The 2012 Look Book: The Design Year in Pictures

The 2012 Look Book Looks Back

Color inspiration: Sunrise view from Garden State home 

A major part of my design world last year really hit home.  Literally. 

My husband Bill and I undertook a long overdue home renovation. 

We’d put it off for so long but we bit the bullet in 2011; construction work started in the last quarter of that year and design work was under way as we rang in 2012.

Color was key – from thinking about the wood and color of the kitchen cabinets, wall paint, floors, rugs, fabric for reupholstered furniture and new furniture, and fixtures.

And just like going from a black and white TV to a color set with a flashy NBC peacock, I started really noticing Color – rich, warm, pulsing bright and subtle, whispering hues and tints and shades.  

I am a watercolor painter and garden designer – and a former fashion buyer for the likes of Bergdorf Goodman - so it should be said I am keenly attuned to color and style. 

But with the home renovation my internal color wheel was spinning. 

 

I saw a recurring color not only in nature's flowers and leaves but also in industrial products and everyday items from bikes to cars to  

restaurant décor 

to office products, 

retail fashion windows, 

and Tiffany’s new, limited edition line of Rubedo (Latin for red) that is a mix of gold, sliver and copper. 

I even took the Tiffany brochure and bracelet to Home Depot’s paint department to run under the color spectrograph.  They couldn’t do it…

It wasn’t long before I realized I was taking more pictures of a spicy orangey-gold dramatic shade. 

I rather think of myself as the classic, enduring decorator but there was no denying it.  

The Look Book was filling up with lots of this exotic, spicy, terracotta, goldish color. 

In some ways it wasn’t surprising because living on the water, high up over a marina, we enjoy radiant sunrises (above) and glorious sunsets.   

The blazing fiery orange, set off next to the blue of the sky and water is mesmerizing, Mediterranean and captivating.  

So in the end, the color wheel stopped on the spice gold, Hermes orange color that changes as the sunlight, filtered light, and candlelight kisses it.

Endlessly changing, varying at different times of day and night, and like a work of art unto itself, compelling. 

It is shameless.

We can’t stop looking at it. 

And it was only after we chose the Martha Stewart Precious Metals shimmering gold paint for the dining room and sitting room did we learn Pantone had chosen Tangerine Tango as the Color of the Year!  Pantone claimed it is “sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive.  

I’ll say.  It has a lot of depth to it. 

But it wasn’t easy getting to happy color land.  What happened? (see earlier posting) 

Essentially, with two of the walls glamorously good, we were led to the conclusion that the sloping wall/ceiling that had been painted with the same paint as the walls had “pooled” the color, making it look red. So after having trialed and tested other ways to correct, we determined the solution was to paint the sloping ceiling the same light salmon – almost white in some light – and went from Yikes to Yahoo – tapping patience and vision and perseverance. And a good painter!  

With a light tough, I also added silk leaves to two sides of the wall to suggest leaves blowing in from the window.  Nice addition. 

And the transition we had artfully painted from loft guest room/office to the dining room worked as a neat ombre-like affect, marrying that sky and water blue to the spicy orange.  

In deciding the rooms colors, I had to consider the flow of the more or less open rooms.  As noted in a previous post, I subscribe to the Dorothy Draper school of color flow. 

Borrowed Landscape: Terrace herb garden view from sitting room

And it was only after much paint on wall and color swatch musings that it all came together.  No rush.

 

The colors and textures came together. The chandelier I chose has floret glass and informed by the spiral staircase, it too spirals a happy twist. 

The Drapes

I wanted silk dupioni for the drapes so that the underlying color threads would shimmer a hint of nuanced color - just like nature does.  While risky to try to "match" the drapes to the wall color - it so works.  Both in terms of clean continuity when closed but also a frame for the windows and the view out to the water garden and the borrowed landscape beyond.

In the autumn, the leaves of the cherry tree and the coral bark are a fiery orange, tangerine color too which makes the color a garden collaboration. It's that "sophisticated, dramatic, seductive orange with depth."


Seeking the fabric, the Seamstress Wendy guided me to Mood Fabrics in New York City (Wendy made the drapes for what was our Brahma yoga studio: pre Sandy).
Stepping off the elevator at Mood, I did a double take.  I asked if I was in the right place. It looked like a party.  In a way it was.
They shoot "Project Runway" there and it was frothy festival.

There miles of fabric bolts. Daunting.

Thank goodness the staff comes round eventually.  With the French bulldog, "Swatches." How perfect is that.

After cuddling with the pooch, it was back to business.
We had to order more from India because we needed a LOT of fabric for this full, crinoline effect but after dozens of samples, I knew which fabric was for us.  I had to go with the gold spice.

Wendy steamed the drapes. Bill says her hair matches room!

I visited Wendy's atelier workshop that looked like it had been made by elves for a fairy tale artisan - and in no time, she had the drapes whipped into their Grace Kelly, couture pouf on one side of the room and the more modest, svelte mid-century Chanel model on the other side of the room, there merely to frame the water views.

