Sunbrella and Garden Design Magazine Host Design Event

As if garden designers needed another reason to spec out Sunbrella® designs. 

We love their quality, craftsmanship.

We adore their inspiring colors and stripes and patterns.

We respect their durability, easy maintenance and protection from the elements. 

That’s a lot to love.

But then…Garden Design Magazine and Sunbrella hosted an informative and stylish fashion show-type event, complete with front row seats at the season’s sneak preview for what’s new.  

Appropriately, the event was held in New York City’s premiere design center, The Decoration and Design Building http://ddbuilding.com/

There was a panel discussion and a slide show that was more like a designers portfolio of successful projects an intimate look at in-home designs that ignited the creative sparks for house and garden. If you don't have their brochure, visit the website.

The panel experts were: Norman Vanamee, editor in chief, Garden Design Magazine, http://www.gardendesign.com/

Lindsey Taylor, Style Director, Garden Design Magazine, and

Gina Wicker, Design and Creative Director, Sunbrella Fabrics. http://www.sunbrella.com/

Panel Experts: Lindsey Taylor (L), Norman Vanamee, Gina Wicker

The introduction of Sunbrella rugs was good news to hear about.  The first collection, The Renaissance, comes in a variety of sizes: runners as small as 2x5’ to squares and octagons up to 11’ and the colors and patterns with sexy, glamorous names such as Mink, Garnet and Ebony are destined to fulfill a spectrum of good garden room designs. 

Wicker pointed out the importance of maintaining floors using Sunbrella rugs. “The gorgeous rugs also serve to reduce heat gain in the house and create a cozy room such as a special breakfast nook.”  The rungs are made with 100% Sunbrella acrylic yarn and contain 50% recycled content from Sunbrella fabric and fiber “waste.”

Wow.  This is one responsible and sustainable, green company.  It’s like learning the prom queen is also the valedictorian AND she volunteers for charity. 

In fact, Sunbrella fabrics are certified by the GREENGUARD Institute’s Children and Schools standard as contributing to healthy indoor air by being a very low-emitting interior product. 

Parent’s can breathe a sigh of relief with this news.

Plus, think about how much the Sunbrella awnings reduce energy consumption. And protect from the sun’s mean aging rays. I tell my garden team and clients, “Remember, the sun is not our friend.”  I learned here that The Skin Cancer Foundation recommends Sunbrella as an aid in the prevention of sun-induced damage to the skin.

This is great news for all you glamour-pusses out there. 

My husband and I are in the middle of a home renovation at our country house in the Garden State and I can promise you, I will be using yard and yards of Sunbrella fabric, draping and billowing around our new outdoor terrace and patio where I will be doing yoga, enjoying a soak in a Japanese tub and repairing the body from all that garden work with healing massages.  Ahhhhh…

Images of a Georgia home using Sunbrella on every surface throughout the house flashed across the screen.  There were a variety of textures and patterns accessorizing window treatments, floors and the patio. A very coordinated ensemble.               

I could see the European design influence Wicker told the audience about -- Sunbrella has a design facility in France -- especially in the grey duppioini pattern.  It truly looked as a created artwork for the space…

A Q&A followed the presentation.  Questions ranged from “How big was the garden property Vanamee showed and could she submit a garden design for a small garden.  The Garden Design Editor said the magazine tries to do all size gardens.

In turn, he asked the audience if they’d read the Garden Design magazine feature design on the renovation the team did for the small backyard townhouse garden at the James Beard House, as an ideal example of a small, er, postage sized, garden.

Here is the slide show in case you misplaced your online bookmark of Garden Design’s delicious, urban landscape work: http://www.gardendesign.com/find/james%20beard%20garden

http://www.jamesbeard.org/

Vanamee encouraged submissions with just five pictures max and a short description – less than a paragraph – more a little story about what happened in terms of the garden design. How the design solved a problem of some sort…

Sunbrella’s Wicker addressed the issue of fabric and textiles.

What type of materials used depends on what part of the country the space is located in, advised Wicker.  She cited flow-through firm foam as example. “It’s perfect for Miami. The South West, not so much.”  “Ultimately, it’s all about how much maintenance your client wants to support,” Wicker added.  

Wicker urged attendees to consider the practical side of the design as well -- Slipcovers can be taken off and put in the washer with bleach. This makes it easier to keep clean and mold free.

Wicker also noted the benefit of Sunbrella’s reversible cushion cover designs.

“Red wine cleans up.  No problem. And the design and use of hydrophobic fiber was created to dry quickly, standing on end.”

Goody bags and snacks and design community chat followed the presentation.  Garden Design Magazine's editor, Norman, was gracious and introduced me to Gina Wicker.  As part of our conversation, I got the chance to tell her how I love using the company’s fabrics as part of my garden designs: on porches and gazebos.  

But also, I got to tell her about one use she said she’d never heard of.  Using a green, black, tan and white striped Sunbrella fabric, I fashioned a box-kite like design around tall, cut birch tree “rods” positioned at four corners of the two bins that make up our compost area.  A white fence backed by landscape fabric surrounds the compost bins, fronted by pretty plants, and topped off with the fabric design “valance” for a look I call a Compost Cabana.  Who says compost is not fashionable. It’s all the rage.

How glamorous!

And thank you, Garden Design Magazine and Sunbrella.  It was a great garden design event. 

