NYBG Landscape Design Lecture featured Chinese Star, Kongjian Yu

Like kids heading back to school, landscape designers and garden enthusiasts dearly look forward to The New York Botanical Garden’s (NYBG) annual autumn, three-part Landscape Design Portfolio Series.

The venue was new this year: The Asia Society.  This is a much better locale: good theater seats, convenient to get to and good viewing from every spot -- unlike past rooms where often far too hot with overcrowding, chairs that went bump and not enough seating for the SRO crowd.

NYBG’s Landscape Design Coordinator, Susan Cohen, an award-winning Connecticut landscape architect and lauded for her work producing the Landscape Design Portfolio series, told me after the lecture that the series has always had an international theme.  I hadn’t noticed till now.  Susan said this lecture was two years in the making. Just that day, she and Yu flew back to New York from the ASLA conference held in Phoenix.

 

This year there is a Chinese, Japanese and Canadian are the award-winning designers who will present their work, focusing on “sustainable design and aesthetic innovation.”

First up in the series was Kongjian Yu, Chinese landscape architect and educator, founder and dean of the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at Peking University and founder and president of Turenscape, one of the first and largest private architecture firms in China.  He recently won the ASLA’s Excellence Award for his work at Qunli Stormwater Park.  He also has recently just published his monograph, Designed Ecologies, the Landscape Architecture of Konigjian Yu.

So Yu clearly has the street cred.  Literally. 

Yu demonstrated how he took what he described as “dirty” areas and “through landscape architecture, made it beautiful.” 

Yu is made for lectures and presentations: he possesses a tall, commanding presence and a compelling passion for his art, dusted with an endearing sense of humor. 

More than a few times, he characterized his designs as “Messy” because he uses lots of ornamental grasses, a la the Midwest prairie grasses or Piet Oldief.

By the end of the lecture, Yu had the audience, laughing along with him, each time he chanted the “Messy” attribute.  Yu seemed delighted with the charm of Messy, saying Conde Nast Magazine on 2008 described one of his design creations as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. And Messy!

He had the audience loving his work and his design stories.  

While there was no mention of how Yu secures his public commissions – in a country that spends 9% of GDP on infrastructure, drinking even a few drops from this spigot can be lucrative and ….

Through images and remarks, Yu described how he and his firm could take a blighted, dirty area, and within a few months, transform the spot into an urban park, enjoyed by its citizens. And in China, that means A LOT of people. Yu cited that more than 200,000 in just the first month!

There seems to be a certain theme and style in Yu’s designs:

·      They follow the contours of the landscape,

·      Refrain from cutting trees,

·      Cut and fill landscape

·      Skywalks and boardwalks,

·      Use of low maintenance plants, and a sense of child-like wonder and joy, bound with a grown-up embrace of the romance. 

He showed his gardens with kids jumping on walls, people taking a nap in the park, and a couple stealing a kiss on a starlight night.   

“You don’t have to change everything,” Yu said, “Just what is needed.”

Just help nature do its work.” He added, “Simple” to emphasize the Zen of his work.

Hardly. 

But the parks do look like they’ve always been there, courtesy of Mother Nature.

A hallmark of Yu’s design and one that makes him a pioneer is his ability to use rainwater. 

Not only

Uses diff pH values to introduce a variety of flora and fauna species.

Moreover, landscape design can artfully create urban solutions to flooding and drought.

He recounted how in 1977 so many citizens had died in urban floods.  “It was on CNN,” he noted.  “People were dead in the streets!”

China recognized it needed a “Green Infrastructure.”

“The landscape can be used as a ‘sponge’ to transform the park through use of walls and plants and a series of interconnected and spiderlike skywalks above.”

Using a “cut and fill” technique, he creates boardwalk networks and then “just” plants the periphery, using the water as a filtration system.  The parks can then generate clean water that is enjoyed by the people. The ponds are filtering the water and introduce new ecosystems. And at very little cost, according to Yu.  

