Enjoy Learning About the garden At The Garden! NYBG Summer Intensives start soon

Don't Miss Your Chance for NYBG Summer Intensives "It's like summer camp for grown-ups..." Have some fun and gain valuable skills. Register today for a Summer Intensive. Classes start as soon as July 9. The Garden’s world-class instructors offer hands-on, practical advice and bring award-winning experience from their fields of expertise. Class sizes are limited for individualized attention. •   Landscape Design Summer Intensive: More info.  •   Botanical Art Summer Intensives: More info. •   Floral Design Summer Intensive: More info.  •   Gardening Summer Intensive: More info.  For questions or to register by phone, call the NYBG registration office at 800.322.6924. Enroll now!

The Private Oasis: New Book Explores Glamorous & Doable Landscape & Garden Design

Just because I was all whipped up with the launch of my own book, The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook and so regrettably missed the glamorous garden book party for The Private Oasis: The Landscape Architecture of Edmund Hollander Design heralded by its elegant invitation, is no reason you should miss out:

For anyone who loves gardens and good garden design, this swanky-looking book is a beauty to look at – plus it’s like having your own private landscape architect interpret the looks for your own garden space.  Enjoy a good garden read at the beach  -- but then start taking design notes!

From the Amazon review: Whether a home is a great place to live often depends on what lies beyond its walls. The landscape - when it has a well-thought-out shape and character - gives a home much of its character and satisfaction. In The Private Oasis, two of New York's leading landscape architects, Edmund Hollander and Maryanne Connelly, guide readers through a series of remarkable landscapes and gardens, explaining how to apply their techniques, no matter what the size of the reader's property.

Since founding Edmund D. Hollander Landscape Architect Design in 1990, Hollander and Connelly and the more than a dozen landscape architects on their staff have designed hundreds of residential landscapes, from the palatial to the somewhat more modest. Every landscape, they believe, has a story to tell. The aim of the landscape architect, when working with the homeowners, the site, and the architecture of the house, is to decide what that story is, and see that it is told well.

You can't plant whatever you want, wherever you want it. You can't rearrange the earth arbitrarily. You have to respond to the makeup of the land and its water flows, its vegetation, wildlife and other features using that knowledge to fashion a living landscape. That was a key precept Hollander and Connelly learned from the pioneer of ecological planning, Ian McHarg, and it undergirds all their thinking. Hollander and Connelly marry factors from nature to an understanding of human ecology. Says Connelly: "The solution is always driven by who will be using the landscape and how they will be using it."

The Private Oasis focuses on built elements in the landscape including the entry, seating and gathering places, outdoor dining, swimming pools and water features and tennis courts. It is lavishly illustrated with over 1000 color photographs. A successor volume will focus on plantings. Together, the two volumes will give readers a comprehensive orientation to the making of residential landscapes.

Earthly Delights …"Cultivating the Gardener" Day One is Success. Don't Miss Today!

The Garden State day broke with seasonal misty grey following a night of needed rain that showered part of last night’s cocktail party launch (no worries, there is an abundance of indoor garden room space to elegantly host the better part of the Queen’s jubilee!) marking the start of this year’s Earthly Delights weekend event.

The sun smiled upon the garden tribute by mid day and it was an eager legion of garden enthusiasts that parked in the hay-filled field and,like kids waiting for the start of summer camp, were blissfully in the moment, eyeing the rows of garden vendors, and the magnificent, glamorous garden rooms beyond.

A celebration of gardens, garden design, garden art, plants and horticulture, Earthly Delights and their partnership with the Land Conservancy of New Jersey is dedicated to the mission “to create awareness of New Jersey’s beautiful public parks and garden.”  The event is a benefit for the “campaign and stewardship of New Jersey’s parks, natural areas, clean water, farmland, and historic treasures.”  You can feel good, doing good. Ten percent of all purchases and ticket sales goes to the the campaign.  www.njkeepitgreen.org

 Earthly Delights may be celebrating its terrible twos but it presents itself really more as a classic, sophisticated, superior showcase for all things garden art. 

I was thrilled to see my Gotham garden friends including Anne Raver, New York Times – who’s piercing blue eyes are not unlike the emerging amsonia blosssoms or blue hydrangea … Her lecture, “Milestones in the Organic Garden”  spoke with keen insight about the organic movement. 

My first contact walking the gauntlet of vendor tents at Earthly Delights venue was master potter, Virginia Newman Yocum, Pennoyer Newman www.pennoyernewman.com from whom I have done business with for my garden design clients.  Her pots are top quality, and their customer service is the best in the world.  Bar none.  Proud of their work and their iproduct, the relationship is a dedicated, enduring one.  I can’t recommend them enough. 

