The Garden Glamour blog is the "little black dress" for an entertaining lifestyle. The "must read" postings offer inspired stories about horticulture; garden art; Garden Design. My passion for beauty & culture celebrates artful products;Exterior & Tablescape Designs; book reviews; homegrown food & drink; Garden-to-Glass Finishing Touches; & funny, insouciant anecdotes about the humbling, glorious & glamorous world of Gardens!
Does your mouth water when you think about cooking with just-harvested edibles from the garden?
Does your heart melt when when you view roses scrambling over a trellis and clematis peeking through?
Does your head spin when you attempt to make an edible or ornamental garden actually work?
Good news! The Atlantic Highlands Historical Society (AHHS) is offering a Free workshop, Saturday, March 30, 1:00 pm, located at 27 Prospect Circle, Atlantic Highlands, that will provide a mix of information and hands-on tips to help you:
Create a beautiful and ecologically based garden
Combine ornamental trees, shrubs, perennials, and bulbs - along with edibles, and annuals
Emphasize using strong native plants in order to sustain our local environment
Utilize Plant Combinations - Right Plant for the Right Place
Garden Maintenance, including watering and weeding
Local, award-winning garden designer and horticulturist, Leeann Lavin, principal of Duchess Designs, LLC -- (That's me!!) will host the talk, provide hands-on planning tools, guide you through the fundamentals of the gardening process and give you the confidence to grow and maintain your gardens.
“The Spring Into the Garden” talk is a distillation of what I have learned and practiced over more than two decades of immersion in garden design and horticulture, as a graduate of The New York Botanical Garden’s Landscape Design certificate program, writer, author, lecturer, and with her garden-to-tablescape designs - a hospitality artist.
“Every good garden design tells a story,” I tell my clients. “Gardens are personal - whether you have a container garden, a raised bed, a terrace, a border or yard, you can tell your story with the right mix of plant combinations, a design that works with your architectural style and site conditions to create garden rooms that will bring you joy in every season for years to come and enhance your lifestyle. And all that starts with a good plan.”
Accompanied by a seasonal, homegrown botanical tea, the March 30th presentation includes:
A mix of lush, colorful images of gardens and plants to inspire;
A step by step plan and checklist to get you focused;
How to draw up a site analysis that you can refine and implement;
How to produce a Go-To Plant list for your home landscape that includes a mix of Natives, Perennials, and Edibles
A Doable Maintenance schedule
The “Spring Into the Garden” talk will culminate with a walk around the AHHS Strauss Museum to view the mansion’s landscape.
The Historical Society is seeking volunteers to get their hands in the soil and help reclaim the magic of these gardens at the Strauss Mansion Museum at 27 Prospect Circle. “We want folks to think of the Strauss Mansion Museum landscape and gardens as their community garden -- a place they can come to work and help rescue these neglected garden rooms and bring them back to life,” said Lynn Fylak, president, AHHS. “We are encouraging budding botanists of all ages to bring their friends and family to enjoy gardening here - for an hour or two -- whatever their schedules permit and to delight getting their hands in the soil.”
The gardens will enhance the Strauss Museum’s unique and special event programs. “What’s lovelier than sitting on the wrap-around porch in the summer with a view of pretty gardens while listening to wafting music -- and fragrance -- during our monthly program events -- especially at our popular Music at the Mansion series?”
** While the Talk is free, please register so that the AHHS can provide seating and refreshments for all guests.
(Lynn Fylak at: lynnfylak@gmail.com )
Garden Design Showcase
In related news, The Atlantic Highlands Historical Society announces its first Gardeners Showcase during spring and summer 2019.
The AHHS at the Strauss Museum invites local nurseries and garden designers to show off their skills and creativity in one of the gardens that grace the Strauss Mansion Museum estate, which is listed on the New Jersey and the National Register of Historic Places.
Participants, in return for their effort and contribution, will not only enjoy overwhelming respect and garden love -- they will receive:
• Signage that identifies their business, at each garden showcase site. This signage will be viewed by the visitors to the Strauss Museum during the spring, summer and fall.
• Recognition on the AHHS Strauss Museum and the Atlantic Highlands websites and publicity on its social-media platforms (Facebook).