I've already reported on the blue marble island quest and installation in previous posts.  There also is the update on the upholstered swivel bar stools and living room furniture upolstery fabric choice and color coordination with walls.

Winter 2012 Look Book

Is there a better way to start any endeavor much less an entire year, than with a happy amaryllis from BloemeBox? 

  

Like a Russian nesting doll, the shiny, preppy-colored hat box with bow and flower on top is a gift with yet another gift inside: the plant bulb or seed (depending on what BloemeBox plant you select.) 

It’s become a Holiday Tradition that one of my garden design clients who I most admire takes us out to lunch.  In fact, Maria is a garden and food muse you could say. I noted her magical influence in my book’s Acknowledgements.

She now takes not only me, but Mother too – to a very elegant New Year’s- timed lunch. We discuss garden design plans for the year ahead, fine art, cuisine -- and dish the dirt in other ways too. 

We kicked of 2012 at Chef David Burke’s restaurant: The Fromagerie. 

Love the champagne, the culinary presentations and who doesn’t love cotton candy?  

Chef David is also known for those macaron-colored cheesecake lollipops that take center stage when they arrive at the table in their silver tree, looking so much like plant bling.  

Our home renovation was in full swing by early winter.  -- Our “kitchen” was reduced to the coffee pot in the bedroom. One’s world is diminished in times like this... (I'll spare you the photo)  

There were forays to the antique shops to find new dining room furniture. It felt like our first "adult" dining table and chairs.    

And to acquire a vintage china cabinet that looked elegant yet rustic enough to blend with the textures and various elements in the expanded room: stone, copper, brass, wood, silk and wool.

We were quite sure about the color combo of the loft: the blue of the walls, the black of the glam lacquer furniture. 

The new, sexy daybed I saw at the Architectural Digest show and just had to have was an adventure unto itself in terms securing the languid beauty from the designer. 

And then, just like that, while I was in a downward facing dog pose at yoga – it came to me. 

This glamorous screen siren could match up with our already owned-black lacquer furniture that used to shine in the dining room. 

So as quick as you can say Craig’s List, I pulled their sale postings and managed to have my nephew the fireman and his buddies get the furniture to the loft before the banister railing went up.  

The pieces went together like a hand in glove.

Each piece startlingly defined the look of the guest room/writing room in a perfectly elegant way. 

The black works with the railings and the spiral staircase, too.

Since this shopping at “Lavin 1^st Dibs” worked so well, I went on a shopping spree!

I did even more shopping from among the stored items in the garage and laundry room to rediscover the brass and glass end tables.  They fit under the eaves in the loft and set off the lacquer and the brass jewels on the new, sexy daybed.  Kismet!

We were blown away at how perfect the pebbly, beachy, carpet we chose for the loft married the blue walls, the furniture, and the copper remnants of the fireplace flashing.  The brick chimney used to be outside but was now part of the loft wall inside.

We chose the carpet from among ten or so store samples that we brought home to try out.

The lads also helped get the spiral staircase in properly - after a few false starts.  Whew.    

On the horticultural front, the Wave Hill, New York Botanical Garden and Metrohort lectures provided fascinating and informative wintertime learning experiences – enjoyed with fellow hort enthusiasts.  I was able to write about more than a few but still have some to cover and share on the Garden Glamour blog. 

Highlights of the year included the Earthly Delights boxwood talk, presented by Andrea Fillippone.  Later in the season, Bill and I visited her Hunterdon County, Garden State homestead: Earthly Delights - which is in fact, Heavenly Delight -  for a spectacular garden immersion experience. I just saw Andrea at a recent Metrhort lecture and was saddened to learn they are holding off on showcasing the event this year… Here’s hoping for an encore performance in 2014.

Earthly Delights, NJ

Earthly Delights, Garden State

The other lectures of note were: Larry Weaner, Larry J. Wente, Barbara Paul Robinson, Thomas Woltz, Kongjian Yu, Ryoko Ueyama, and Karen E. Seiger, Markets of New York City, to name a few. 

The Architectural Digest Show was superlative this year.  So much more to report on.  Trends were more eco designs, more texture and more whimsical creativity.

My birthday lunch was celebrated at The Standard Hotel with a favorite cousin, Maryann DeLeo—a most talented Academy Award-winning filmmaker who I love dearly and adore spending time with. 

For coffee and ice-skating afterwards, a dear friend, Joanne, joined us.  

The Standard Hotel in Chelsea is exciting -- from its roof top lounges to the beer garden - and plus it borders the High Line: New York City’s sexiest park. 

An afternoon eating and skating reminded me of my school days in Switzerland and was a perfect holiday afternoon.

More Garden State home décor decisions soon beckoned. 

We perused what color the hardwood floors in the kitchen and living room might be in context with the Thomasville cabinets and glass tile transition. 

After much eyeballing, we opted for the darker brown – middle of three sequence.