When I told her about my soon to be released at retail book, The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook,” Virginia bought one!  I was thrilled.  I brought her an autographed one I retrieved from the car on our way out.  Nice.

I picked up the beribboned note cards, bewitched by the cover art, thinking to myself, “Where have I seen this?” saying out loud to my husband, “This is the artist who works with Ken Druse on his new book,” to which a voice replied. “Yes, I am!”  And I turned around to find Ellen sitting like a rose among her easled art! I spent some time talking to Ellen Hoverkamp who did the stunning plant art scans for Ken Druse’s latest book, Natural Companions.  (her signature bears an uncanny likeness to Flowerkamp…)

On the way to the display gardens and lectures we reviewed the bespoke, artisanal and antique dealers under tents, flanking the main artery leading up to the first of several architectural structures.  Outstanding among the vendors and artisans, was the incomparable John Danzer, Munder-Skiles and his garden art furniture. 

We bought some plants, but not as many as Donna Dorian and Pat Jonas, my garden friends from Garden Design magazine and the botanical gardens.  

We also bought some almonds in honey from Back to Nature – they also build beehives and chicken coops that they will maintain for you!  www.backtonature.net.

We enjoyed some delicious roast beef sandwiches and pink lemonade, dining at the café tables set up on the terrace area.  I was lucky enough to run into Andrea, the hostess and garden goddess.

Me (L) & Andrea Filippone

Pictures are worth a thousand words and I think I took about that many!  The estate is eye candy for anyone interested in beauty. 

Enjoy the glamorous garden tour!

Earthly Delights is held on the estate of Andrea Filippone and her husband William Welch, garden guardians and design   sylvan space for the 2-day affair  held on their 35-acre idyll.  A fusion that is equal parts display garden, movie-set magic and inspiration.  

If you live in the tri-state, New York Metro area, Do NOT miss this event.  

What an axis!

Foreground is front-of-the-border apple espalier!

refurbished Rutgers greenhouse houses plants galore & object de art including an arbor

Potager: box-lined beds surround a fountain

Box-lined gazing pool

Tool caddy is vertical plant stand!

espaliered apple tree in potager

LECTURE SERIES - Click here for details on Lectures
Dick Lighty - Caring for the Garden: Is it a Delight … or a Chore?, June 2, 11-12pm 
Anne Raver - Milestones in the Organic Garden, June 2, 1-2pm 
Rick Darke - Emerging Ecologies: Gardening Sync'd to the Nature of Our Time, June 2, 2:30-3:30pm
Pete Johnson - Pete's Greens, Vermont's Four Season Organic Vegetable Farm, June 3, 9:30-10:30am 
Eric T Fleisher & Paul Wagner -Creating a Healthier Landscape Through Organic Practice, June 3, 11-12:30

Event Catering by Ross & Owren

WHERE
The home and garden of Andrea Filippone
129 Pickle Road, Pottersville, NJ 07979
*If using GPS enter the town as Califon, NJ

NYBG Announces Summer Registration for Classes in Gardening, Landscape Design, Floral Design & Hort Therapy

NYBG Azalea Garden

Registration Now Open for New Summer Intensive Classes  

for Adults in Floral Design, Gardening, Botanical Art,  

Landscape Design, and Horticultural Therapy

   

Courses Starting July 9 at The New York Botanical Garden's  

Bronx and Midtown Locations

WHAT: 

The New York Botanical Garden offers Adult Education summer classes in five high-interest areas: Floral Design, Gardening, Botanical Art, Landscape Design, and Horticultural Therapy  Students can jump-start a new career, expand their skills, and learn from exciting teachers and guest lecturers.

WHO:  

Instructors who are award-winning professionals in their fields lead these popular, full-time, hands-on education and training sessions.

     

WHEN:

Each program starts the week of July 9, 2012.

Course schedules vary: some are one week or two weeks in length; others are five weeks.

WHERE:         Courses take place in two locations:

The New York Botanical Garden

2900 Southern Boulevard

Bronx, NY 10458

800.322.6924

NYBG Midtown Education Center

20 West 44th Street (between 5th & 6th Avenues)

New York, NY 10036

718.817.8747

REGISTER:    Visit nybg.org/AdultEd  or call 800.322.NYBG (6924).

 

Ken Druse's latest Book, Natural Companions, offers Glamorous Plant Inspiration for every Garden

Author, gardener, and garden designer: Ken Druse, is a rare garden muse.

His latest book Natural Companions is a jewel. 

Looking for all the world like baubles from Tiffany’s or Cartier – whose jewelry designers take inspiration from the botanical world, by the way -- Druse and Ellen Hoverkamp, the book’s photographer cum botanical artist, present the plants as close-ups, glowing from within, against a rich, deep black background.

