Metro Hort Lecture Shines a Light on Emerging Ecological Design

Billed as a talk about “Relationships of Ecological Design with Landscape Architecture” and featuring the landscape architect and urban ecologist Alexander Felson, the talk was full of anticipation on the subject of the love child of science and design that needs exploration and discussion.

Its moment had arrived.

Unfortunately, the compelling topic’s prime time in the spotlight fell short of expectations.

I can’t quit put my finger on it but as I looked around the PowerPoint-lit room in the Central Park (NYC) Amory where all the Metro Hort lectures are held, there seemed a discernible – and in some cases, audible – tsking or whispers of “where’s the plants?”

You see, horticulture fans want to see pictures of plants, wildlife. “Before” and “After” images are especially well received.

And Alex – while undeniably knowledgeable and informed – he used no notes and was animated in his delivery, conveying his downright passionate about the topic and the issues – couldn’t seem to connect with the attending audience. 

People started to leave at the appointed conclusion time, despite Alex’s getting the OK to continue for another half hour. 

I thought maybe it was me.  I want to be sophisticated about this most important subject and burgeoning field.  But no, the stony silence screamed, “This is not grabbing me. It’s kinda' boring…”

Further, the morning after was a New York Botanical Garden lecture and attendees there were making “Icky” faces when asked about the Metro Hort lecture.  The reviews were in.  It is undoubtedly a compelling, fascinating topic. But the lecture wasn’t interesting, sad to report.

Perhaps if it was more focused…

Or used more vivid images of plants rather than almost exclusively the flat, one-dimensional charts, diagrams, and graphs that were on the screen. (I only shot plant pictures for this news post.)

I’m sure there is a thespian or performer who was quoted as saying, “Know thy audience.”

In all fairness, there were those who said despite the academia-style presentation, we do all need to learn about the reconstructing landscapes and ecosystems using applied ecology.  There needs to be a proactive approach to embedding science into the system of landscape design.  Research needs to be included as part of the design process too. 

There was no argument from any quarter about that. It was just how it was delivered.

Nevertheless, the points are worth repeating here.

The opportunities for restoration and applied ecology will only increase. 

Alex showed more than a few examples of innovative restoration projects including the Presidio Trust in San Francisco, NY’s East River waterfront, the World’s Fair grounds in Queens, NY, and the 200 acres in Queens he’s working on as part of Mayor Bloomberg’s Million Trees Program.

And a cutie pie one using the life cycle of oysters.

The Presidio project brought together a team of landscape architects and designers and ecologists to talk about their broken communications and to determine how to reach consensus. 

This part of the process in creating adaptable landscapes, while a key dynamic, doesn’t make for lecture fodder… Isn’t it true in any business or working dynamic that it’s hard to get things done but discussion and goal setting and compromise work get to the desired outcome? The answer is yes.

So to me, not a huge surprise that one part of the Presidio’s concessions was a winning result.

No one could take issue with how those traditionalist who clung to keeping things the way they were - however ill-informed those decisions may have been - came round to making some changes so that they could replace 40 trees with local genotypes at Inspiration Point, thus insuring a great view.

Alex advised that in these situations no one can have its cake and eat it too.

Compromise is the only solution. 

The Adaptive Management Approach incorporates a few key elements he says will prove valuable in getting to those solutions. They are:

·      What is the value of species richness?

·      What is the value of soil amendments as they will also promote invasives?

·      Determine whether to remove or leave invasive species?

The Cost & Benefits part of the add-on lecture was kind of a non-starter -- a bridge to nowhere… 

In terms of management, costs must be managed. Again, that’s true for any work discipline.

And it’s important, of course, to measure things like the biomass and carbon sequestering.  

He cited the development of the system to measure that an urban tree will take anywhere from 11 to 41 years to pay back its carbon survival.

And yet, he noted there are yet no ways to measure the human cost of interaction. Why not?  How can we overlook this most important element of watching children in nature, developing a relationship with nature?

However, Alex is working very hard to “build a bridge”  – to become part of the landscape architect frontiers of ecology.

One goal he’s got his eyes set on is Parking Lots – those blights on the suburban landscape where once there was probably a farm or meadow, and are now locked into unsustainable asphalt…

He cited the overabundance of “human modification of land that influences the aesthetic.  We need to create water absorption, nearby wetlands, perhaps recirculating water and increase permeable surfaces in the parking lots – and in urban environments in general.