  

Kitchen & Living Room floors, glass tile transition to slate floor

Kitchen cabinets with buttercream yellow wall color  work with floor color tones

Likewise, decisions involving items I never even thought about – the molding, for example, required time and coordination with design elements.  And the color too -- we chose an ice blue/whitish that too changes with the filtered light and time of day. 

I did design the valance for the dining room windows, with inspiration from an Architectural Digest magazine spread.  I needed our window valance to accommodate a sun shade – I chose a brown color to coordinate with the tile floor – and the silk dupioni, billowy, ball-gown sized curtains.  We were just making it up and determining size prior to having the shade hardware or the curtain rods too.  All a bit dodgy so it’s even more rewarding when it works out.

Spring 2012 Look Book

What says spring more than those first visits to the nursery? 

Garden clients needs give me the opportunity to shop for seasonal plants and flowers the way fashionistas might frequent the runways.

Except that I’m navigating the greenhouse aisles with multi layered carts, adding plants from previous year’s design work, with an eye to what is new, what is sensational.

Early in my career I was a buyer at Bergdorf Goodman – and shopping for seasonal plants is not unlike that experience: visiting the designer showrooms to stock up on the classics and adding, new picks curated from the collections.

I’m also informed with a season’s knowledge of landscape design lectures to help guide the plant picks.

We celebrated our home cherry blossom festival with our front yard’s astonishing Kwanzan cherry tree.  I was also much relieved to see the glory of the blossoms because we had the arborist perform a heavy prune the previous autumn, post Hurricane Irene. And while it was a professional cut, one can’t help but experience a bit of a nail biter until all the petals burst into pink pom poms and soon are falling like pink snow. 

It’s a showstopper!

And notice the lacy pattern the trunks create post pruning?

We eagerly anticipated our Garden State farm-ette plantings this year with lots of garlic, tomatoes, onions, potatoes and leeks, to name a few.  

Our Compost Cabana provided rich, rich soil.  Yeah for a year’s worth of composting.  

You know what’s so cool about composting like this?  Not only the rich, sustainable soil – but the secret, surprise of what might come up or grow in the compost cabana given what was shared there. 

A few year’s ago, we were delighted to discover and harvest white and orange pumpkins (I cleaned up my client’s garden designs and street cleaned my neighbor’s dumps)

In 2012 we benefited from a honeydew melon we must have composted. 

Sweet!  

Spring asparagus was heaven. Beautiful grassy fronds add beauty to summer garden

In April, an invitation-only, stirring tribute to one the horticultural greats – Frank Cabot – was produced by Wave Hill’s Friends of Horticulture Committee, the Garden Conservancy’s Board of Directors and The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG).  Cabot was a champion of gardens, an author, and plant lover, and I am honored to have known him and to have been invited to the tribute and the reception.

In the time between day’s two events, NYBG invited guests to visit the new Azalea Garden Collection.  NYBG’s vice president of Horticulture Todd Forrest, noted it was really the first year the garden there was on full display as the first year it opened the plants were not as robust as they were now. 

I was one of the few who didn’t make haste for the reception, rather indulging and enjoying this extraordinary display garden at its peak. 

The vibrant colors and shapes of the mostly native azaleas are all the more arresting, preening it seems, as they stand out against the still-winter greys and browns of the surrounding trees, buds throbbing, waiting impatiently at the starting gate. 

The 11-acre Azalea Garden boasts not only rarely seen North American native plants, but also rare and unusual non-native specimens, and some hybrids.  The collection is curated and landscaped on NYBG’s natural rock outcroppings.  The steep slopes are punctuated with steps, park benches poised at optimal vantage points for viewing, picture taking and meditating on the ephemeral beauty of nature and the peace and tranquility of the Garden.  

In May, my long-awaited book was in the warehouse, then in pre-sale! 

It was time to exhale. 

At long last, and after more than a few roadblocks, The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook was actually here, in my hands.  

Tears of joy don’t describe the pride and humble gratitude to all the Homegrown angels that helped guide this project to completion.

I was invited to speak at the prestigious venues in New York City, including the 92st Street Y and The Horticultural Society of New York. 

Presently, you will be able to read the year in review about the book at its blog: Master Chefs and their Gardens (www.celebritychefsandtheirgardens.blogspot.com)

Summer 2012 Look Book

Nothing says summer like gardens, gardens and more gardens.

Well, maybe a beach or two… especially, pre-Sandy 

In 2012, I enjoyed working at my garden design clients’ gardens – seeing a praying mantis up close, topiaries in every season, new designs and plantings.

Here is a close up of a praying mantis in Maria's garden!  How cute is he? Green eyes are beguiling.


