finish on the second garden tour a week or so later was to enjoy the glamorous garden – with an herbal cocktail. 

I had the Ginger Fig:  vodka with muddled ginger root, fig jam and fresh orange juice.  Lynn & EunYoung enjoyed the Rose & Lychee Martini: Hendricks gin (which if you don’t know is made with roses – member of the cucumber family), rose syrup, fresh muddles blackberries and a touch of coconut.

Aren’t plants the best?  We can sit among them enjoying their beauty and fragrance and drink a plant-filled ambrosia.

A heavenly experience. Especially being that much closer to the clouds…

Oh, and when I wanted to add Lynn’s web site to this blog post, I Googled her business and guess what? 

The Google pin indicated Lynn Torgerson’s garden design business – and curiously, made it appear for the entire world like it is located directly at the Museum of Sex!  Coincidence?  With all the sensual garden design I saw at Gramercy Park Hotel, I don’t think so.

 Lynn - oh so elegant with fabulous garden footwear!

Gramercy Park Hotel

2 Lexington Avenue, NYC 10010

212-920-3300

www.gramercyparkhotel.com

Check out the visual images slide show – next best thing to being there.

Maialino, a Roman Trattoria at Gramercy Park

2 Lexington Avenue, NYC 10010

212-777-2410

http://www.maialinonyc.com

Two Garden Book Reviews: Vizcaya and Hidcote

In a recent issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine, I read the story on Vizcaya, the amazing garden estate that is now a must-see garden museum.  The article reminded me that I had reviewed a book about Vizcaya a few years ago for my local Garden State newspaper, "The Two River Times." 

http://www.tworivertimes.com

I thought I'd dust off that book review and "revisit" Vizcaya since it seems so topical :)   Plus my garden review also includes the book "Garden at Hidcote"  so you'll enjoy two gardens!

Garden Book Reviews:

Whether you think of snow flurries as winter reality or fantasy, cold temperatures help the plant kingdom hibernate till the glory of spring adjusts our color contrast screen!  In the meantime, let’s use our garden passport: books -- and head out for this month’s garden tour.  Like many a snowbird, it seems appropriate to make the first stop tropical Florida.  We’ll visit the palatial Miami estate, Vizcaya.  Then we’ll head to Cotswold, England to tour what is arguably, the most influential garden of the last century.

Vizacaya: An American Villa and Its Makers

Named for a Spanish Baroque province – Vizcaya was the winter home of Chicago industrialist James Deering.  Today it is a museum.  As told in Vizcaya: An American Villa and Its Makers by Witold Rybczynski, professor of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania and Laurie Olin, Practice Professor of Landscape Architecture there, as well as a principal in the Olin Partnership, his landscape architecture firm, these two experts masterfully document the making of this extraordinary home and its garden.  Architectural Digest’s Steven Brooks lends the book the intimate view of the garden today that balances the images, blueprints, maps, plant lists, and correspondence included from the Vizcaya Museum and Garden Archive.  Reproduced for the first time in the book – and not surprisingly, on the book’s cover --are the rich watercolors rendered by the famed portrait artist, John Singer Sargent, who was a guest at Vizcaya throughout much of 1917. It is said that the glory days at Vizcaya were from that year through 1923.

The story of this Gilded Age mansion is a unique collaboration among Deering, Paul Chalfin, artist, F. Burrall Hoffman, Jr., architect, and garden designer, Diego Suarez—all neophytes in their fields.  Other country house mansions like San Simeon, the “cottages” in Newport, or the Biltmore, were all designed by leading experts, such as Carrere & Hastings.   Vizcaya is also unique as it was the first grand estate located on the water’s edge. In contrast, contemporary mansions were located perhaps with a water view, but featured great expanse of lawn separating house from water, whereas Vizcaya’s frontage sat right on Biscayne Bay.

Located on 180 acres on Brickell Point in Coconut Grove, Vizcaya was artistically researched and painstakingly compiled: “a lens through which readers learn about architecture, landscape and garden design, interior decorating and art” threaded through the personal story of the design team and the times in which they lived. The book notes the influence on the design team of Sir George Sitwell’s On the Making of Gardens: “To make a great garden, one must have a great idea or a great opportunity…” and in this book, the reader learns that there is indeed an abundance of both those elements.