Another very important project is one he’s working on in Bridgeport and Old Saybrook, Connecticut.  Working with the Nature Conservancy they’ve created mapping that surveys the area that that will indicate which neighborhoods and homes will be under water given the expected storm surges as a result of climate change. 

There was already a lot of damage after the summer’s hurricane that left more than $300,000 worth of damage behind and more than a few townspeople feeling like those living on the coast are a tax burden for the rest of the citizens.

It’s so difficult to tell a third generation family there that their home will be under water or that they have to leave and move away, Alex commented.

Alex pointed out how work is being done to use Amtrak train tracks and from there through to the tide gates.

They tried to get the town to raise the utilities from the basement but that suggestion went nowhere.

He proposed they not think of their neighbor as random but rather as a sub basin watershed

And so it goes…

“Restoration ecologists work with designer and other practioners in the development of resilient and adapted landscapes. Traditionally focused on reconstructing ecosystems of historically documented landscapes, this approach is being reassessed in light of changes in site conditions and pressures on ecosystems from global environmental changes

Alex discussed his involvement and work in projects where novel ecosystems that use historical knowledge of restoration and recognize the value of creative environmentally sensitive solutions that are functional and aesthetic.”

Alexander Felson is a landscape architect and urban ecologist, is on the faculty of both the School of Architecture and the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University.  His projects include a Harlem community garden, The East River Salt Marsh project with Ken Smith, and a real estate development in the Tuxedo Reserve where he brought a together a multidisciplinary team of academics and practioners to work the developer community planning boards, and regulators to define and encourage responsible management of urban eco

Review of New York Botanical Garden Premiere Lecture in 12th Annual Winter Lecture Series

Larry Weaner

Breaking the Rules:  Ecological Design for the Real World

New York Botanical Garden (NYBG)

A few years ago, NYBG started a new trend as part of its successful winter lecture series.

To borrow a baseball metaphor, they bring in a switch hitter, prior to the featured speaker.  It’s like the audience warm-up to the main show except when it’s not.

In the beginning, audience members just didn’t like the Garden cutting into their time. After all, these are subscription tickets and people want what they paid for.

The brief intros were more like commercial announcements, as in what’s coming up at the Garden/don’t miss this or that exhibit…

Over time, I think the warm ups have yielded more substance, offering more of a coming attraction kind of lucky-strike extra. 

I’m not saying there aren’t some attendees who still text one another during the preview talk wishing it would end, but I do think the quality of the bonus talk has earned a few stars. 

The Garden should own up to the new format though, as part of its truth in advertising, rather than just popping it in or seeming to “sneak” it in.  Especially if they stand behind the commitment and quality of the talk – after all, the Garden possesses world-class plant experts in many fields who can add to the dialectic between science and environmentalism and sustainability and plant science.

Todd Forrest, vice president of Horticulture, Living Collections, NYBG provided the preview.

Todd is an informed, confident professional, who can also communicate complex earth science paradigms and triage the worlds of horticulture, garden art and botany so that the narrative is compelling and sometimes, downright funny.

Fittingly, Forrest talked about the issues of history, preservation, and sustainability surrounding the Garden’s old growth forest. 

This is a man born to his calling.

He impressed upon the audience how the 50-acre hemlock grove is a “changing forest” rather than a preserved, pristine place that is more of an archived attraction. 

NYBG took possession of the forest in 1895 – in the spirit of the Hudson River school and in the context of expansion and a retort to the city’s rapid industrialization.  

The rest of the Garden was, in fact, built around the forest.  

Forrest used nostalgic images, government surveys from more than a hundred years ago, through to today’s Garden and volunteer staff to demonstrate how the forest has been studied and documented.  The baseline was established by the WPA in the Depression to create a statistical picture of the oak, hemlock and cork trees there; 17% was re-mapped about five years ago.

The Garden tracked the history of the forest’s soil composition, its chestnut blight, theft of the native jack-in-the-pulpits, and the exuberant bird watchers who inadvertently contribute to soil compaction when they go off-trail.  

He pointed out the fact that the squirrel population is now off the charts—used to be 2-7 per hectare. Now it’s 45-51!

Then, there are all the invasive species the Garden has to deal with and manage.  Exotic species alone are up 92% since 1984.