I secured a new garden team with two pros from the Rutgers Master Gardener program: Mimi and Dennis - and the espalier pruning pros, formerly from the NYBG School of Professional Horticulture and now on their own working with a NY-based landscape architect worked their Edward-Scissorhands magic pruning up this living work of art: Hal and Kurgen

I also basked in the sylvan glory of visiting so many Hamptons gardens as part of the book tour.
By way of Foody's owner and chef, Bryan Futerman, I was invited to The Bridgehampton Garden benefit.  This special day event allowed me to not only showcase my books, but to tour the breathtaking gardens there. Mother and I were charmed by the potager’s neat as a pin beauty – and utility, the colorful, textured perennial beds and the water garden’s sensual, serene space.

I met the director of the garden – he explained the estate was donated and a non-profit was established so it will be an event space and working garden. 

Entering the garden is a bit like stepping through the looking glass… 

Hamptons Hedges are fun to watch being pruned.

  

It’s part geometry and part horticulture. 

I think I will name one of my future novels Hamptons Hedges and tell a fabulous tale of intrigue about what goes on behind these perfectly manicured living walls. 

I often think that in a world of so much ugly or tattered manners, it’s nice to see traditions like this continued and practiced with such integrity…

The Grey Horse Tavern is a Bayport restaurant featured in my Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook and I just smile every time I see their beer garden.  

And their glimmering copper bar… Their edible garden is out back, featuring a few raised beds and the back of their red pick up truck cum garden.  

Our Garden State herb and farm-ette yielded meal-enhancing vegetables and fruits. 

A Jersey tomato is a thing to behold.  

This year we grew a variety of heirlooms, too.

The shisito peppers never stopped pumping out their sweet bounty.  We love them fried up with salt – and use as a cocktail time treat.

And this year we grew the best garlic I’ve ever tasted.  I couldn’t stop enjoying the juicy flavor on and in everything from salads to sauces to spread on bread. 

I even shared our precious garlic bulbs as dinner party gifts – all wrapped in colorful bags and tissue paper the same hue as our inspired wall paint!

This was a memorable Edible Gift.  Even if some folks scratched their heads initially, they were soon letting me know how much they were enjoying such an enduring, delicious, homegrown present.  

My girlfriend Roberta and I accompanied Mother on one of her Senior Citizens’ trips – to Monmouth Racetrack. This Gilded Age-looking historical treasure is an architectural gem – all wedding cake white with black and white checkerboard floors and era-busting style design.  Plus the Victorian planting beds there are maintained the old-fashioned way, filled with bright geraniums or canna. They embrace the grounds especially near where the horses are walked before the race.  We pick the horses by their beauty or the jockey’s silks.  

My Union Square Greenmarket bursts with local farmer and artisanal food pride in every season but summer is a no-holds, in your face, food festival.  I joke that I used to spend my money on clothes and now my monies go to local, sustainable, delicious ingredients, including the curious and exotic.
Bodhitree Farms from Burlington, NJ's Nevia No showcases fairy eggplants and chives and kabocha squash that will break your heart with their beauty and flavor.  

I worked the Greenmarket Food Rescue for City Harvest during the summer and fall season.  Food Rescue is where we take the farmers’ excess food from the day and load it up into the bags, put on the City Harvest truck to take to the center for sorting and then next day delivery to the communities that need it most.

The House Beautiful magazine event in Rockefeller Center presented a showroom kitchen and outdoor patio and garden room that was gorgeous and inspiring.

Right there, in the center of New York City, where the Today Show does its outdoor events - was a design that visitors could walk through and touch and check out for themselves.  Cooking demos too were presented from celebrated chefs. 

While I was covering the showcase house and garden for the blog, I was lucky to meet Sean Sullivan, the magazine’s associate publisher.
We hit it off like peanut butter and jelly.

I learned that Sean has a blog he’s passionate about too: Spectacularly Delicious.
Sean shares his good taste and honors the table as theater tradition.
Slow Food has met its match with his inspired masterpieces: only recipes with proper names such as "The Triumph of Gluttony!"  Part design, part culinary wizardry, Sean's lifestyle blog is brimming with his researched, curated ideas and suggestions.  I will write more about this.  But visit it now and enjoy – don’t wait for me!

Sean and I shared a perfect Hamptons afternoon shopping the food stands and specialty stores and a visit to his Hamptons home with its Edward Hopper-looking pool and garden. 

Sean was my “Plus One” for the East Hampton Library’s Author’s Night – an over the top book event launched by Alec Baldwin. I saw him come marching in with his now wife and my yoga instructor, Hilaria. I “yelled” hello to her and she enthusiastically waved a happy greeting as they were swept to the reception area. She’s a doll. 

Sean! Happy Day/Happy Memory/Super Talent

Me, and in some cases, my team, did a lot of garden maintenance work this season.
It was too hot. Too dry.  But we did it. The plants were wilting and so were we.

Two of my clients live right next to the beach (town to remain nameless for reasons you will soon understand) and they needed some clean up there too.

I turned one into a chaparral-like garden.

They loved the work so much they urged me to make some flyers and let their neighbors know how I could help them.  While I don’t usually do much of this kind of work, I respect and like my clients so much – and didn’t want them to think I wasn’t grateful.  So in the end, I finally accommodated and put a few (15?) flyers in some mail boxes and in front planters while Mother waited in the car, as we were on our way to a beach afternoon.

