Sunbrella and Garden Design Magazine Host Design Event

As if garden designers needed another reason to spec out Sunbrella® designs. 

We love their quality, craftsmanship.

We adore their inspiring colors and stripes and patterns.

We respect their durability, easy maintenance and protection from the elements. 

That’s a lot to love.

But then…Garden Design Magazine and Sunbrella hosted an informative and stylish fashion show-type event, complete with front row seats at the season’s sneak preview for what’s new.  

Appropriately, the event was held in New York City’s premiere design center, The Decoration and Design Building http://ddbuilding.com/

There was a panel discussion and a slide show that was more like a designers portfolio of successful projects an intimate look at in-home designs that ignited the creative sparks for house and garden. If you don't have their brochure, visit the website.

The panel experts were: Norman Vanamee, editor in chief, Garden Design Magazine, http://www.gardendesign.com/

Lindsey Taylor, Style Director, Garden Design Magazine, and

Gina Wicker, Design and Creative Director, Sunbrella Fabrics. http://www.sunbrella.com/

Panel Experts: Lindsey Taylor (L), Norman Vanamee, Gina Wicker

The introduction of Sunbrella rugs was good news to hear about.  The first collection, The Renaissance, comes in a variety of sizes: runners as small as 2x5’ to squares and octagons up to 11’ and the colors and patterns with sexy, glamorous names such as Mink, Garnet and Ebony are destined to fulfill a spectrum of good garden room designs. 

Wicker pointed out the importance of maintaining floors using Sunbrella rugs. “The gorgeous rugs also serve to reduce heat gain in the house and create a cozy room such as a special breakfast nook.”  The rungs are made with 100% Sunbrella acrylic yarn and contain 50% recycled content from Sunbrella fabric and fiber “waste.”

Wow.  This is one responsible and sustainable, green company.  It’s like learning the prom queen is also the valedictorian AND she volunteers for charity. 

In fact, Sunbrella fabrics are certified by the GREENGUARD Institute’s Children and Schools standard as contributing to healthy indoor air by being a very low-emitting interior product. 

Parent’s can breathe a sigh of relief with this news.

Plus, think about how much the Sunbrella awnings reduce energy consumption. And protect from the sun’s mean aging rays. I tell my garden team and clients, “Remember, the sun is not our friend.”  I learned here that The Skin Cancer Foundation recommends Sunbrella as an aid in the prevention of sun-induced damage to the skin.

This is great news for all you glamour-pusses out there. 

My husband and I are in the middle of a home renovation at our country house in the Garden State and I can promise you, I will be using yard and yards of Sunbrella fabric, draping and billowing around our new outdoor terrace and patio where I will be doing yoga, enjoying a soak in a Japanese tub and repairing the body from all that garden work with healing massages.  Ahhhhh…

Images of a Georgia home using Sunbrella on every surface throughout the house flashed across the screen.  There were a variety of textures and patterns accessorizing window treatments, floors and the patio. A very coordinated ensemble.               

I could see the European design influence Wicker told the audience about -- Sunbrella has a design facility in France -- especially in the grey duppioini pattern.  It truly looked as a created artwork for the space…

A Q&A followed the presentation.  Questions ranged from “How big was the garden property Vanamee showed and could she submit a garden design for a small garden.  The Garden Design Editor said the magazine tries to do all size gardens.

In turn, he asked the audience if they’d read the Garden Design magazine feature design on the renovation the team did for the small backyard townhouse garden at the James Beard House, as an ideal example of a small, er, postage sized, garden.

Here is the slide show in case you misplaced your online bookmark of Garden Design’s delicious, urban landscape work: http://www.gardendesign.com/find/james%20beard%20garden

http://www.jamesbeard.org/

Vanamee encouraged submissions with just five pictures max and a short description – less than a paragraph – more a little story about what happened in terms of the garden design. How the design solved a problem of some sort…

Sunbrella’s Wicker addressed the issue of fabric and textiles.

What type of materials used depends on what part of the country the space is located in, advised Wicker.  She cited flow-through firm foam as example. “It’s perfect for Miami. The South West, not so much.”  “Ultimately, it’s all about how much maintenance your client wants to support,” Wicker added.  

Wicker urged attendees to consider the practical side of the design as well -- Slipcovers can be taken off and put in the washer with bleach. This makes it easier to keep clean and mold free.

Wicker also noted the benefit of Sunbrella’s reversible cushion cover designs.

“Red wine cleans up.  No problem. And the design and use of hydrophobic fiber was created to dry quickly, standing on end.”