“It is a city AND nature,” Yu points out.  “Like Central Park, but low maintenance,” he adds.

This is surely a model for the other cities.

Yu explains that 75% of their water system was polluted. And they simply couldn’t afford to fix it.

But landscape concepts and engineered design can play a huge role in remedying the problem./issue.

“I learned from the farmer,” Yu explains while showing images of crops and botanical gardens that are nutrient-rich in a planned landscape.

“We can use different nutrients to get the oxygen into the water and create a cascade wall of aerated water, for example.”  We can create a 300 meter aqueduct wall to generate 2,400 tons of water so that 5,000 people can use the water – even to shower using clean water.”

I daresay the thought bubbles of the audience were trying to visualize New Yorkers bathing in a park’s waterfall…

In any event, he has created an eco-friendly waterfront. 

“Seventeen new species of fauna have come to the waterfront in just one year,” Yu cheerfully and proudly claims. 

He also claims they are just helping nature do her thing. 

They capture rainwater and storm water --design the parks and gardens  -- and in one to two years, they have transformed the urban space to one of utility and beauty; at low cost.

Yu went on to describe a landscape in Guizhou in the Yunan province where by following an ecological strategy using wetlands to purify the water and his sky bridges, he created a green infrastructure, saving the government billions.

Having been to the gardens in Shanghai, Suzhou and Beijing, and having witnessed this incredible patchwork of storm drain deserts; Yu’s solutions seem sylvan and doable.

Further, I hope his urban works preserve many of China’s heritage neighborhoods.  We stayed in the fascinating, charming hutongs, and I hope the ancient ways of water and land use remain so.  Too many of them have been ripped up for the people or the Olympics…

One Can Make A Difference

Finally, he showed his own apartment as a template for sustainable, green infrastructure.

In a country where scale is sometimes unfathomable and dense, it was easy to recognize  the progress to see how just one family can make a difference and achieve success.  

Yu described how his family collects storm water and produces 60 pounds of vegetables using the collected water.

“We have been living well, testing the systems for three years,” said Yu.  “Using nature, we didn’t even need air conditioning,” he added, noting how humid and hot it is in Beijing.

His apartment is a learning center of sorts.  

His spatial strategy provides free service and can solve almost all the big problems

“Small solutions to big problems,” he repeated with conviction throughout the talk.

“We need a new aesthetic,” commanded.

“Performance Landscape” that is today!

He concluded how it might be possible to repurpose buildings.

He showed several iconic Chinese architecture in new ways, drawing laughs and encouragement. For example, the Birds Nest, designed for the Olympics, can become a farmer’s market!

Tiananmen Square can be a farm, he implored! Make it beautiful not useless.  

Following Yu’s talk, Gregory Long, NYBG president praised Yu as a good leader.  Long thanked the guests, encouraging the audience to get his book that was just shipped.  “Only NYBG has the book,” he added, no doubt spurring the frenzied book buy after the lecture.

How to Establish an Espalier & a Sweeney Todd Encounter with Firethorn

Pre-Haircut: Hort team working on espalier 

I included an Espalier in a favorite garden design client’s transitional side garden room about ten years ago, no doubt, for it’s expected drama. 

The espalier design concept packs a punch in less space. 

While the process can take years, depending on how quickly the plant grows, it is handsome garden art throughout the maturation or development of the garden installation.

According to the lexic, espalier is “latticework used to shape or train the branches of a tree or shrub into a two-dimensional ornamental or useful design, as along a wall or fence.   

Espaliered trees are often managed for decades.

Historically, populations planted and grew espalier in countries that revered their food and didn’t have space for growing fruiting and stone fruit trees. 

For example, the French, Italians, Egyptians and Japanese, to name a few, grow apple, peach, fig, and plum trees along house or barn walls where the tiered, flat tree stems produce delicious fresh fruit without requiring an orchard’s acreage for the full tree petticoat.