Later, the police called and left a message. This started a horrific nightmare series of consequences where I visited the police station to clear everything up. I was humiliated. The police told me they could put me in jail!

I had to hire a lawyer, go to court and pay a fine.  For offering to clean up gardens…

My husband joked that he could see the scene where inmates state what they are in for: murder, robbery, aggravated assault – and me saying, “gardening.”

It was no joke, though… but rather a stress-induced unnecessary blot on a sweet, love-filled endeavor that is filled with hard work.  But Sandy took her own revenge....

Garden Design

So much of my fleeting summer was seeing some of my long cherished home garden design come to fruition.

I designed the front walk – comprised of bluestone and used brick and decomposed granite (DG) -- and for days, the team was cutting the stone, measuring and putting into place my garden dream.

The garden design challenge for the front of the house is frankly, to resist the urge to do not much of anything so as not to compete with the world-class views of Manhattan, Staten Island, Brooklyn and Long Island, along with the Raritan Bay and Sandy Hook as seen from the back side of the house. 

One would be forgiven for focusing on the more “lived-in side;” just putting a neat façade to the front yard and calling it a day.

But I am a garden designer. I love gardens.  We needed a classic garden that would be an enduring work of garden art.

We have various elevations in the front yard.

A huge driveway (one can do a Grand Prix K-turn there). 

And located up front and center is that huge, luscious Kwanzan cherry tree that is pure poetry in the spring with its pretty pink blossoms and in the autumn with its fiery orange leaves, matching up with the Red Abor's delicate fall leaves.
In the other seasons the Kwanzan dominates the yard.  I respect this sakura and designed around it.

I got lucky and found a fountain for the water garden and despite its price and challenge to deliver, I am ever so glad I did a carpe diem and bought this Tuscan-looking tiered fountain with an urn on top. 

I redid part of the water garden design to accommodate it, modifying the parterres. 

The design concept for the front was to create more than a few garden rooms: parking courts, walkway, street front border, foundation perennial border, water garden, a spec of turf/lawn and to marry this to the now 10+ year-old Red Arbor garden --so named for the Coral Bark of the trees and Red Twigged Dogwood as seen in winter and the Lady in Red hydrangea and red roses in summer.

The walkways allow for a step up from what will be a more garden-friendly driveway, er parking court, to a circle: signifying or suggesting movement and transition.









One can go ahead to the front door, or proceed onto the water garden.

This path will also be the only way to the back terrace and garden except for the Red Arbor.  

The path takes you into the water garden – enclosed by cherry laurel, bordered by box – as will the parterres which will have lavender inside with a boxed citrus in the center.  

This water garden is accessible from the dining room of the house.  A wall of windows with two sides of sliding French doors open to the water garden.

One can step directly onto turf, as I selected former township curbs as the step’s risers and the turf is the step.  So nice to walk onto in the warm month – getting right into the garden, if you will, and in winter – the snow will look so pretty stacked on the two level of steps. 

I’ve decorated with cut Christmas tree branches and big gold balls we had from previous year’s big wreath.  It was perfect.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Our Summer Saturday yoga classes were extra special this year – and I even took Mother for two afternoons to enjoy our beach. 

I must’ve had an intuition that this would be the last of an era….  

Autumn 2012 Look Book

Autumn arrived with a whisper.

The fall asters were pretty in purple. 

The garden views from our new room were divine.

The home and Greenmarket harvest was a mellow triumph.

My garden team planted spring bulbs.

I produced a good garden design for clients and me and the team installed it.  It was beautiful.

I produced several other design concepts for a garden client and while he paid for the designs, he hesitated – saying he wanted to wait to install. 

But then Superstorm Sandy lashed out and nothing will ever, ever be the same.

That garden design client who did not pursue the garden installation did not benefit from plant protection and further, his house is now designated not livable. The yard littered with detritus from the sea and river.

We heard he is on a suicide watch…

Other clients had their yards mawed by Sandy and her evil twin Athena. 

It was breathtaking to behold the destruction.

They are rebuilding the bulkhead and the yard. 

Yet another who’s house in the woods was completely spared, was generously hosting friends who were evacuated from their home. Sadly, their big SUV’s unwittingly tore up her lovely, unique parking courts that look like giant checkerboards, composed of white marble and green turf squares. So that had to be redone…

The area is called Two Rivers and the tidal surge pushed both of them to the limit – smashing boats and docks and cars into places they shouldn’t be.

Some of these things landed in basements and on porches.

Some curiosities were juxtaposed against one another creating tableaus or compositions that are the stuff of nightmares. 

At Mother’s a boat and a pier pierced a tree and then a hamster cage hung like an earing dangling just above it…

The trees suffered so.

And then, as I’ve written about, the next humiliating tragedy was the wholesale slaughter of the downed trees or the ones that the utility companies deemed, “in the way.”