Goody bags and snacks and design community chat followed the presentation.  Garden Design Magazine's editor, Norman, was gracious and introduced me to Gina Wicker.  As part of our conversation, I got the chance to tell her how I love using the company’s fabrics as part of my garden designs: on porches and gazebos.  

But also, I got to tell her about one use she said she’d never heard of.  Using a green, black, tan and white striped Sunbrella fabric, I fashioned a box-kite like design around tall, cut birch tree “rods” positioned at four corners of the two bins that make up our compost area.  A white fence backed by landscape fabric surrounds the compost bins, fronted by pretty plants, and topped off with the fabric design “valance” for a look I call a Compost Cabana.  Who says compost is not fashionable. It’s all the rage.

How glamorous!

And thank you, Garden Design Magazine and Sunbrella.  It was a great garden design event. 

Gotham’s Gardening Gurus Go Glamorous-- The New York Times’ Bill Cunningham shines his Evening Hours spotlight on the city’s garden landscape leaders

My, oh my.  It’s been quite a season for some of the best of Gotham’s garden lovers.

Recently, The Style section’s charming cameraman Bill Cunningham -- adored for his keen eye for tasteful style and artful news, led him to feature two of New York City’s more dedicated and talented garden enthusiasts. 

Evening Hours – a veritable who’s who in New York society and philanthropy and A-list over-achievers and all-round do-gooders, recently highlighted Betsy Pinnover Schiff and Linda Yang. And right there, just like that, our garden gals were in the company of that dreamy Alec Baldwin (oooh those dimples!) and Mayor Bloomberg, and David Bush and his newish wife, Lauren Bush Lauren (I just like saying her name!), along with the Lauders (whose rooftop garden Betsy photographed in her last book, “New York City Gardens.” 

Central Park Landscape:

On Sunday, October 16^th The Style page sparkled with Betsy Pinnover Schiff and her book party.  Standing next to Betsy is Cecilia Herbert. 

The two are holding an open copy of Betsy’s latest book, with the rich color photographs on full display.   (And right above is a former boss of mine: Ira Neimark and his latest book, “The Rise of Fashion and Lessons Learned at Bergdorf Goodman.”

http://tiny.cc/9jlq4

Betsy’s sixth book, “Windows on Central Park: The Landscape Revealed” is a gem. 

The photos are like a fantasy as seen from a magical tree house high up in the clouds. 

Only Betsy could manage to secure the keys to the kingdom -- to take readers on an intimate tour of the breathtaking sky-scape views of Central Park, from the majestic homes that ring the world-class park. 

The Olmstead design of Central Park is now part of the homeowners’ decorative arts – a backdrop to their home décor.

It is Betsy’s keen eye, though, that interprets and curates just the right heart-stopping vistas.  She adds a perspective and dimension to the park views that confirm her homage to the park’s landscape as an enduring and compelling work of art.

There are more than 140 photographs showcasing the park in all four seasons, from all four sides.

Notables from Candice Bergen to Giorgio Armani to Donald Trump provide their own love letters about what the park means to them.

It’s all scandalously voyeuristic…

You can purchase the book from Amazon.com: http://tiny.cc/rfl3x

Betsy’s website offers more background information about the book:

http://www.betsysphotos.com/book2.html

Trees

From Mayor Bloomberg’s Million Tree Project: http://www.milliontreesnyc.org 

to tree restoration after the recent storms.

Linda Yang, an ardent, tireless garden expert and garden writer was honored for her association and support of Trees New York, along with Pete Grannis, a former Commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

http://tiny.cc/4m5kx

Linda is a smart, fun and talented garden expert who knows a whole lot about trees and gardens.  

We love her.

As a garden writer, Linda has written many books, notably, “City Gardener’s Handbook: The Definitive Guide to Small-Space Gardening”
You can order here: 

http://tiny.cc/qv5s4

I am honored to know and work with both garden gurus. 

I am delighted to showcase their talent and tireless efforts to make our town ever more green and glamorous and beautiful with their garden magic.

Friends of the High Line Metro Hort Tour Explores Garden in the Sky

Let me just get it out there.  This is one sexy garden park.

Not unlike a defining fashion statement in complete simpatico and homage, the couture boutiques and artisanal restaurants that now embrace it like style supplicants, the elevated park can be considered a Manolo on come-hither stilettos; kissing the clouds, embracing the sky-high neighborhoods nearby and flirting with the nearby Hudson River’s majestic vistas.

But would anyone expect anything less dramatic from a city of romantic glamour and garden passion?

Not on your High Life.

The early October evening was an auspicious start for the enthusiastic, over-subscribed Metro Hort tour.