Gardeners are hopeful people though.  And true to form, Forrest outlined solutions that have proven effective in managing the forest, including identifying and removing the invasives: knotweed, ranunculus, Japanese honeysuckle, and cork trees, for example. Beat the squirrels to the hickory and oak nuts, and nurture good herbaceous plants like ferns.  This tedious, dedicated work has yielded results and made a difference, according to Forrest.

Forrest soon introduced Larry Weaner with a funny anecdote, before noting what an innovative landscape designer Larry is -- how blown away he is his by Larry’s sophisticated sense of horticultural style and his respect for the processes. http://www.lweanerdesign.com/

Breaking The Rules – Featured Speaker

Larry thanked Todd for laying the foundation for his own talk about ecological design and succession: both natural and man-made.

Plus Larry noted how much of Todd’s presentation was in fact, a primer for his message. And he was right.

Larry launched his presentation showing the once fashionable “Meadow in a Can” marketing ploy, asking for a show of hands of those who tried this garden slight-of-hand. 

His point was that this attempt took advantage of our collective conceit to make a happy, carefree meadow. 

What were we thinking? 

Well, for starters, we were romantic and loved those billowy blossoms swaying in that random, dreamy dance.  What did we know of habitat?

Like a born-again preacher administering to a receptive, converted flock, Larry seemed to give us group absolution, saying, “It was purely cheap seed.” Adding, “Invariably it was going to fail. There was no connection to the real world.”

And just like that, the dream evaporated. Pouf.

Turns out, producing a meadow is just as intense as a making a successful perennial border. 

But this little cautionary tale established the foundation for Larry’s message and brought us to understand how his ability to break the rules made him a leader of ecological horticulture.

And how we can all follow his example to the promised land of less invasives, less lawn, if we can just think about understanding the ecological processes and habitat.

In the handout, he asks, “Why break the rules?” The answer: Because considering ecological science changes everything.

A key element we learned is that of a competitive environment.  Here the idea is matching habitat to conditions that will sustain the plant species. 

Larry urged us to think about plant communities -- where plants associate with their preferred evolutionary buddies.  Think diversity here.  Monocultures cannot sustain themselves.

Instead, stability is found in companion planting.  

Plus, different plants need different pollinators who recognize their native species.

Disturbance is huge he tells us.  There is disturbance to avoid and disturbance to apply. Who knew?

Disturbance occurs naturally or by man and it highlights the life chapters of a plant.  

For example, if a tree falls in the woods there opens up more light there so that the cardinalis plant, for example, that has been “slumbering” will now germinate and grow where heretofore it had been kept like a Sleeping Beauty, awaiting its prince charming.   
Plants adapt.  
Using a Mike Tyson analogy to describe a fair fight he urged us to prepare for the planting conditions we face.  Gardeners tend to be too hopeful at times…

Within plant communities, change is a desired aesthetic. Work with it. He recommends four plants per square foot will be overgrown except for natives where this metric will inhibit weeds.

Natural succession is management vs. maintenance to allow for change.  We don’t want death. Gardeners are about beauty and life. But Larry reminds us that plants do die.  Plan for it.   
Also plan for plant compositions that change over time such as rudbeckia – or Black-Eyed Susan - that is a bi-annual.  It’s a process of succession of layers and tie in seed mix waiting to unfold. Plants grow at different rates, even in those meadows.  

Traditional Practices might be advantageous.  Choose plants that match plants to habitat and community when designing a garden.  The competitive level is big so be mindful when selecting cultivars.    Larry used a coreopsis as an example.  A recent coreopsis introduction is rosea pink that is not a native species – it’s a wetland plant and would not do well in a traditional dry planting bed we are accustomed to for a coreopsis.  

He also showed examples where no irrigation was needed when the soil Ph is correct; no staking needed for plants that were densely planted or vertically layered.  

Design a garden by editing during the management phase.

When planting think about these priorities:

Soil preparation,

No tilling – avoid disturbing the layers

Imported topsoil vs. native soil

Be mindful of the soil amendments and organic material

Alter planting times.  Allow time between distribution of seed and pollination, waiting for weeds to germinate. During that time, he advises, the plant will have exhausted the weeds.