This is an unwarranted, wholesale slaughter of living things.  Things that give us so much, like beauty, housing for other wild life, oxygen, and soil retention (yes there was a landslide near one of the rivers as a result of clear cutting).

I have advocated for protecting our trees and investing in infrastructure and putting the utility wires underground.  We deserve better than a centuries-old way of operating, especially in light of climate change.

Overall, I developed a seven-part plant clean up and soil remediation program that we implemented for the clients who were most affected by the salt water of Superstorm Sandy.

It was a herculean task and many hours that we gladly devoted to saving the plants.

We did all we could. About the only thing I’m concerned about is that the plants are comprised and some insects have set up shop – mainly the Indian Wax Scale. Curiously, these sucking predators are all female – no males!  And once they are in, the black fungus further disfigures the host plant.

I heard it said more than once by many of the trades coming to fix the houses that they never thought about the gardens.  Seriously?

I smiled and reminded them how much money the homeowners have invested in the landscape.

Plus the plants are alive. Too many people just don’t see plants as living things… Just ornamental “things.”

Let’s Wrap it Up

The holidays brought a much-needed respite.  A time to reflect and take stock and look ahead to 2013.  The winter solstice ushered in the Age of Aquarius – a time of compassion.

Cheers to a happy, healthy and prosperous new year. Thank you for all your reads in 2012.

Please write and share your garden highlights, design highs – and lows  -- of the last year.  Lessons learned and goals for the year ahead.

From Tolkien's Trees to Post Sandy Tree Replanting Plans - We Need Our Trees. Stop the Massacre

In the ongoing nightmare of Superstorm Sandy that we can’t yet wake up from in our coastal areas, trees are much on my mind. 

I see the massacre of our area’s trees everywhere around us in the Garden State.

Our home there near Sandy Hook – the name coincidence is not lost on me either and just reinforces the lingering Sandy imprimatur – is more or less home base too for my Duchess Designs fine gardening and landscape design work.

I have been meaning to write about the tree destruction as a follow up to my last post but have been consumed with cleaning garden clients’ gardens of Sandy and her salty spread.

We have planted spring bulbs too, a sure of hopefulness.  That’s another story.

I Tweeted about the wanton destruction of the trees, especially after talking to my arborist, Mike Hufnagel, Hufnagel Tree Service (www.hufnageltree.com) who told me of the preemptive slaughter of too many trees.

I was stunned.

Mike also says, “Today’s acorn is tomorrow’s mighty oak.  I always tell my customers that Oak is the most desirable tree to have on your property.  Even if a superstorm can make them uproot and split.” 

Quite philosophically, he continues, “We have to remember we live in an ancient forest. It is only that we choose to build our dwellings and communities here! The Trees were here first.”

On November 27 he wrote to me with no small amount of anger and sadness, “I am witnessing a massacre of the rest of the untouched storm-damaged large trees being removed due to Fear!! Everyone is cutting trees due to fear.

Just look at all the tree companies driven by $$$$.  Instead of educating the community on Tree failure and maintenance.”

Mike adds, “We are living in the age of Extinction of our mature forest trees!!! So sad!!”  

Indeed.

I researched cultures that killed their trees – from Haiti to Greenland to Africa.

It never ended well for those places and, in fact, the “civilizations” either died out or changed their climate.  Of course in those situations, trees were ostensibly cut for more or less valid purposes: building materials and grazing.

Our wholesale massacres are happening out of fear and ignorance  - which is so much more shameful. 

On the other hand, there is the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Wangari Muta Maathai, a Kenyan who, according to the official site of the Nobel Prize, was awarded the honor because she “introduced the idea of planting trees with the people in 1976 and continued to develop it into a broad-based, grassroots organization whose main focus is the planting of trees with women groups in order to conserve the environment and improve their quality of life. However, through the Green Belt Movement she has assisted women in planting more than 20 million trees on their farms and on schools and church compounds.”

Tolkien and Trees: Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit Teach us about the magic of Trees

HobbitTree: photo courtesy neobeatificvision.wordpress.com

I have had a long love affair with J.R.R Tolkien’s respect for trees.  I have written about how the author imbued his trees with xx and empowers the trees.  They are the heroes of the stories. 

In an enchanting way, Tolkien inspires us to embrace trees for their life force and inspiration.

In order to more accurately describe how Tolkien’s Trees resonate, I researched the web and discovered Claudia Riiff Finseth’s www.theonering.net

Riiff captivated me with this intro: “Anyone who has walked in a forest knows there is no better place for adventure. Snow White knew it, and so did Hansel and Gretel. Trees and forests, with all their branches and paths, hollows and hiding places are perfect for suspense, surprise, enchantment and danger.”

“To speak of J.R.R. Tolkien and trees in one breath is to speak of a life-long love affair. From the time he was a boy and played among the trees in the countryside at Sarehole in Warwickshire at the turn of the century until his death at Bournmouth in 1973, Tolkien was, as Galadriel says of Sam the hobbit, a “lover of trees.” Humphrey Carpenter in his biography (1977, p.24) says of Tolkien,

“. . .And though he liked drawing trees, he liked most of all to be with trees.