• Publicity through news releases sent to regional media (including Two River Times, Asbury Park Press, The Star Ledger, Patch, NJ.Com, Garden Glamour, GardenerNews, Monmouth County weekly newspapers, blogs and social media, and more).
• A one-year, Supporter (membership) to the AHHS Museum. Good for admission to the event programs at AHHS as well as six performance tickets chosen between Music at the Mansion nights and Nosferatu.
Also the company name or logo will be placed on all social media, AHHS website and press releases.
The AHHS Strauss Museum will place an attractive sign in “your” garden and on a stand-up banner to be kept on the porch and put out for all guest events.
To secure a spot in this year’s Gardeners Showcase, or to obtain more information, please contact Lynn Fylak at: lynnfylak@gmail.com
And Good News! As reported in the Patch, "The Strauss Mansion in Atlantic Highlands received two grants from Monmouth County this March, and part of the money will go towards refurbishing the historic local property." Be a part of this jewel by the sea - the AHHS is a resource and a cultural centerpiece.
This was the best Plant-O-Rama ever. (Do I say that every year?)
Seriously, I’d argue, it was. I’ll be willing to wager there’d be few disagreements among the more than 1,000 attendees - the largest in the nearly quarter of a century that Plant-O-Rama has produced its peerless plant extravaganza, dedicated to horticulture in the New York metropolitan area; with implications for the world of horticulture.
Horticulture is one of the few careers whose professionals are ceaseless in pursuing more knowledge, more education -- the pros want to explore the latest plant discoveries and releases and plant design trends - all to improve and enhance a client’s garden beauty and health and to create landscapes that dreams are made of... Tracing evolving climate conditions, we learn about new drought-tolerant beauties, or plants that thrive in sunnier or shadier spaces; along shapes and textures that contour to smaller urban or suburban gardens - and then there’s new colors and fragrance plant gems that add the glamour to our gardens. It’s like the spring runway collections on view.
Officially, this was the 22nd annual Plant-O-Rama event. The day-long program hosted by Metro Hort was brimming with its plant ‘pillars” or foundation elements, including:
Symposium
Breakout Sessions
Trade Show
Jobs Fair
Silent Auction
Book Sale
Adding value and sizzle to the plant “pillars” or foundation of this horticulture tradition is what enfuses and distinguishes the marquee event for the area’s hortie hoi polloi.
There’s a running joke now about how every year there is a snow storm for Plant-O-Rama (POR) -- so much so that even if you were a meteorologist in training - you’d be safe in forecasting snow - no matter what the Farmer’s Almanac or the satellites were predicting!
POR is held annually at Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG), ever since Bob Hyland, who had recently served as BBG’s vice president for Horticulture there - hatched the concept and presented it to then BBG president, the venerable Judy Zuk. And I am forever grateful for Bob’s enduring garden design at BBG: Bluebell Wood. It’s an enchanting spring garden destination. And was the site for Dave Matthews’ Dream Girls video featuring Julie Roberts. It was fun managing this production one fine spring day when I worked at BBG.
This year, the newly installed president of Metro Hort, Charles Yurgalevitch, greeted the SRO morning audience, outlining the day’s agenda, along with touting the benefits of Metro Hort membership - including field trips to area gardens and parks, lectures, job postings, calendar of events, resources, and plant professional’s networking.
Charles Yurgalevitch, President of Metro Hort greets audience at Plant-O-Rama
BBG’s president and CEO, Scott Medbury, welcomed the audience to the Garden, noted the annual snow that dusts the plants and marks the occasion -- and the Garden did indeed look breathtaking, I must add. Very Instagram-worthy:
Medbury invited all to tour the garden in its “winter white,” highlighting new and renovated gardens and described a new, woodland garden that will premiere in 2018, to be named for Elizabeth Scholz, BBG’s Director Emeritus, former president and at 97 - a beloved icon to all.
Bob Hyland,
POR’s father/founder, who now lives in a kind of plant paradise in Portland, Oregon where he designs gardens from his Contained Exuberance - wouldn’t miss the annual event for love or money. Well… Bob thanked all the important sponsors who make the event possible: Town & Gardens, Brooklyn Brewery, media sponsor: Heritage Radio Network - along with the full list of POR sponsors. Thank you.
With full fanfare - Bob then introduced the featured speaker, Dan Pearson the celebrated English garden designer, naturalist, and media personality.