Of course, these same country’s premiere gardeners and horticulturists couldn’t leave well enough alone – and before too long were “torturing” their trees into ever more grand and complicated patterns!

In the United States, our curse and blessing remains that we have so much space.

Espalier never really took off in America for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the space issue. 
There was also a perception that espalier was a “fancy-pants” kind of horticulture – (mon dieu -- it even sounds fancy-pants French!)

Not meant for the ethnic, emerging immigrant population here and in the burgeoning suburbs. Best left to the old-European aristocracy and the botanical gardens.

Truth be told, espalier is rather easy-care, sustainable, garden practice we should revive as a more common way to grow fruit trees and enjoy the beauty and bounty of growing our own food.

And there remains a place for the ornamental espalier too, adding unexpected design wonder and awe.   Plants as art, the espalier is strikingly beautiful, especially because admirers recognize and appreciate the patience and love that goes into nurturing this “two-dimensional” tree.

The espalier has ben called one of the most impressive visual achievements the craft of gardening has to offer.

Typically, you will need to spend an hour or so two or three times a year trimming away wayward stems and shoots and encouraging the plant in the directions that please you.

The best time to prune is in late spring after the plant flowers or in the late summer/early autumn. 

The plant material I chose for the now decade-old espalier is pyracantha, commonly referred to as Firethorn.  With an emphasis on the “thorn” part of its name, it’s no surprise that the pruning is more of a gladiator’s match up!

I selected the pyracantha angustifolia or Firethorn (in the rose family) because of its hardiness and strength, after all. 
But also for its all-season interest and a Mediterranean – inspired look. 

It is good for native pollinators, especially birds and bees. 

It also tolerates alkaline soils that dominate foundation soils of suburban homes.

We had friends who used it as a “living fence” fronting the barrier fence that enclosed their pool. It was like viewing an ever-changing art tableau as the plant changed its wardrobe accessories, if you will, from lacy white to glowing, fiery red.

I wanted the spring white flowers – commonly referred to at the “bridal veil.”  It’s pretty and light – almost ethereal -- which is saying a lot and belies the tough-talking reputation of the Firethorn.

The orange berries in the late summer and autumn are like a top-heavy necklace over the purple caryopteris and blue grass that bow at the foot of the espalier in its bed, lending the color palette of that Mediterranean look.

The espalier leads the eye -- paralleling the seashell path.  And the horizontal lines draw the eye onward to the incredible bay beyond – and link the viewer to that part of the “borrowed view.”

The stem patterns are limitless.  You can direct or train the stems to grow into any shape or style you want. 

The various traditional ones include Candelabra, Belgian, U, Fan or horizontal. I chose the latter for the directional, triggered element of movement. 

And beauty, of course.

Setting up Espalier and Care

For the first few years, the firethorns -- four of them -- were allowed to just grow – like a child – it was allowed to be carefree…

The central trunk was surely established after perhaps four or five years, which might have been too long a time – we started the firethorn onto a formal, constructed framework.

The first team to do this was comprised of experts who were or had been students at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) and its School of Professional Horticulture (SOPH)

It was a working, paid, learning assignment.

The students were already hort magicians, dedicated to their passion for the world of plants. They respect good garden design and in this case, the work that would go into making the espalier a remarkable and sophisticated joy to behold.

All of that team, by the way, has gone on to become directors, managers and working arborists and horticultural professionals at the Parks or botanical gardens in the New York metro area.

For that first framework, the team used wire trellis and aluminum poles. The wire stretched the length of the house that is the backdrop for the espalier and the mechanism to create and manage the space intervals of the branches – or lateral buds that in turn create the pattern.  Here that pattern was the horizontal shape.  From stem to stern – approximately 38 feet.  And it is almost 13 feet tall.

This framework worked for a number of years until a few things happened: the plant material got heavier as it got older, putting extra pressure on the wire supports; and a squirrel’s nest and babies added weight to one are. 

At one juncture, this combination caused a cratering.