He would climb them, lean against them, even talk to them. It saddened him to discover that not everyone shared his feelings towards them. One incident in particular remained in his memory: ‘There was a willow hanging over the mill-pool and I learned to climb it. . .One day they cut it down. They didn’t do anything with it; the log just lay there. I never forgot that.’”

As a lover of trees and a man who abhorred the needless destruction of them, Tolkien the writer often defined his characters as good or evil in part by their feelings about trees. Many of the evil peoples in his stories are tree-destroyers. The orcs heedlessly and mindlessly hew away at the living trees of Fangorn; Saruman destroys the beauty of the Shire by erecting buildings from its trees; and Sauron’s evil presence turns Greenwood the Great to the black and decaying boughs of Mirkwood and makes Mordor so sterile that a tree cannot grow there.

Conversely, among the good peoples of Tolkien’s world are many tree-lovers; one could almost say it is one of the hallmarks of Tolkien’s good people. Galadriel, Legolas and the whole host of Elves show a deep regard for trees, almost as brethren; the Ents and Huorns tend and guard their forests as shepherds protect their sheep; Samwise, the hobbit-gardener, cherishes the soil of Galadriel’s garden, using it to restore his own devastated Shire; Aragorn, rightful King of Gondor, takes as his banner symbol the White Tree; and Niggle desires nothing more before he dies than to finish his painting of a tree, Tolkien’s metaphor for one’s life work, for his own writing.

Hobbit Tree Tunnel, photo courtesy of BluePueblo, Tumblr

Tolkien’s life was filled from boyhood with the rich symbolism of the great trees of literature. The stories that “awakened desire” in him as a child included “above all, forests.”  

Trees in Today’s News

The Tree issue continues to dominate the news and I’m sure will be a topic of this evening’s MetroHort group meeting and holiday pot luck holiday event.

Today’s New York Times features a front page Tree story: “Spate of Harsh Weather in New England Shifts Sentiments on Trees.”

The report highlights this new, scary approach to trees, writing, “People are looking at trees near their home in a different manner….It’s no longer, ‘This is a nice shade tree.’  It’s ‘This tree could fall on my house.’”   

“People were envisioning having entire trees crashing down on their houses and there was a lot of panic,” said Phillip Cambo, president of Northern Tree Service, a tree-removal company that serves much of New England”

Further, the story does acknowledge the gift that trees are: Trees add character and beauty to a property, of course, but they also benefit the environment, trapping carbon dioxide, one of the major contributing greenhouse gases, and releasing oxygen. And they help protect against erosion and maintain the balance of the ecosystem.

Several storm-battered towns across New England have undertaken extensive replanting programs — though many programs encourage planting smaller trees, like fruit trees and dogwoods, rather than the pines and maples that, when mature, can cause the most damage.

Many New England towns authorize local tree wardens to determine the health of shade trees and ban their removal unless they pose a hazard.”  The New York Times "Once Leafy & Friendly, Now Menacing"

I argue that we should replant the big trees. 

We need their shade, their vital lung work for us – and for the myriad other functions they provide to so many of Mother Nature’s denizens.

And we also need another moniker for those who work in towns on behalf of trees.  A “Tree Warden” does not sound good or friendly despite its meaning of keeper and custodian.  Perhaps it’s the connection to a prison that conjures up a less than kindly protector status.

How about Tree Keeper or Tree Champion (America loves competition and winners…) Or how about the good ol’ Tree Hugger?

I got back to town (Manhattan) after weeks of post Sandy garden clean up and maintenance only to find the row of trees on Wall Street have been uprooted and cut down!  Deliberate?  

More Tree Talk

Below is a copy of an article written by Tyler Silvestro for the American Society of Landscape Architect’s Dirt publication.  The article covers a lecture by James Urban.  I received the copy as part of my membership conversation with fellow Landscape Design Alumni Group. 

We enjoy and benefit from professional knowledge, support & tips from experience, and shared interests.

You Can’t Fool Mother Nature but You Can Understand Her

04/18/2012 by asla dirt

James Urban, FASLA, noted soil and tree expert, recently gave his talk, “You Cannot Fool Mother Nature but You Can Understand Her,” at the Arsenal in New York City. Urban is a prolific writer and lecturer on the subject of tree planting and the conditions needed to improve tree performance in urban environments.

Urban focused his talk on eight simple ideas, all basic steps to yield more productive growth in urban trees. The ideas were driven home by a slideshow containing images from his recent award-winning planting guide and bookshelf mainstay, “Up By Roots: Healthy Soils and Trees in the Built Environment.”

To Urban, planting trees is all about the science. Take a walk down your street and notice the adolescent trees stuffed into the recently curb-cut sidewalk. According to Urban, that is our fatal mistake. We try all the time [to fool nature] but we never win.