It was rainy, kinda’ gloomy and a bit dark.  It was the beginning of autumn, after all. 

Yet the 65-plus New York Metro-area horticulturists paid no mind to that.

They couldn’t wait to gather at the High Line Park for a much-anticipated garden tour led by the High Line’s expert gardeners.

It’s embarrassing to admit, but this was my first tour of the private/public park. 

I guess you could say I am a “virgin” High Liner.

Rest assured, as any newbie would be, I was critical enough to see if all the hype and press were indeed warranted. 

In fact, I was enchanted, seduced and in love.

With Eden-like abandon, I will return to this garden in the sky so frequently, I hope it becomes second nature…

Sabine checked in the MetroHort gardeners

With hushed, barely concealed eagerness, the “cohort of metro horts” huddled under the Highline overpass, some with umbrellas, some with hoodies, at several access points.  

Mine was 23^rd Street.  MetroHort's Sabine Stetzenbach checked us in.

Soon enough it was announced the garden tour was to begin. 

There is a palpable thrill climbing the steps up, up, up to --- to who knows what kind of garden paradise in the clouds. 

Friends of the High Line Gardener Maeve Turner

Our group’s masterful garden guide was Maeve Turner: she is articulate, knowledgeable, personable and oozes pride of place about her Park.   

Standing on a curvaceous park bench to talk to the cohort metrohorts, xx provided a quick, broad overview of the High Line’s story – the miracle of how the park got made.

It was a decades-long odyssey.  But community fortitude and love and a pursuit of preserving an unique historical, mise en place ultimately came resulted in success.

In fact, post Metro Hort tour, the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation announced plans to help fund the final segment of the Highline to the tune of $20 million – on top of the $15 million they already donated: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/nyregion/20-million-gift-to-high-line-park.html

Wowsy – that is some fashion statement!

Gardener Maeve Turner told us about the landscape architect: Javier Thorer Fuller and Piet Oldolf, noted Dutch landscape architect who provided the garden design and planting elements. Piet borrows from Midwest or prairie landscapes to design public gardens to incredible accolades.  

Maeve also noted that Kilco does all the plantings in NYC Parks and here too. Including the Brooklyn Bridge Park and the 9/11 Memorial. 

Our tour started at Section 7. The Highline needs more name monikers.

These section number/metrics sounds too like Area 51ish.

We journeyed up nine blocks to Gansevoort – 20^th to 30^th Street.

Everything is astonishing here. The plantings, the hardscapes, the design, the maintenance challenges and solutions – all guidance for urban gardens everywhere.

The Highline is undoubtedly sensory overload: the expansive sky (that city dwellers too often do not observe), the shimmering lights of the city, the trees, the variety of perennials, the spare hardscapes, mixed in with the history and the future and the sublime bliss of unlimited achievement and possibilities.

The utility of the elevated railroad tracks have been thoughtfully preserved – and incorporated in a creative, artistic way.  The tracks run throughout the park in a marked, subdued, elegant way.  The pathways undulate.

Not surprisingly, the Piet Oldof design uses a lot of self-seeding perennials and grasses.

The High Line’s garden sections or rooms, are charmingly labeled with names like the Meadow and the Chelsea Thicket.

The Chelsea Thicket provides a tunnel-like effect across the park’s path.

The drama is further amplified when the plantings seem to span the space between the buildings’ beckoning outreach.    

The verdant lawn area is sod, stretching green and lush like the first putting green at the country club.  

Gardener Maeve Turner says the urban park guests just can’t resist sitting or sunning on blankets there, like so many lawn jockeys.   

There is tiered, redeemed teak seating next to the lawn, ideal for reading, sitting and enjoying entertainment events.

Love the Vitex chaste tree there too.  

There is a charming, whimsical design element feature that includes a giant Frame, backed by a pretty big garden seat.  It was explained that for so long everyone took pictures of the Highline – a defining neighborhood streetscape.

So the concept is one of turning the tables, if you will. Visitors can now view the throbbing cityscape below and beyond, within the frame.  

The plantings include juniper, amelalchier – (that had some apple rust) and lots of native plants.

The entire plant list is available on the Highline web site

Gardener Maeve Turner said the Highline is really like a giant container garden. 

Sweet. And yet so apropos for an urban garden!

“There is the ‘Bridge freezes first affect in winter,” said Maeve  when referring to the park’s unique challenges.

And it’s extremely hot in the summer.  

Extreme weather is the norm despite the moderating influence of the Hudson. 

Harsh conditions are punctuated by the city’s concrete and oh-so-near buildings' radiant body heat. 