This is why we got there early to enjoy a front row seat!
Featured Speaker - Dan Pearson
With a colorful presentation that was narrated by Dan in his light, British cadence, we were taken on chronological journey detailing the life - so far - of Dan’s horticultural transitions from a child who gardened with his father to today.
His first garden triumph was a yellow border he planted at his childhood home -- an early 1900’s cottage. “This was my first recorded garden plan,” explained Dan - showing a garden design drawing. “I used planting combinations to create space.” he said. This strategy seems to have become a core tenet of Dan’s landscape design throughout his illustrious career.
This charming anecdote demonstrated the garden designer possessed the gift at a very early age.
He continues to adhere to the belief that gardens are “places that recalibrate you - that make you sing.” How lovely.
Dan secured a scholarship at Wisely, the Royal Horticultural Society’s (RHS) world-class garden to study horticulture. Here, and later traveling to such locales as Jerusalem or the Valley of the Flowers in the Himalayas, he explained was a true revelation seeing the gardens in natural setting. He showed images that he said “Draws itself back.”
From that home acre of a hedged garden to the world’s natural gardens was a journey that allowed Dan to explore, observe, learn and eventually, create a natural landscape design portfolio that has brought him worldwide acclaim.
At 17 years old, Dan was able to secure his first commission. His client was a French fashion designer with three gardens and a four-acre pallette. Here, he was able to implement a “No Boundaries” look, working a Borrowed Landscape design style with waves of plants - not unlike his garden travels showed him.
Dan also discovered how color changes mood. The “hot” colors of the color wheel could send pulses racing. As a proof point, Dan noted how Fast Food establishments use this body and mind alteration to augment their need for speed -- you get you in and out faster because the color is helping to generate a sense of urgency. Yikes. Not your Gramercy Tavern idea of dining…
Next, Dan shared his first garden designs for the prestigious RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Classic designs.
It was there that he met a garden design client from Rome. She slipped travel tickets under his door -- and soon, he was roaring down an Appian highway with his chain smoking patron!
Here he worked with the landscape to create a naturalistic, wild garden on the 400 hectares filled with steps, walls, vistas - and plants.
I love the way he described that it wasn’t a garden “a toll” rather it was “small moods and atmospheres” -- a dramatic, fragrance-filled retreat.
Love the white floribundas wisteria near the house...
Back in the Britain, Dan worked on Maggie’s Center - a cancer care facility that was clearly close to his heart.
This project was a “restoration but looking forward” according to Dan. He was inspired by the Arts & Crafts movement as inspired by Gertrude Jekyll.
This was to be a healing garden - in the truest sense. He described how often, it takes the patients (members?) more than three attempts to just get in. The enormity of their cancer is just too overwhelming… The gardens have allowed them a serenity and “a way to look at time differently” as the plants are always changing - calibrating the times of the year - pulling people in to stop and see and experience the environment. The courtyards and ornamental and edible gardens are designed to heighten the transporting plant immersion and experience.
There is a rhythm to the gardens there that all appreciate.
What did the gardens here provide? “Hope.”
Next, Dan brought us to work he did in some public spaces. Sadly, the government budgets are being cut in Britain too. But he was delighted to have the opportunity to work on London’s Kings Cross Development and its pocket parks and squares -- employing his signature back-to-nature and the seasons style. He used a series of rills and a reference to old train lines to showcase a sense of place and a respect for the history there. “We got to work with really good plants; use really good horticulture practices in order to create the series of spaces,” Dan explained.
The next project was fueled with an ethereal respect for nature and the landscape.
Located in the Tokachi district in the Hokkaido prefecture of Japan -- close to Russia - where the temperatures can plummet -25 degrees possesses a haunting beauty.
Owned by a Japanese newspaper magnate, he approached Dan to collaborate on a series of landscapes and to create a reconnection to the natural world; to safeguard the trees who call the 400 hectares home. The team was charged with making an ecological park that would last for 1,000 years.
It’s a soft-sell education that appeals to multi generations.
Dan envisioned and then designed a series of spaces. Once again. While designing a look that appears like the clearings at the edge of the forest.
He gently manipulated the native plants there: Forget Me Nots, Primula, a kind of skunk cabbage and persicarias.