He also preached the common sense wisdom to select the season best for the plants over the weeds.  This methodology will also decrease watering needs.  Larry used the example of planting Mediterranean plants that require little water that were planted in late June/July thereby recreating or mimicking their native habitat and better insuring a healthy start.  This is in contrast to conventional wisdom, which is to plant in the spring – or autumn – and give the plants lots of water.  Something to think about…  

Research your regional Ecotypes and plan accordingly.

And look to what he terms Restoration Nurseries.  Most every other type of nursery has a single goal:  get the plant material out the door. Too often the plants don’t have a strong root system.  They promote leaves at the top of the plant.  But those scrawny, spindly plants are in fact, destined to be healthier in the long run, he told us.

Larry employs a curious way to tamp out weeds:  Timed mowing.  
Mowing seasonally cuts off invasives, forms dense cover and weeds fade out, Larry says.  It takes about five years to see results for this more human landscape.  “It’s sophisticated but not difficult to do,” he adds.  He showed how he did this with his own birch line with native spirea manipulating the tree-shrub composition and Migrating the Mow Line so that he can modify the sinewy path out to where he would prefer it – closer to a meadow.

He recommends cutting perennials in the spring not the fall.

Don’t use raw wood chips because they will alter late stage succession plants.  Pea gravel often allows birdseed “deposits.”  Instead, replace traditional mulches with highly competitive ground layer vegetation.   

It was a lot of information – all terrific and in many ways it was learning to break some long held rules or assumptions.  Larry Weaner needs to produce a book about his out of the garden bed theories and evolved landscape design practices.  He says his goal is native plant dominance in the seed bank. 

Hip, hip, hooray!  I, for one, plan to be a loyal follower and card-carrying member of the Larry Weaner Ecological Design fan club.  

Larry concluded his talk with a beautiful piece of music that he said inspired him and that he hoped would help convey the experience of being in the landscapes.   

It was a “Partnership of Nature.”  As a Hayden string quartet played, and breathtaking images lit up the screen, it was a few moments that underscored his sense of awe with nature. I cried…

Next up is Doug Tallamy, Thursday, February 16, 2012 at 10:00 am to discuss the use of native plants and the importance of insects in the garden, local food web and ecosystems. For more information and to register:

http://tiny.cc/n1b0q

  

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

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

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

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

According to the NYBG post: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The water is de-gassed so no bubbles.  

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

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

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

Herman's Book is a full garden tour: 

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

Paradise Found at Metro Hort Garden Lecture

Social networking has its green scene. 

Laughter and chatter and welcome back hugs, along with a few air kisses, greeted Metro Hort members at the wine and cheese party that was abuzz on the garden rooftop of the Arsenal, overlooking New York’s majestic Central Park.  Skyscrapers perched liked distant sentinels frame the world-class oasis. 

It was a sublime soiree. 

In conversation bubbles that formed, dissolved, and connected, the group’s professional horticulturists eagerly shared their summer work project stories: garden travel, garden design, park renovations and the tribulations and triumphs of horticulture work during what has been noted as the second hottest summer recorded.  There were a lot of stories to tell.  

This year’s growing season had its share of climate change mood swings, that’s for sure – from hot to rain to storms of the century. 

But horticulturists and gardeners prevail!

Metro Hort’s premiere lecture greeted the new series’ season with Emil Kreye & Son’s talk and picture show about their work constructing rock and water landscapes. (www.emilkreyeandson.com)

Luke Kreye, Emil Kreye & Son

I think it’s safe to say that Luke’s presentation about the challenges and problems of building their gardens left the members a bit breathless. (One rock garden project is 400 feet long and 23 feet high.) The scope and scale of their work is beyond what most members’ typical projects consist of. 

These are rock gardens for the dinosaurs.  

No dainty screes or diminutive blossoms here. 

These landscapes are colossal. They require heavy, massive technology to move the boulders from the Pennsylvania quarry to their clients’ yards.   

Er, estates. Or compounds. 

See, the Kreye’s client list is happily upscale.  Keeping up with the Larsen’s – of Long House Reserve – and Frank Cabot’s Stonecrop -- and the family who started Bed, Bath & Beyond takes them, well, beyond more than curb appeal. 

When the question of how much a garden design like this might run, the answer was “a lot.” When pressed, Luke said a suite of steps might run $50,000. 

And believe me, these landscape designs were comprised of more than a few stairways to heaven.