While there have been lovely bird’s nests perched on the tiers, the squirrel’s nest might have added weight, especially with all that scampering they do…

We tied and wired it back to rights just in time. 

There is a rather funny aside story I will share with about this chapter of the espalier.

From heavy duty rosarian gloves to opera gloves

Never thought those two kinds of hand ornaments would be, ahem, joined at the thumb, did you?

I was gently pruning – and I do mean gently – almost holding my breath. It was the year the last quadrant was sagging a bit. 

I wore long, over-the-elbow, heavy-duty rosarian gloves for this venture. 

While snipping, all was good.

The “crime” must have occurred, as best as I can piece together, while I was merely holding the branch up so that my garden assistant could better tie the lateral branch on to the wire.  I had given her the rosarian gloves to use as she was in the thick of things.

I changed to standard garden gloves. Further, I wore two layers of long sleeve shirts and a jacket.

I gave the encounter no thought.

Later, after heading back into town, to enjoy an NYBG lecture as part of their ongoing Fall Lecture series, me and two favorite garden and hort friends were enjoying an after-lecture supper when one of the ladies points to my arms and exclaims, “What is going on with your arms?!”

To my horror, it was a bit of Sweeney Todd mixed with some religious crucifixion condition. 

Besides some blood, the arms were swelling up.

Well.  Needless to say – I called my dermatologist the next day and he removed thorn shrapnel with a high tech eyepiece guiding him to the itsy, bitsy shavings that were embedded the length of both sides of my arm. I was sent home with a prescription, too.  Sigh..

I knew it was the plant’s adaptation. 

No big thorns had strafed me. Rather it was the plant protecting itself.

Still, I had a wedding to go to that Saturday and didn’t want to have to listen to whispers noting what they might imagine as “abuse,” nor to dominate a conversation pod with that aforementioned Sweeney Todd look.

So, I determined to secure some sexy, long opera gloves to wear and turn a negative into a plus. 

After some rather unexpected research, I found a designer who makes the gloves.  The big department stores and boutiques came up empty for me. They said ladies don’t wear dress gloves anymore…

I went up to the garment district and had a ball buying no less than a dozen vintage – and new gloves. Long, short and 7/8’s length.

When the two Vogue magazine stylists arrive to pick up their leopard print velvet, fingerless kitten or half-gloves, I discovered the glove maker had made two sets. I grabbed the second pair. Big score.

The other big score was that post-wedding; my girlfriend gave me her coveted and glamorous evening and dress gloves that had belonged to her mother who had just passed away.  This was a gift of love.  And I am still weepy when I think about being the steward of this glove cache…

And the best part of that glove gift?  One pair was still sitting in their plastic store bag with cardboard fitted into each finger. Frozen in time. 

The name on the bag was:  Duchess.  It was destiny…

In the end, I don’t blame the firethorn.  I tried to look at the escapade as not only a learning experience but also one that brought joy and love and extended garden glamour.

Next up – how we resolved the Espalier escalation and brought it to a secure, safe place, with an improved, groomed look. (how-to videos and images)

In fact, its Hollywood-like splendor evokes that “I’m ready for my close-up” moment to the extent that the garden clients installed outdoor lighting so that neighbors, passerby’s and garden lovers can admire its pin-up glamour all through the night just like on the red carpet…

Summer Entertaining & Installing a Water Garden Fountain in time for a family party

Nothing says summer like a big family party – made all the better by celebrating more than a few Leo birthdays.

Did you know there are more Leo’s than any other zodiac sign? 

Hmmm, let’s see.  Counting back nine months, it must be that woozy, Thanksgiving food coma or its key nutrient tryptophan or snuggly cool November nights!

All the more reason to pause and indulge in enchanting Summer entertaining because we can celebrate outdoors – with nature. In the garden.

The only thing disrupting this Eden-like utopian dream for us was that our garden was a lot less verdant; pre-party.