He designed a landscape plan that included 18 plant combinations. The strongest plants take hold and are then the gardener can steer & direct the plants.
He created and worked with plant drifts in the glade and lots of ornamental grasses.
Along with Midori, the onsite horticulture lead on the landscape, Dan created a space that leads out through planting areas via a series of waves. “Children seem to disappear or to go over the edge.” Dan laughed as he described how parents watching their children from inside react with alarm at seeing what they think is their children dropping away - then run out to retrieve them - and then they too drop away.”
He added, “It gets people into landscape.”
They are making a difference - changing way people think - about landscapes and horticulture with design.
“We’ve created a dreamy feeling. Visitors can get lost in the immersive, natural landscape,” said Dan, pointing out how here again, color creates a mood.
Speaking of dreamy - before showing us a few images of his own country house in England -- which is very much dreamy -- he showed a massive project restoring and designing for the future of Lowther Castle and Gardens that’s been nestled in the Lake District since the 1700’s.
Peppered with a family history that rivals a film narrative, but grounds that boast Capability Brown elements too, this is an incredible garden story that includes some magic, lots of discoveries, and personalities. He’s been working on this scale since September, 2016, taken in bite sized, 2 year project pieces.
He said he doesn’t tend to use specimen plants but here it worked -- stately trees that set off the oak benches in the courtyard that’s used for events such as Halloween or Guy Fawkes.
Here's a time-sped video of the planting in the courtyard:
And creating parterres as tapestry.
Those walls are an incredible gift of a backdrop.
Also, Himalayan poppies are special things with high Horticulture value seen in the high windows as aperture.
He’s also creates a rose garden with a maize to move through - using a rose as the blueprint for the paths to lead you through.
I love that he designed the benches with legs as thorns.
His own place is 20 acres in Peckham, near Bath.
“It has Incredible soil!” he shared with glee. Of course he has incredible soil. What luck…
He created series of landfalls here, the first was an edible garden.
Again, he uses the borrowed view to design his garden rooms.
“I’m in tune with the seasons. With the environment, here. I can experiment with plants and designs.Not on client.”
And you get order his book, Natural Selection. I got my autographed copy for my home library.
More from Plant-O-Rama
Underused Plants of Interest
This was a breakout session hosted by Jim Glover, Glover Perennials and Joyann Cirigliano, Atlantic Nurseries. (What a happy hortie name: Joyann!)
Jim was a very good speaker - I liked his honest and pragmatic - and passionate delivery. “Some aren’t so great!” and “These are good performers” appealed to me and the audience of working gardeners.
A few of Jim’s stars included: Primula sieboldii ‘Fuji Snow’ that is a good choice for hot, humid summers.
He also showed ‘Drag Queen,’ ‘Seneca Star’ and ‘Musashino’.
Jim pointed out a number of great Ferns - that are great companions too for Platycodons for the ephemeral spring gardens. The Bellflowers are excellent cut flowers and hardy to Zone 4, he noted.
There were so many great plants Jim showed and described.
Here’s a partial list:
Geum triflorum - a spring-blooming reddish pink herbaceous plant - the Native ‘Prairie Smoke’ that is astonishingly pretty in pink.
I will surely use this in border garden designs this year.
Deer resistant Zone 3
Zizia aptera 'Alexanders'
Heart shaped leaf big yellow umbles . May - July attract pollinators
Full sun - some shade
Zone 4. Three-feet tall natives - and they self sow. So be careful.
Jim said they work well in Rain Gardens or a Meadow -- as they are best with a plant interplay.
Monarda bradburiana, Bee Balm.
May- July. Exceedingly drought tolerant pinkish, small 12-18-inch tall; doesn’t take over. Blushed copper on new growth. Beautiful seed head fall to winter.
Love this. Will joyfully pursue using this beauty.
Astrantia major 'Abbey Road'
(Photo:NetPS Plant Finder)
Pink Masterwort pin cushion to white to purple 2-3 ft tall Versatile. June to August bloom prefers light shade
Attracts pollinators.
White Giant and Roma are gorgeous bloomers in the same family.
Spirea alba MeadowSweet is a July to August bloomer that grows 3-4 ft and is “Super versatile” according to Jim. Because of its moisture requirements, it’s a top recommendation for Rain Gardens. It has a dry flower stem in a chestnut brown with native burnt orange fall foliage
Deer resistant pollinator.