The awed members expressed true admiration and respect for the work.

There is palpable pride that four generations of Kreyes know their craft and design with nature. The family tree must surely possess a family garden god or goddess that imbues them with garden power to design ravines, cascading waterfalls to rival national parks, and moats fit for a king – or hedge fund manager.

The feature water gardens or “water installations” circulate water all year long. Water flowing around frozen ice sculpture in their design work is a construct of engineering that creates a living work of art. Some of the waterfalls grades were 150 feet high and the landscapes embrace more than 10,000 pounds of rock.

They’ve created bird sanctuaries.  The water builds microbial colonies, the shrubs are planted to contain waste, rocks and other plants especially ferns, too.  Koi are used in all the ponds they create.

The Kreyes change the topography. The create ecosystems. Designed filters and EPDM rubber linings – so no leaching Luke claims -- support the infrastructure and operation. Overflow water is directed back into the drainage system.  They heavily compact the earth. They use native plants and the result is a landscape tableau that looks likes it’s always been there. 

Alternatively, some gardens have no plants.  It’s rock and water.  And the landscape is a “staged installation.”

Luke describes the design process as visiting the landscape and getting a feel for the site. I couldn’t help think of the mise en place, or spirit of the place, speaking to the family.

Quarry

They then go to the Pennsylvania quarry and select the stone. 

Then they reassess on site before moving the rocks to create that ideal sense of realism.  “We don’t want to be moving around rocks that can weigh more than 200 pounds, “ Luke pointed out…

“And I personally know every rock in every design,” he states with confidence and pride. So while the designs are outsized, the personal, customized oversight permeates every project. 

Luke and his father design the landscapes, His father – who was in attendance at the talk – details the work.  Each project takes about a year to build, according to Luke.  Technology has allowed the family to create more landscape fantasies.  

A completed installation in the Kreye portfolio was just manic over the top – a real conversation starter. 

A Old Westbury, Long Island family visited the Atlantis island resort and came home determined to build a water slide like the one there. (and here all I got was a t-shirt!)

Kreye’s landscaped or manipulated the yard to make way for not only a water slide but a pool and other impossible water works that would make Poseidon blush. They used cherry laurels to hide a lot of the slide structure so one has the sense of sliding through a forest glen.

Luke dutifully displayed the work at his own home in Oyster Bay, Long Island.  He even invited Metro Hort members to visit for a tour.  “We give three to five garden tours a year,” he noted.   It is sensational to say the least.  “We use as many plants as we can,” he said while showing Eden-rock like images of waterfalls and moats. 

Paradise found…     

If you are a horticultural professional interested in becoming a Metro Hort member, contact the association at:

www.metrohort.org

Romantic Gardens: Nature, Art and Landscape Design

The Horticultural Society of New York

Elizabeth Barlow Rogers

Romantic Gardens * Nature, Art, and Landscape Design

George Pisegna, Director of Horticulture at The Horticultural Society of New York

  www.hsny.org introduced the featured speaker, Betsy Rogers Rogers. George said she was a leader early on in the public/private partnerships that took root in New York City in the last 20 years to much success, most notably in Central Park.    

Rogers is also the founder, president and instructor of the Foundation for Landscape Studies.  Not that long ago, the Foundation offered a graduate program in Landscape studies.  www.foundationforlandscapestudies.org  It remains an amazing resource for historic and contemporary landscapes and has an almost unsurpassed digital library through its affiliation with ARTstor.

After her talk, the two of us spoke about the closure of the school and lamented the loss of opportunity and exploration and discovery embodied in the curriculum.  I had long intended to attend the school.  I was happily envious of Nancy Seaton, horticulturist extraordinaire, who I know from working at botanical gardens, as she went through the program, graduating successfully before the school was shuttered

Betsy opened the lecture with the notion of romanticism and said we’d focus on some elements of the book that was the basis for last year’s Morgan Library exhibit that she co-curated.   The book is a piece of art unto itself and I highly recommend it for anyone interested in gardens, history, the arts and well, just beautiful things.

Rogers proceeded to demonstrate how landscape architecture gets played out internationally. “The Romantic concept occurred simultaneously in different western countries.”

She explained that we would look at literature, art – and I might add, politics – besides parks and gardens to understand the differences in the concept of mise en place – or a sense of place. 