Chalfin had been an assistant to the socialite interior decorator Elise de Wolfe but saw the opportunity when Deering asked him to act as his artistic director. Deering’s immense wealth from the merger of McCormick and Deering to create the International Harvester Company, allowed him to indulge in collecting art. Chalfin helped him to build a collection that included Tiepolos and Manet. This was the time of Edith Wharton. And the wealthy of the period were obsessed with Europe.  The first part of the book narrates the touring and research trips Deering and Chalfin took there to determine first, what style of house they would find most inspiring, and then later to collect many items for the house and garden as was the custom of the day.   The building of the house and the interior design is also included in this part of the book. 

According to the authors, the two selected an odd choice of house style; finding their inspiration in the 17^th Century Villa Rezzonico in the mountains of Italy, rather than a seaside or lake house – which, considering Vizcaya was to be located on the water, would have been a more apparent or logical choice. 

The second part of the book details the design and construction of the gardens at Vizcaya.  James Deering and his brother were both naturalists and ecologists, which helped to make the garden unique.  Botanist David Fairchild worked with Charles on his nearby estate, Buena Vista and later that of the gardens at Cutler, whose work anticipates the work of noted Brazilian landscape architect, Roberto Burle Marx.   A frequent guest at Vizcaya, Fairchild was later instrumental in establishing a botanic garden there, and today, the Fairchild Botanic Garden is named for him.  James embraced the outdoor living environment and respected the frailty of the environment, and according to the book, sought to preserve the surrounding “hammocks” – what we call ridges, as well as the lagoons and water, in addition to producing the manicured, European-influenced gardens surrounding the house and dock areas. 

The book literally takes the reader on a tour of the garden today.  http://www.vizcayamuseum.org/

There is a map detailing the 29 garden rooms, including the Garden Theater, Barge, Rose Garden and Fountain, and the Maze.  The reader can’t help but ooh and ahh at the artistic design of runnels, statues, obelisks, and loggias with fireplaces fronting the lagoon. It is noted that Deering’s lagoon designs were influenced by the Duke Estate in Somerville, NJ, having consulted with James (Buck) Duke.  There are also delightful, whimsical touches, such as the rococo garden swing that can only come from the passionate, hands-on care of Chalfin’s artistic oversight.  The thoughtful presentation of the layout sets a mood and makes this an enduring garden classic.  The authors note that by1920 Deering had already spent more than $334,000 on Vizcaya’s garden and more than $3 million on the house. 

The Garden at Hidcote

The Garden at Hidcote, authored by Fred Whitsey tells the garden story of the creation of one of the world’s most admired and imitated gardens. The book is 150 pages, with lavishly appointed photographs of the American owner, designer, and gardener, Lawrence Waterbury Johnston.  The book offers a garden tour that is also an analysis of garden design.  The author readily demonstrates how the disparate elements of this expansive garden offer inspiration and guidance, no matter how humble a garden space may be.  Gardens tell a story, and the fact that the more than 21 garden rooms at Hidcote are arranged as unique cottage gardens, they appear more like “episodes” or “chapters” in this brilliantly-told garden story.  There is a sense of exploration as the reader is taken from one garden room enclosure to the next. There is a theatrical quality to how the views and perspective are presented at Hidcote.  Reading the book offers a garden enthusiast a model of what an exquisite garden can be: given a love of plants, patience, and a keen artistic aesthetic that is both inherent and learned.

The exuberant perennial plant borders Johnston designed were those that wealthy Edwardians favored over the fussy, clipped carpet bedding of the Victorian era.  Described as a reclusive, well-heeled bachelor, Johnston was widely admired.  Russell Page said Hidcote influenced him more than any other and the director at Kew Gardens called Johnston a “genius.” 

The book documents how he came to influence the use of hardy, herbaceous groups of plants that feature dense companion plants.  Today, this is a most admired and sought-after garden look that to many, defines the English garden look, and is a mainstay of many Two River gardens.

Hidcote was the first garden to be named a National Trust Garden in the UK. The irony is that Johnston was a Yankee transplant!