Chamaecrista fasciculata, Partridge Pea: Self sows! - Be careful. Yellow blooms July and August. The pea pods are 2 feet tall. Attracts pollinators = Jim showed us an unbelievable congregation of bees and butterflies in one place.
Native, deer resistant.
Jim suggested to sprinkle seeds in the garden for following season- no gaps - and you will get a tapestry affect. I say, “be careful.”
Selaginella braunii is an arborvitae - looks like a fern - with a bronze winter foliage
Joyanne’s suggestion for Woody Plants
First off, Joyann claimed she’s an Ecosystem Specialist but not “Native Nazi.” Rather, she follows the pollinators as a way to explain her love for certain woody plants and trees.
Quercus alba - white oak. Her favorite. “We need resistant cultivars” she admonished.
Paper Birch - Prairie Dreams stress tolerant Zone 6-3, Single or multi stem
Sweet Gum Tulip Poplar - 'Little Volunteer' - 30 feet or less
Nyssa sylvatica, Red RageⓇ - Wildfire Black Tupelo - single stem that birds adore. 'Sheri’s Cloud' - variegated clone of a black gum. Medium sized tree with green leaves and a creamy white variegation that turns to pink then bright red in autumn!
Picea - orientalis golden tipped spruce yellow foliage that gets better as it ages.
Abies koreana - Indigo blue pine cones, silver color
Pinus strobus ‘Angel Falls’ weeper with a mini twist waterfall branches
Cryptomeria japonica ‘Gyokuryu’ that has green foliage growing in pretty sprays. (cryptomeria means “hidden parts!”)
Cercis ‘Pink Pom Poms’ is a new fruitless redbud!
Cotinus coggygria 'Velveteeny' - a royal purple Smoke Bush that stays red all summer. Gotta have it!
Crepe Myrtle Ebony Series- flowers seem to glow against the almost black foliage.
Ilex crenata ‘Jersey Jewels’ - dwarf shrub holly.
Ilex Crenata 'Drops of Gold'
Thuja 'Ember Waves' plicata, has bright gold foliage that matures to chartreuse, and in winter, it turns deep gold with orange tips. Thuja plicata has a ripcord like grass and is compact.
Spirea japonica Candy CornⓇ with leaves that are orange to yellow. I’ve never been a fan of what I consider a “too-common” shrub but this baby is pretty glamorous.
Same goes for Blue KazooⓇ another hearty but now pretty with its cool blue foliage.
New blue berries: Bluecrop blueberry with two harvests - self-pollinating and works in colder climates.
Plus, vines and ground covers, two new Knockout Roses (a peachy coral and pink floriflorious): and new small hydrangeas and more.
Plants are so glamorous...
Some of the highlights from the Trade Show included: Womanswork. I purchased two pair of garden gloves - one pair is an Arm Saver - that thumb-to-elbow protection often needed when working with some tough plants.
I also learned our beloved and respected horticulturist and author, Ruth Clausen, has an "Ask Ruth" column featured on the Womanswork website. No better authority than Dear Ruth. Kudos!
I also highlight my friends at Pennoyer Newman whose antique and handcrafted resin pots, containers, and sculpture I recommend and use for my clients. I love Virginia and team so much that I bid on the pot they provided POR for the Silent Auction - and won! (I just need to figure out how to get it home from BBG!)
I also loved seeing Siebert and Rice - the leading American importer of handmade terracotta planters and urns from Italy.
There was the Structural Fiberglass Planters by Tintori Castings that caught my eye. I like their grey, lightweight planters that work so well for rooftops and places where weight is an issue. A kind of skinny pot!
Tribute plaque to Landscape Pioneer Ellen Biddle Shipman at Longue Vue House and Garden
While March is going out like a roaring lion around here -- big lightning boomers last night sent a ginger jar over the edge and smashed it to smithereens - we have a few days left in this “savage and serene” month, as Emerson described March.
And it’s still Women’s History Month. When I wrote about some of the illustrious women I most admire for a women in landscape design post earlier this month - I didn’t know I’d be visiting New Orleans and Ellen Biddle Shipman’s masterpiece at Longue Vue Gardens nor discovering a renowned plantswoman by the name of Caroline Dorman -- and that their talents and work were inextricably linked. I’m so excited and so blessed by these discoveries -- and I can’t wait to share the good garden stories.