The culinary world refers to mis en place as a cooking term meaning “everything in place” such as the ingredients and utensils: having everything ready to cook. 

However as it started in landscape design, it was meant to suggest the landscape design is natural to that particular place. So no palm trees in the Long Island landscape or native prairie grasses in the Netherlands. (hint, hint, Piet Ouldolf J) 

“Here we will talk about designed landscapes that are intended to mimic natural landscapes – in the English countryside for example.  New York’s Central Park is another example of 19^th Century scenery.

“The use of boulders in the Park recreates what people thought of as natural,” she added.

She illuminated the design concepts as seen through the prism of national heritage and culture.

She took us through the examples of romantic landscape designers in England, France and Germany before detailing the new world of North America, which is New York City.  (It was all a very euro-centric perspective)

Romanticism in England

She told us important elements of landscape design are: mise en place as well as the Genius of Place, first identified by the Englishman Alexander Pope, who wrote about the “spirit of the place” that must be “consulted” before making a design, in his poetic epistle counseling gardeners.

His advice left an enduring and important impact on gardeners and landscape designers and one that is a defining principle of garden and landscape design.

Pope admonished gardeners to design with nature as a partner.

This ushered in an era that effectively put an end to the prissy, French, Le Notre Versailles-style gardens.

Think of a lazing English country house where it was all the better to see nature as an artistic muse. The scenery of a Romantic landscape was inspirational especially for the free spirits who could indulge in creating such landscapes. 

Ruins played a particularly important role – their imagery was a prevailing feature in Romantic Gardens, Rogers noted.

She talked about the landscape architect Humphry Repton, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphry_Repton a much revered 18^th Century British landscape designer in the style of Capability Brown http://www.capability-brown.org.uk/ which was the natural, mise en place style.

Repton also coined the term “landscape gardener” to describe his work. 

Repton was the first to present his garden designs with watercolors, drawings, and text to show the “before” and “after” looks.  His work was eventually produced into bound Red Books, so named for their binding. 

Rogers said he showed for the first time how property could be developed and designed. 

Repton was born in Bury St. Edmunds, a garden-scape of a village that I have some historical connection to.  In 2004 I donated some of my lightweight flower pots I design and have made: The Garden Pendant Collection.  It seems the town, Bury in Bloom, was to have been eliminated from the national Anglia in Bloom contest because their pots were deemed too heavy and dangerous. You can only imagine the hand wringing that this caused! The Brits are just mad for their gardens and flowers…

I read of this situation and offered to donate some of my Garden Pendants.  I ended up doing some newspaper interviews and a BBC radio interview. Subsequently, I was invited to Bury St. Edmunds for the awards ceremony and spoke to the townspeople and garden aficionados.  It was an energizing experience to a delightful part of the world.  I made some great garden friends too.

Rogers next spoke about William Wadsworth the American poet and his influence on Romantic gardens.  Wadsworth believed in and advocated for a personal and experiential experience with gardens.

This was a Spiritual vs. an Aesthetic approach to gardens. 

Rogers read some of Wadsworth’s poetry to highlight his sublime effort to try and capture the beauty of nature – the sense of the garden as a soul and moral being.

This is all so dreamy – and heady stuff. 

She showed one landscape design that I couldn't help but think was the inspiration or blueprint for the Princess Diana memorial - an island in a very naturalistic setting.... striking similar, no?  hmmm. 

Romanticism in France

We moved on to the introduction of Romantic gardens in France.

One might argue that is redundant J 

Romantic French landscape design, Rogers told us, came from philosophy. Jean-Jacques Rousseau who as a “leader in the French revolution and the Romantic period. He believed man was “essentially good and equal in the state of nature.” His most celebrated theory was the “natural man.” http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/510932/Jean-Jacques-Rousseau

He too promoted experiencing nature through the senses but with a reverence. It is part of his philosophy to see reform as complete immersion in nature.  A garden experience would immunize children against vices of words. 

This could sound far-fetched and fancy, but if you think about it, exposing children to gardens early has proven to prevent a phenomenon we refer to as “Plant Blindness” where people are unaware of the plants in their surroundings. http://www.aibs.org/eye-on-education/eye_on_education_2003_10.html

Children also will eat more vegetables if they can grow and harvest them.  Not to mention the quality of air they breath and the calming effect of green plants in one’s surroundings.  All scientifically proven.  So Rousseau was on the mark.