Not unlike pearls or diamonds on a black velvet jewel box.

It is a stunning, take-your-breath-away, glamorous visual gift at every turn of the page.

If you do nothing more than gaze rapturously at the botanical art you will be richly rewarded.

Druse’s book is a sensual experience.

It’s big, it’s bold, and it’s beautiful. 

I love the elegant black background of the cover and the plant-part morphology beauty shots (see my Garden Glamour blog page background J

Like pearls on that little black dress, the black backdrop makes a visually stunning canvas for the dazzling horticultural gems as presented by Ken and artist Hoverkamp.

In fact, Druse’s latest book, Natural Companions is a masterful, brilliant garden design concept.

The book is sumptuously and intuitively charted by the themes within seasons, with topics that include color, texture, fragrance, foliage, edible flowers, places, water gardens, and grasses.

The fact is this is a “Look Book” for the garden designer and garden lover. 

It’s a how-to guide. 

Confused by the myriad plant choices? 

Does the thought of daylilies leave you dumbfounded? 

The sight of winter Salix leave you sagging?

This book is a garden design aid for those who are flummoxed by the world of plant choices available for a good garden design. 

Likewise, it is an inspiration and a new way to look at plant combinations for those who pride themselves on knowing their Lady Slipper from their Lilac.

At a recent MetroHort meeting, Druse charmed the horticulturists in attendance with his overview of the book and his making of the book.

Ken always manages to make the never-ending world of plants snap back to the personal – and here he shows gardens in situ, such as the Green Gardens of Short Hills in the Garden State

His talk also mixed in his own garden tribulations – he lost his beloved Garden State garden in the climate trifecta last year that wielded a three-punch knock out following Hurricane Irene, a fall snowstorm and a Nor’easter, tropical storm Lee.

But hope springs eternal, especially in a garden and most especially as narrated by Druse at the lecture. 

What would have rendered most gardeners to throw in the shovel; he is humbled but not daunted.  He had the audience laughing with him.

His knowledge of plants is extensive and genuine – I have just about all 17 of his garden books -- most of which are autographed too, I’m proud to say.  This is a man who creates a horticultural language. 

His to  “Botanize” is one I will steal!

It’s his garden mirth along with his creativity and hort smarts that makes all the difference. 

Heck, there are lots of people who know a lot about botany, horticulture, and gardens.

But it’s the way that Druse approaches the subject that makes his art so coveted. 

His worldview and his eye focuses or sheds sunshine on a place that we wouldn’t have ever thought about.  Druse takes us on a botanical journey and inspires us. 

He works mightily to present a book that we know we must have.

To use – not just sit o the coffee table -- although just placing the book on it would all the more accessorize any table.

At the conclusion of the MetroHort talk, the award-winning New York garden designer, Lynn Torgerson signaled, “This was a ‘Killer Presentation’ that set off resounding applause.

This is a MetroHort equivalent of a standing ovation.

The audience was gob smacked!

My notes from the evening are filled with plant combinations. 

For the Color Combinations, I see I wrote: Monochromatic, and to much laughter, to buy “I’m here for you yellow and green.”

Analogous, showed colors that are right next to one another in color wheel, pointing out the Betty Compton and Clematis in roses.

Complementary -- across the color wheel, or split complementary there are foliage colors such as the silver gardens at Old Westbury Gardens

.

Druse talked about Water Gardens, which is like poking a stick in the eye of Neptune.  Remember, this is a gardener who lost his 2-acre gardens to the river and rain…

Regardless, he told the audience about his early love affair with pitcher plants.  He said he got samples from a private collection and tried and tried.  “Three strikes, you’re out!” he said to much laugher. 

He finally got the Jack in the Pulpits to grow from seed, telling how he propagated by cleaning and storing but they always seemed to dry up, until he devised a duct tape style process that he rigged up.

He put the seeds in in bag, in a toilet’s tank to keep them moist!  “Sure enough, this time, the seeds came up when planted,” he said.  “Just be sure to use the tank, not the bowl,” he admonished while grinning.

He showed Shakespeare gardens and Victorian gardens – that no one does anymore but he showed off the carpet gardens at Mohank Mountain House adding, “This is one of few places to do great job this type of garden design.”

Druse also showed incredible Containers gardens using tender perennials and sexy edible gardens. I love that checkerboard lettuce.

And he encouraged gardening with kids.  “Please plant a tree with a kid” he encouraged the audience.   

While his Garden State gardens are no more, he noted, “I will never sell my house.”

And the book, Natural Companions also serves as a memoir. A botanical homage and tribute to his love of plants and gardens.

You must get this book.