Longue Vue House & Gardens
Live Oak drive to Longue Vue House, New Orleans
The quiet elegance and glamour is almost a religious experience. When you first set eyes on the entrance drive bordered by 42 live oaks leading to the home at Longue Vue I thought it was cinematic in scope and drama. Burned into the retina. Did Ms. Shipman see it that way?
Pleasure gardens have always figured in my favorite gardens; this exquisite home seemed destined for greatness from the start. Perhaps because it was conceived in love, nurtured in a collaborative, respectful process with vision and dignity. And that woman’s touch…
You can read all about the history and the great programing at Longue Vue.
The homeowners and creators of Longue View were the philanthropists and art enthusiasts, Edith and Edgar Stern. Edith’s father was Julius Rosenwald, then president of Sears, Roebuck and Company. Their home was destined for romance right off the block: Edgar and Edith named their New Orleans gem, Longue Vue, after “the tea house on the Hudson River where they had become engaged.”
Original Sears greenhouse at Longue Vue House & Gardens
Today, there is a Sears greenhouse on the property, still in use.
It’s in the Children’s Garden, which is the only garden room that is not part of the preserved, extant, historic garden rooms.
Way ahead of the trend, Biddle spec’d out native plants here, and today, Longue Vue boasts more than 20,000 natives. And the gardens highlight one of the finest collections of Louisiana Iris. More on that later, thank you, Miss Dorman.
The love and collaboration is evident in the thoughtful way the home and garden design was pursued. As I heard recently at the Architectural Digest Show from the good folks at Twyla - “Start with the Art.” Ellen Biddle Shipman did just that. She moved the couple’s existing home, and brought in the Platt Brothers: William and Geoffrey. Together, they cited the gardens for maximum enjoyment from inside the Green Revival style house. This is not small consideration. Even today. Most folks decide to “do” a garden long after the home is complete. So take heed. Start with the art - the garden art. Why not work in harmony with nature? Enduring gardens do…
Longue Vue Maquettes created by Shipman & her team of women artists
This was a marriage in more ways than one -- from the exterior design to the details of the interior design, every things was considered. Longue Vue teams showed us a room where not only the letters exchanged among the creators testify to their intimate design process and approvals - we were told they addressed and signed off on correspondence with just their initials, ES, ES, EBS, could be a bit confusing) but there is also the maquette model replicas of the house and garden that Shipman’s all-female team created in New York in order for the New Orleans’ design team to see the shadows and interplay of light. That’s incredible devotion to design that would have Martha give pause…
The Platt brothers and Shipman traveled to Spain and Portugal to conduct research and be inspired.
Alhambra-style rill garden is one of the happy results of their garden expeditions seen at LongueVue
I was fortunate to tour the gardens with Charles Yurgalevitch, Ph.D., Director of the School of Professional Horticulture, New York Botanical Garden and Miami-based attorney, David Feliú. Walking the gardens with our guide, Director of Horticulture, Amy Graham, and Toulouse the black cat in tow, we are struck with how the eight-acre property is expansive yet intimate, with each of the 14 to 16 garden rooms appearing distinctive but part of the whole.
The view from the sweetheart staircase overlooking the kumquat parterre and water fountains gardens is breathtaking - no matter the season, the bones of the garden are there.
I like that they use the grounds’ readily-accessible pine needles for mulch. The fountains were off the morning we were there but it didn’t matter.
Yellow Garden at Longue Vue
The Yellow Garden was petit garden room near the house that shone -- with blooms and variegated leaf designs with yellow butterfly vine and their gold seeds, yellow datura, loquat, and yellow-tinged shrubs.
Butterfly Vine in the Yellow Garden
Butterfly Vine Seeds - look like Butterflies. They use them on gift boxes, too.
Edible Garden features huge sugar cane kettle as water feature
In the Walled Edible Garden, they employed a big sugar cane kettle as the center of the planting axis and used it as a water feature bubbler fountain. This is an example of employing or showcasing local materials and/or traditions. It makes design and decor unique. Special.
Lots of carefully-grown vegetables, herbs, and fruits offered their bounty to the Sterns and their guests.