Rogers treated us to Maria Antoinette’s take on gardens.  “Just think about this young girl, forced to move to France and marry an older man.”  (Umm, that would be the King, Louis XVI…) 

“It was through her garden that she could create a new place – a ‘paradise’ as a way to overcome bad.”  The Queen could carry on a torrid affair in the otherworldly garden.  (I knew the French-ness would kick in eventually!)  And not to disappoint, here Rogers reads from some letters where her lover says he “can grow passion.  Eden is easy because nature is his partner.”  What a guy…

Parks that were being designed then were, for the first time, not just for the monarchy.  The Romantics infused the landscape design with a moral, spiritual quality.

Romanticism in Germany

Rogers then moved the talk to Germany. She showed the purity of a glowing peasant life, saying they revered those who worked close to the land. 

The Germans were characteristically introspective and all encompassing about nature.  Think, the Fatherland… The Homeland… and both are synonymous with nature.

They believed their countryside set them apart – “There is a soul and a spirit that elevates them from France and England. There is a sense of the Divine for them,” she says not altogether persuasively.

There is the underlying presence of the Nordic myth: primordial woods.

“We don’t have time to go into music here, but we can’t not mention Bach,” Rogers notes by way of explaining this Germanic feeling for the land.  Their philosopher Goethe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe  often called genius was a Romantic who was also a naturalist, a botanist and a scientist.

Rogers showed paintings of German landscape design of parks and castles that were located near industrial plants. They were proud of the science and technology and wanted industry to be showcased in the background. It wasn’t a negative thing but rather industry and its smokestacks evoked a sense of pride.  The paintings of the time – and quite a few from the show at the Morgan Library, depicted the duality of scenic landscape views.

Romanticism in America

Concluding with America, Rogers reminded us that the United States was founded on the principles of democracy and liberty – a belief in the principles of the Romantics.

There was a new attitude toward the individual.

Jeffersonian Enlightenment ascribes to this “God’s mastery.”  The view of Monticello alone is pure Romanticism.

The art and writing of the time underscores this sense of American transcendence: the spirit of Jefferson and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s works, as were AJ Downing and the Hudson River School of painting, whose aesthetic was influenced by the Romanticism that reflected the American themes of “discovery, exploration and settlement.”  The search for arcadia in our cities and in the exploration of the continent…

When I view these works, I most often think of God and the sense of Manifest Destiny.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_River_School

She said some of the first public landscape areas in the New World of the Romantic period were the cemeteries.  As America’s population grew rapidly, there was no longer room to bury its citizens in town next to the church, so cemeteries were built in the more rural areas that would soon be suburbia.  She cited the beauty of Green-Wood cemetery, Shady Grove and showed images of the Queens Cemetery. 

This was the second time in the same amount of months that the speaker cited the beauty of America’s cemeteries. (See earlier post from NYBG with Double Feature -- http://gardenglamour-duchessdesigns.blogspot.com/2010/12/double-feature-in-garden.html) 

I think we’re on to something here.

Rogers segued to the making of Central Park   and Prospect Park with Calvert Veaux and Frederick Law Olmstead and their Greensward Plan. http://www.fredericklawolmsted.com/

The two were influenced by Romanticism and its expression of hearkening back: expressions of literature, music, fine art and the value placed on the senses, as is the nurturing spirit of the place.    The ruins of Belvedere castle are iconic. 

“The hope was that both Central Park and Prospect Park – (Olmstead and Veaux always referred to Prospect Park as their masterpiece), would help achieve peace, socialization, personal restoration, joy and rapture as nature and the two landscape designers – intended. Further, they believed the parks should provide spiritual nourishment.” She said.

Rogers concluded the talk with a Q&A, coming right into the audience to answer the questions.  

When asked about Chinese gardens, she did point out that they are in the book, but we just didn’t have time for all of it this day, she remarked. 

It was a fascinating talk – a class really.  And it made me wish the school was still up and running for all to learn from.  Here’s hoping they bring it back.

In the meantime, be sure to get Rogers’s book.  It’s a wonderful read and superlative resource.  I got Betsy to autograph my book.

 You can get yours here: 

And you can learn more about her work at:  www.foundationforlandscapestudies.com