He possessed an innate style that promoted the artistic use of plants arranged by color: more blends than contrasts, size, texture.  Also, for the first time, the garden beds were designed using plants with varying bloom times so that there is a succession or near-constant display of bloom – as one group’s seasonal luster fades, there is another to capture your heart.  Besides the aesthetic, it is noted that Johnston believed this intense planting scheme reduced the need for water and eliminated a lot of weeds, as there wasn’t room for them to grow in the beds.

The reader can see Johnston's shrewd use of surprise throughout the gardens at Hidcote.  Whitsey shows how Johnston was an illusionist: concealing the art of the garden, referred to as a “Gallery of Plants.”  At the same time, Johnston weaves the relational threads to make a seamless whole from the independence of the various cottage gardens.

The book also tells the story of Johnston, although there are some unavoidable lapses due to his reclusiveness and extreme reticence.  He never wrote or kept records. Even those who worked for him rarely recall conversations. He was an only child, born in Paris in 1871 to wealthy Americans.  His father died when he was a young teenager and he and his mother moved to New York.  His mother soon remarried – to Charles Winthrop, a successful lawyer. All too soon, she was a widow again.  After graduating from Trinity College in Cambridge, Johnston became a British citizen.  His mother was able to fund his purchase of more than 280 acres in Cotswold and by 1907 he was an English country gentlemen. His mother lived with him until she died.  And except for two stints in the military and the occasional plant exploration, he only left Hidcote for his home in Menton on the Mediterranean. His garden there, Serre de la Madone was the first garden in France to receive a monument historique designation from the Ministry of Culture.

My husband and I visited this garden on a trip to Monaco.  It is truly magical.

For the next 50 years Johnston’s total preoccupation were the gardens.

The author speculates that his inspiration was possibly the many travel books he read and the burgeoning Arts & Crafts movement he studied.  Also inspiring were his neighbors and visiting guests.  It seems Johnston hosted a "plant salon” of sorts.  From his neighbors Norah Lindsay and Heather Muir, plants women and acclaimed garden designers, to Edith Wharton, a frequent guest, Johnston hosted compelling get-togethers of like-minded garden aficionados.  Wharton described Hidcote as “tormentingly perfect”. 

Some of the planting hallmarks at Hidcote are the tapestry hedges—which are green and copper beech or yew and holly -- grown together.  And a peacock topiary – both of which are beautifully illustrated in full color photographs.

The book offer planning tips, too. The rich, colorful photographs are stunning, personal views of the garden’s planting schemes so that the dripping purple wisteria, yellow tulips or Red Borders and Fuchsia and White Gardens jump off the page.

Johnston was 86 years old when he died in 1958.  But the gardens at Hidcote – and Serre de la Madone live on.  And if your schedule prevents you from visiting on-site, enjoy this book about a master garden artist and his passion. Next best thing.

Gardens in the Cinema and Garden Conservancy's Open Days 2010 Program Announced

The Garden Conservancy just sent their email announcing this year’s line-up and schedule for their always exciting, groundbreaking (^:^) Open Days program.  What’s better than being able to sneak a peek and tour beautiful gardens? 

(In Charleston, gardens are open all year for visits.  If the garden gate is open, visitors are welcome!)  For the rest of us, we look forward to the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days program:

Join us for another season of exploring gardens!  

Ten years ago, author Michael Pollan predicted that the Garden Conservancy's Open Days program "could do more for horticultural cross-fertilization than anything to hit the American garden since...the bumblebee."

We are still at it! Today, Open Days continues to offer thousands of people across the country the opportunity to exchange gardening ideas and to explore and enjoy magnificent private gardens from coast to coast.

http://gardenconservancy.org/opendays/

Gardens in the Cinema

And speaking of great gardens, I sent out a query this morning – right after the Oscar nominations were announced – to learn what are favorite gardens in a movie.  Some interesting responses so far are “The Hours,” “Enchanted April,” “Room with a View.”  I like “An Affair to Remember’s” wonderful Mediterranean gardens, “Avatar,” and “Suddenly Last Summer,” to name a few. 

Bonvaneture Cemetery featured in the Clint Eastwood film,

“Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil.”

  

Photo Credit:  Mike LaPalme

What are your favorite movie gardens?

The great gardens in movies can be make for an inspiring evening. Why not plan out a movie schedule leading up to the Oscars?  (and take you into spring!)