Beyond, the one-acre Wild Garden beckoned. Here were scads of colorful camellias - from ruffly two-toned to bright lipstick colors, interplanted with Buckeye.
Camellias and Buckeye
I love the mixed materials in the garden.
Soon, we’d come full circle to the forecourt, and it was time to enter the house.
Longue Vue House
You enter the grand home through a kind of portal -- yes it’s a front door but given the scale of the structure, one feels almost like ducking into the semi-circle of the entry hall. It’s a most welcoming entrance.
Otherwise the main floor is filled with spacious, art-filled sitting rooms and rooms with utility, such as the flower arranging room. (I want one of these!)
Dining pocket vignette features retractable window
In the dining room, there is a pocket table overlooking a lovely garden composition. Amy told us the window that fronts the table and chairs was built to automatically slide down and open up the vista to the outdoors. Technology in the roaring 20’s that still thrills!
Dining Room peacock wallpaper at Longue Vue House
I loved the trellis wallpaper with peacocks (naturally) and the green drapes. So fresh.
Upstairs, we toured the drawing room, the bedrooms and the dressing rooms. (Spoiler alert: Edith took her meetings in her bedroom, sitting on her daybed!)
Then, just as we were heading downstairs to view the party room, Lenora Costa, Curator of Collections, Longue Vue, dashed over to us breathlessly declaring she’d just pulled the original, heretofore unseen landscape design plans for the Walled Garden from a bottom draw!
Lenora Costa, Longue Vue Curator of Collections showcases her unlocked drawer discover!
And just like that -- we were looking at true buried treasure.
“Do you want to see more?” she asked. Be still my heart! That would be a big “yes.” I felt like we were floating somewhere between Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Rosetta Stone! To see original landscape design plans from the hand and mind of Ellen Biddle Shipman that had never been seen by anyone out of the original circle was a “pinch-me” moment! Lenora didn’t have to ask twice. Trying to act nonchalant, we bustled into her office, while she made apologies for appearances.
We didn’t notice -- having eyes only on the plans being gently opened in their flat drawers. Soon, we were looking at the original plans for the Sunken Garden as designed by Ellen Biddle Shipman.
How could this be? There were no tears, no yellowing, nor decay…
Discovered Ellen Biddle Shipman Landscape Renderings the day we visited Longue Vue, New Orleans
Lenora explained there were multiple versions of landscape design plans for the simple reason that different seasons required unique sets of plans. What a deep respect for garden art -- a true luxury…
The excitement about the landscape renderings remained palpable. Lenora said she’d just found keys in another drawer -- and the keys weren’t labeled! She described the veil of private vs. public worlds accompanying the family and the organization… “There are these interwoven secrets,” said Lenora. “There’s always a process of discovery,” she added. And that got me to thinking that this is the very element that makes Longue Vue so compelling. It’s not a static place filled with history of a bygone era (although that could be enough and one could study for ages.) Rather, the House and Gardens here are dynamic, giving up tantalizing secrets that fuel our imaginations and bring us back to ever more discoveries. I asked Lenora how her team uses these nuggets; how to incorporate it into the tours -- telling the story. It’s the process of discovery…. I want to write a book about that process. I find it fascinating how a cultural organization like Longue Vue fuels it’s narrative - how it keeps that spellbound magic burning the flames of the curious. Here it seems there is always more underneath the surface. More letters, more receipts, more plans...
"Discovered" landscape renderings from Ellen Biddle Shipman at Longue Vue
Ellen Biddle Shipman Longue Vue Garden Designs
So a quick stop to the shop and the party room to see the “Living Sculpture” of Trailer McQuilkin and his extraordinary mixed media, environmental and botanical nature art that was beloved by the Sterns.
Environmental Art by Trailer McQuilkin
Louisiana Lilies
Doesn’t it just seem fitting in a “stars-in-an-alignment” kind of way that France boasts the fleur-de-lis, or iris, as its national flower and New Orleans - that bad-girl bastion of all things French in the US does likewise?
Moreover, I learned some things about the iris I didn’t know previously while visiting there earlier this month. Mainly that Louisiana Iris has a long, unique, and proud heritage. Who knew the swamps and bogs of this area held such natural jewels? Well, Caroline Dorman, for one.