There is crushed gravel and sand and filter fabrics below the inches of soil for a sandy, loamy soil structure; 7% of the water runoff flows into the beds and so far there has been no flooding.

The Park leaves the seed heads on the perennials throughout the winter (birds like rose hips and hyssop) and cut it all in the spring – further contributing to a way too busy spring season. 

Maeve noted because the Highline Park is so new and unique, it’s all a learning process.

It is all rather amazing to learn there are only seven full time gardeners, three seasonal gardeners and two interns.  Thank goodness there are 75 volunteers. 

Sign up to be a garden volunteer. 

And say hello to my smart, lovely, talented garden friend, Pat Jonas, who volunteers as a Friend of the High Line.

All the MetroHorts met back at the starting point and chatted up the highlights of the High Line garden tour and many headed out for cocktails to further talk about – gardens and plants. How glamorous!

www.thehighline.org

NYBG Kick-Off Lecture: From Larry Ellison to Hollywood, Ron Herman Landscape Designs Inspired by Japanese Gardens

The kick-off lecture in the annual New York Botanical Garden’s annual lecture landscape portfolio featured landscape architect Ron Herman

Ron is the son of a California nurseryman, California based, world-class landscape architect who has completed more than 400 private residences over the course of his career. 

He launched his work as understudy to California livin’ and is the next generation trustee to Garret Ekbo and Lawrence Halprin’s heritage whom he studied under at UC Berkeley.

According to the NYBG post: 

He opened his own landscape architecture office in Los Angeles at age 22, and then, with a thriving practice, decided to "take another route" and pursue graduate studies for three years in Japan. His landscape designs are deeply influenced by his knowledge and appreciation of that country's historic gardens. A longtime teacher and lecturer, he also co-authored the invaluable book for travelers, A Guide to the Gardens of Kyoto.

He says he is drawn to forces and loves things that have a “sense as architecture.”

It was certainly love at first sight when he saw the gardens in Kyoto. He was smitten by his glimpse of stands of old bamboo, inspiring and motivating him to study in Japan at Kyoto University.

“I envy the designer who goes to Japan for the first time,” said Herman. 

A key learning for him was the Japanese ability to design timelessness.  “The past is modernity.” Good design depends on how well it’s executed, he commented.

Herman showed images and detailed the design elements of reveal. He is interested in the ambiguity of what you see and what remains hidden, between the formal and informal: key in all great garden design.  It is the search for the unknown, seeing a garden “unfold” with subtle transitions. The Japanese use of screens or partitions is another aspect that adds an ethereal feeling to the garden.

Herman also showed how asymmetrical designed elements are part of the overall tableau of a balanced and enduring landscape design.  

Japanese design honors the seasons.  The garden designer thinks about the winter, for example, when the snow becomes part of the garden’s look.  No dead in winter feeling here!  Rather the snow becomes a design element. The color of the autumn is incorporated into the designed landscape – with purpose and respect for nature’s changing fashion show. 

In particular, Herman showed a cypress with snow that resembled a white peony.  He said when he first saw it; he had to ask, “Who are these people?!”

Herman then took the lecture to his work in California where he established his successful business. He said where better for him to create an East meets West practice?

Japan’s design had become too “museumfied” for him, he commented.

In California, he combined his California dreamin’ American sensibility with the Japanese spirit to create a love child that is both modern and natural: honoring nature in settings that are not contrived or overwrought designs.

He uses the concept of “borrowed scenery” in his landscapes.

Herman showed images of Bel Air and Hollywood gardens worthy of the big screen. 

The most dramatic of the landscapes had to be the work Herman has done for Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison.  Herman and his team worked on one of the gardens for more than 10 years. 

The Atherton garden was the first of his Ellison garden and it is a more traditional Japanese structure with elements of water and rock prominent.

The San Francisco garden is sophisticated: complex but simple with lots of abstract angles that redirect the eye.  Herman pointed out the big Japanese tea room bowl at the entrance is in a giant mechanical case, the stone floating above the bar – a swaying three-ton block. 

Why? He challenged us.  In case of earthquakes. Something east coasters don’t usually think about in design. Although after this summer and climate change, we many be adding to the checklist.

There is a grid water feature that bisects the house. He used bamboo and baby tear drops: only three plants in the design. 

The water is de-gassed so no bubbles.  

The latest and biggest of the Ellison gardens looks like a Japanese emperors mountain retreat.  

The boulders and created lake on the 20-acre landscape are stunning. 

Herman ended the lecture with views and a tour of his Hawaiian retreat. 

Herman's Book is a full garden tour: 

http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Gardens-Kyoto-Marc-Treib/dp/4770029535