The space below the ground is competing with other urban systems: storm water structures, utilities, urban compaction systems. These obstacles severely hinder the performance of those adolescent trees, many of which were not even properly selected in the first place. Urban shared his understanding of this paradigm: Once we have a hypothesis, we tend to give extra weight to any information that supports that hypothesis. To Urban, this kind of thinking leads to many street trees being planted incorrectly.

Over the past thirty years, Urban has been instrumental in the development of both structural soils and structural cells for use under sidewalk pavement. However, his message has remained and his eight guiding principles to planting trees have as well:

1. Trees need dirt!

2. Plant trees that are native to their urban ecosystem.

3. Can you resolve the conflict between the politics of trees and the planting of trees?

4. There is no free lunch.

5. Get just one tree right.

6. More soil volume please.

7. Harvest storm water.

8. Improve the nursery stock.

1. Trees need dirt!

According to Urban, New York is actually a relatively easy place to grow trees. To become a functional, mature tree in an urban environment, a tree needs between 800 and 1,200 cubic feet of good-quality loam soil. Urban believes that New York City has the space but not the soil.

2. Plant trees that are native to their urban ecosystem.

To further understand this concept the audience was pushed to buy Peter Del Tredici’s, Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast: A Field Guide. No longer are we harking back to the Manhattan planting plan for advice on what to plant on Queens Boulevard. Urban, the consummate pioneer of the urban environment tried to incite the crowd. Lets get into it and start figuring it out! Urban also warned us that in ten years or less we will all be calling nurseries to purchase Ailanthus.

3. Can you resolve the conflict between the politics of trees and the planting of trees?

Urban took this opportunity to speak of the role of the arborist. Currently, certification is relatively easy to obtain. However, as the profession of arborist progresses it needs serious restrictions. Making certification more difficult to acquire would promote the profession, putting them on the political map. Arborists could then better join broader political discussions and highlight the importance of trees.

4. There is no free lunch.

Here Urban stressed the idea of compost. His example that two tons of raw wood only produces one ton of compost is telling in that he believes there is room to explore this area. He further explains this idea by bashing the hot item right now, Bio-Char. After describing Bio-Char as really bad, he lightened the assault by clarifying that it is only good for small amounts of soil. I wonder if this simple idea was an idea at all, or an excuse to diminish the popularity of the charcoal-based soil amendment.

5. Get just one tree right.

In a checklist for tree design, one requirement is to understand the root area index (RAI), the calculation determining the correlation between the root and the surface area. To explain this, Urban used an image of a wine glass standing on a dinner plate. The dinner plate, representing the soil volume and the wine glass base, the trunk flare, are basic visuals of how simple a successful planting can be.

 6. More soil please.

Again Urban stressed the importance of understanding soils and the surroundings. Soil can be understood as the community of vegetated and urban systems surrounding the planting site. Urban explained the efficiency of his structural cells compared to that of constructed soils (Cu soils). One attendee, an expert and supplier of Cu soils, vehemently disagreed. He argued that the structural rock matrix that makes up the load bearing component of Cu soils do not inversely affect the performance of tree roots as Urban suggested. Not wanting to get into a fight over the success of his inventions, Urban explained, “I’m almost done with the Cu slide - actually, I’ve been done with the Cu slide since 2003.”

7. Harvest storm water.

When designing systems its important to allow nature to guide us in protecting our natural systems from floatables, hydrocarbons, chemical pollutants, and runoff toxins. In the green infrastructure overhaul of New York City, large trees will play an important role in the solution and have the ability to store and process massive amounts of storm water both in their roots and leaves.

8. Improve nursery stock.

Nursery stock, in the age of the New York City’s Million Trees Project, has become a hot topic. Tree growth can be determined before a tree is even planted if a basic understanding of the stock is obtained. There are many issues concerning healthy plant growth at nurseries. Proper limbing, pruning, watering, drainage, sunlight, soil volume, and basic organization are all things to consider when visiting a nursery for healthy plants. However, the number one issue is container plants. We need to stop buying container trees. It’s an unfixable problem! The girdling of roots has no remedy and their trees have no chance of reaching their potential.

Much of what James Urban discussed in his lecture seems to touch on the ideas of publicity. Yes, the science of tree planting is essential to success but so are politics. Urban reiterated this idea by empowering key figures in the crowd. The Parks Department, the City of New York, and New York Restoration Project need to put pressure on nurseries! Its Urban's hope that New York City will become the benchmark for intelligent street tree planting.

This guest post is by Tyler Silvestro, a master’s degree candidate at the City College of New York (CUNY), and writer for The Architects Newspaper.

I especially appreciate the advice for trees' role in storm water harvest.  

Our communities – urban or suburban demand we care for our trees. 

Please do not allow ignorance or fear to allow large-scale murder and massacre of our trees.

Their removal is our loss.  The repercussions are long term and far reaching.

There is no “do-over.”

Central Park, NYC Tree Art Two Days before Sandy Storm