The sad reality was it was still more of a modified construction site. 

In fact, we just had the front walk I designed installed for Independence Day. 

The newly-installed turf had taken, it was true, despite no irrigation system, and all was a vast improvement.

But there was that hard to ignore, pesky blob of sand, weeds, wood planks, and useless plastic protecting this junkyard, er, our yard.

Regardless, family was in from Arizona, with their extended family; to celebrate the 80^th birthday of my dear cousin’s mother/my aunt/my late father’s last surviving sister. 

Got that? 

Whew!

Take away? 

It was a special family event that begged for an elegant menu to celebrate and honor my beloved father’s sister. 

I naturally collaborated with my cousin for the celebration and while he attempted to keep it “simple and not a big deal or fancy – truth is that any really special, memorable party indeed cries out for a glamorous, delicious, homegrown menu.

Seriously. 

If everyone serves hamburgers & hot dogs from the supermarket (with all its attendant corporate, disease-laden frights – not only is it Boring!  (

Recognize this communication: “Ok, you bring the potato salad and noodle salad and I’ll get the dogs and burgers and steak.”

Voila—there is the weekend menu. 

No.  That is code for: “I don’t really know what to make and am scared to serve my guests something else – and I daresay, much like politics and its code, learning and trying and making more than the average menu is not “Code” for “fancy.” 

I have listened to too many people say, “I don’t do fancy.”  “I’ll just have burgers and dogs and….” 

Sigh

How utterly boring.

Don’t get me wrong. I am a Wimpy.  I LOVE, LOVE, Love a burger more than most.

I could eat my way through any region just on burgers.

But the key -- moreover the point that I share with my Hamptons and Long Island Homegrown Cookbook fans and anyone else who is committed to good food --  is that if one is hosting a party, let’s PLEASE make it as special as the guests you’ve invited and the reason for the party to begin with 

Yes, it takes work to come up with a menu.

Yes, it takes work to make the food.

But food is love – just a four-letter word spelled differently. J

The code for “I don’t know what to do or to serve” or “I don’t do fancy” really means no one wants to take the time to lovingly produce a menu they can make, or at least one that a local caterer can make. 

How to remedy this ill?

Take a deep breath. 

Inhale the beauty of family, love, and spending time with those you care most about. 

And if you don’t want to cook and prepare the food – no problem. 

You who are all things glamorous and homegrown – can produce the menu.

You can have a local caterer or local garden center foodie court prepare the food.

I am so trying to encourage you to move away from the fear of having more than a few people over for dinner or lunch or brunch – and just serving “Safe Food”

The honest to god’s truth is that that stor-

 bought corporate stuff is waaay less than safe in the long run. 

Burger patties already cut?  Yikes. Who knows where that came from.

Hot Dogs that are predisposed to icky and only more so when the corporate scraps are swept up.

Don’t do it.

You who wouldn’t give your family any less than the best shouldn’t feel intimidated by the honor of producing a family dinner or lunch party that is Homegrown, delicious, local and seasonal.

Here is my menu for my aunt’s 80^th birthday party. 

Aunt Anne Birthday Dinner

5:00 pm cocktail: Beer, wine, martini, garden-harvest mint iced tea.

Nuts, pretzels

Club Sandwiches – w /flag toothpicks

Cherry Tomato Gazpacho from my Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook from The Lake House: Chef Matt 

Antipasto 

Grilled BBQ Pizza  - my idea

Tzatziki Yogurt Spread: low fat yogurt, cucumber, garlic, dill, olive oil, salt

6:00 pm to 9 pm Dinner followed by Birthday cupcakes

Entrees

·      Pretzel-Onion Crusted BBQ Chicken with Pretzel Latkes, Corn, and Mustard – Chef David Burke 

    Cookbook

·      Meatloaf Bundt Cake – Chef David Burke Cookbook  

·      Potato Salad with Dill – Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook

·      Butternut Squash Saltimbocca with Burrata Cheese – Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook   from Kitchen A Bistro, Chef Eric

Dessert

Aunt Jeanne desserts

Homemade ice cream – Garden State peaches (wooahh!)