I was smitten with Miss Dorman’s story the moment Richard Johnson, the volunteer at the New Orleans Botanical Garden began describing her work with Louisiana Iris. What a dame!
We should be celebrating her work in a much bigger way in order to inspire others, especially women. Miss Dorman is a true pioneer. Having lived almost a hundred years - her career excelled in more than a few categories, from public relations to being a “world renowned naturalist, botanist, horticulturist, ornithologist, historian, archeologist, preservationist, teacher, artist, conservationist, and author -- and the first woman to be hired in the United States Forest Service,” according to her bio. Wow. she didn’t waste a minute in that long life of hers.
Polymath, Caroline Dorman
She wrote that she fell hard for the iris the first time she saw one - and it was an “iris crush” that lasted a lifetime… Must’ve been those heady blues and violets and lavender blues she viewed awestruck as they danced in their ditches near Morgan City in 1920, as she described. “My excitement knew no bounds,” she cooed.
Miss Dorman wrote that John James Audubon was the first to call these native beauties, “Louisiana Iris.” Leave it to a an artist… Or an outsider. Sometimes we get so accustomed to what we have we fail to appreciate it. Dorman wrote: “It seems astonishing that these amazing flowers did not attract more attention. Ellsworth Woodward, head of the Art Department at Newcomb College in New Orleans, was struck with their beauty and made paintings of them, which now hang in Delgado Museum. Occasionally local florists cut flowers and sold them -labeled ‘Japanese iris!’” See, they felt compelled to refer to them as a foreign exotic rather than their own homegrown beauties back then.
The great iris collector and breeder, Mrs. Dan DeBaillon, (I think her own name is Mary - but the reports cite the “Mrs. moniker”), left her collection to Caroline Dorman, who had become a fellow collector by then and who also undertook a hybridizing program.
According to the Louisiana Iris Society, “Miss Dorman's greatest claim to fame as a breeder is 'Wheelhorse' (R1952), a rose bitone which has remained popular to this day and figures prominently in the genealogy of many award-winning irises. She also collected cultivars and hybridized more than a dozen Louisiana iris including Foxglove Bells, June Clouds, and Saucy Minx.”
That Mrs. Dan DeBaillon of Lafayette amassed the largest and most varied collection in existence. It’s reported that she collected the iris “in the edges of New Orleans where she found many unusual and beautiful varieties, even reds and pinks. These fields have now been built over and destroyed. Mrs. DeBaillon had visited Briarwood many times and knew (Dorman) had suitable places for growing these irises; so she willed her collection… to Briarwood, the birthplace and home of Caroline Dormon. The Caroline Dormon Nature Preserve strives to carry on the work started by Miss Dormon by preserving wildflowers native to the south and educating the public on how natural forest ecosystems work.”
Some of the Irises collected or hybridized by Miss Caroline Dormon still reside in the Bay Garden at the Caroline Dormon Nature Preserve, including Wheelhorse, Violet Ray, The Kahn, Saucy Minx,WoodViolet and FireAlarm, CathedralBlue and Mary S. DeBaillon. Miss Dormon registered and introduced 14 collected Louisiana irises and numerous hybrids. Wheelhorse, (Abbeville x Violet Ray ), introduced in 1952 by Caroline Dormon it is thought by some to be the top parent among Louisiana irises.
I hope there will be more study of Miss Dorman and her horticultural achievements. I, for one, plan to read her books. I see six of them: Wild Flowers of Louisiana (1934), Forest Trees of Louisiana (1941), Flowers Native to the Deep South (1958), Natives Preferred (1965), Southern Indian Boy (1967), and Bird Talk (1969).
I also see that some books are out of stock. Pshaw. Perhaps the library is the best bet. Or better still -- order them from Briarwood - plus you can add in her charming flower art note cards -- for $5. You’ll be helping the organization -- and you. Double the benefits. And Briarwood offers the book: Gift of the Wild Things -- an introduction to Miss Dorman’s extraordinary life.
Keep studying about the pioneering female scientists - even after Women’s History Month passes.
We have so much to learn. So much garden glamour to explore …
Jim was a very good speaker - I liked his honest and pragmatic - and passionate delivery. “Some aren’t so great!” and “These are good performers” appealed to me and the audience of working gardeners. 
(Photo:NetPS Plant Finder)
and Roma are gorgeous bloomers in the same family. 