Mint Filled Brownie Cupcakes  - Martha Stewart recipe- Mother made and lucky strike extra?  Niece and budding pastry talent, Tara, made her version for the big birthday surprise party two days later.

See how good food inspires and begets yet more good food?!

Menu

The menu was sourced from my just-released book: “The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook”  and from my soon to be released New York City Homegrown Cookbook that features David Burke and recipes from his cookbooks, plus my own favs, such as classic club sandwiches. 

I do my own twist on servings too –so I encourage you to do the same.

The classic club sandwich I do is morphed into the BLT --  one of my favs. 

I make the homemade mayo with our homegrown garlic. 

We use the fresh bread from my mother’s weekly baking and use The best bacon, our garden fresh tomatoes and lettuce and punctuate with an American flag toothpick!

I tier these on those Martha green ascending cake plates.

Guests can breezily indulge from the moment they arrive!

All garlic, tomatoes, potatoes, herbs, mint tea were sourced and made from our gardens and “farmette.”  

Chef David Burke recipe for American Classic bunt baked meat loaf

Mixing up gazpacho with Homegrown just picked ingredients

The Kitchen A Bistro butternut squash planks ready for cooking up

Kitchen A Bistro's Butternut Squash Saltimbocca recipe: our homegrown squash & sage

The Fountain Springs Forth

And once again, just like the front walk installation, the landscape design transformation for the water garden, was complete just as our guests were arriving! 

“Move that truck!” joyfully echoes in my head. 

I always work with Burke Honnold’s team for me and for my clients because they are artisans and do the very best work. 

It is precise, accurate, and well-- beautiful.

Due to cost, Burke had wisely suggested I go with a pre-made fountain rather than having the team make it, as we’d done for other clients.

And like magic, a fountain came into my life.

I found a tinkling fountain while on a nursery shopping trip for my client’ – filling in some container plants. 

Even now I’m not sure if the fountain was really for sale. There was no price tag.

I asked the sales person, Blanche --who was finishing up with another shopper there -- how much for the fountain, whereupon the shopper whipped her head around and quipped, “I’m going home with you!”

Ha.

After some back and forth, listening to the fountain – (my husband hates that full-on waterfall sound vs. a lovely trickle of water.)

And my garden design fountain was destined for outside the dining room so that the lovely, soft, sensual sound of water would be soothing. 

Further, I wanted to provide a garden destination for cocktails where we could walk around the fountain, sit on the side, float candles….

And listen to the sound of water while dining.

On the less dreamy side, there were also more than a few chips in the fountain foundation. But for the right price, I could work with it.

We were in negotiations…

I readjusted the water garden design, made the parterres work and called to say “yes.”

Within a few days, it was being installed.

First the space for the circular base was measured, and dug.  

The fountain was then placed within the space and very delicately, the fountain was assembled.

The fabric liner was placed over the space.  

The fountain piece were locked into place like a puzzle.

The rubber mallet tapped it together.   

Then the metal was cut and bent for the parterre borders.  

It was amazing to watch.  

The water plants were put in:  

and the Fountain started up: 

The water garden will be bordered by Skip Laurels, box and winter blooming camellia and micro buxus.

The parterres should be filled with easy, fragrant lavender border by box; the variety as recommended by Earthy Delights.

In the meantime, I asked that mulch be put in the parterre beds.

Further, the side garden walk was installed with the same decomposed granite that is the walkway around the fountain and on the side of the front walk and the transition walk.  

I like it very much.  It complements our home look. The DG is the walkway in Paris’s Tiuilleries gardens and Chicago Botanic Gardens and featured in Garden Design Magazine. 

What’s not to love?  

It's a great first start and bones to a good garden design/foundation....

Next up: getting the border skip laurels in and the plants for the parterre planting…