Green Roof Garden Design

Green Rooftop Garden

I belong to the Landscape Design Alumni group through the affiliation with The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG).

The most recent meeting featured Barbara Geller, Gardens by Barbara, LLC, www.and a member of the group, who provided a top-notch presentation about the creation of a green roof at her country house in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. 

It ‘s a beauty.

I knew it was going to be a good lecture when Barbara started off by saying she had a “story” about Green Roofs. 

I respect and relate to a garden designer who emotes this way.  

I can feel their artistic soul.

I tell my garden design clients and lecture audiences, that every great garden tells a story. 

So no tutorial from Barbara, but rather, a story.  A compelling garden story.  The challenges and the triumphs. 

Barbara has told this story on several previous occasions. 

You immediately sense she is knowledgeable and passionate about this subject. 

Maybe it was from her previous job as an IT director at Deutsche Bank or just maybe it is her devotion to the subject and self-described attention to details.  

Or a combination of these elements.

Whatever the motivation, the presentation benefited from her professional research and documentation. 

She also brought samples of the green roof construction materials.

And provided informational handouts,  complete with resources that she secured from an NYBG symposium on Green Roofs, plant lists, roofing materials and growing medium – and costs.  And reference books: “Green Roof Plants – A Resource and Planting Guide” by Edmund C. Snodgrass, Lucie L. Snodgrass from Timber Press.

It was all very impressive.

And so is the green garden roof she produced. She and her architect, Jane Wilson, who are now friends, hails from Ford3 Architects, LLC, won an award for its sustainable design.
The garden has been a feature stop on local garden tours.

She began her story -- at the beginning! 

She started by defining what a green roof is. 

It is not a painted “green color” roof as one of her construction managers first guessed she wanted!

Green roofs are insulation. They improve the aesthetics of the environment. 

She pointed out that most people don’t think of the flooding that occurs in towns and cities when it rains because of the storm water run off and impermeable surfaces.

And of course, the green roofs sporting their plant profile much as a fancy hat shows off its saucy, sexy accoutrements.

Green roofs also reduce the Heat Island effect by 15-20 degrees.  The Green roof reduces cooling needs by 25% and in winter cuts heating loss.

Barbara showed amazing infrared photos that showed the difference in temperature

From the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to hospitals and corporate green roofs, and the preponderance of successful green roof design in Europe, particularly Germany where 10% of residences sport green roofs according to Barbara.  

She demonstrated it’s good business and good aesthetics to produce more green roofs. They are a major solution for a sustainable future.

She had me at Green.

Barbara told us she wanted to be able to look out her home office window and enjoy looking at the green roof garden.

She wanted the shape to mimic the undulating landscape.

She wanted to be able to see the green roof garden as she walks up to the house from the garage.

She told us how she searched to identify an architect who would even take on the project.

If green roof designs are all still new now, imagine the challenge of locating a pro who could it in 2008! 

She showed us the design and construction stages of the addition to the their once-upon-a-barn home. 

I love all that indigenous Pennsylvania stone that supports the walls and homes -- so gorgeous.  

And that stone is Barbara’s home and the addition where the green roof is the jewel in the crown.
The builder bought a local retaining wall, took it down and reassembled on site in order to match the existing stone. 

She walked us through the procedure of constructing the curved glulam beams: stronger than wood. These beams provided just the right pitch for the design too.

She suggested every vertical inch of green roof growing medium requires six pounds of square foot structural support.

"You will need a structural engineer," Barbara advised more than once. 

There are many elements that go into a smart green roof and Barbara had done it all: separation fabric, mesh layer, rubber layer, plywood, plastic anti-slip cleats to “hold” and stabilize the 4-6 inch layer of growing medium.

The cleats were secured from a German resource.

A green roof needs to be watertight. No holes from nails. 

The roof must be able to withstand the weight of the plants and snow - in our area. 

She had samples of everything for us to see firsthand.

She passed around a sample of the growing medium that we could touch.  It was selected specifically for the shade tolerant plants on her green roof.

It is gravel that is 25% compost and 75% expanded mineral aggregate or shale.

It’s expensive at $110 per cubic yard.  It is lightweight.

The way the growing medium is produced is fascinating.  It is put in a kiln to create cracks and fissures so the compost will “settle in” there. 

A typical green roof uses about 5% compost, she commented. 

She said she knew she needed more organic matter, as the plants she was using in the design were not the typical sedums that need less organics. 

Her green roof is what is referred to as “Semi Intensive.” 

See?  Every artistic genre has its own nomenclature.

The “Intensity” here refers to the depth of the soil.

How to get up to the roof, you ask? 

Initially, she had the builder provide her with a scaffold. 

(Curiously, she admitted she doesn’t like heights ^:^)

Later, and with obvious pride, she was beaming as she showed the spiral staircase she found on eBay for $500. 

Nice

The plants she chose for the green roof garden are a combination of native and tried plants from her garden cuttings that would provide a full, four-season display of color and bloom.
The plants needed to have fibrous roots. She used a lot bulbs.

She only has 2-4 hours of sunlight on the roof so that was a consideration too.

She was able to produce a “naturalized design.”

The plant palette included ajuga, phlox stolonifera or creeping phlox, geranium macrorrhizum or bigroot cransebill and yes, some sedum.

Almost all the green roof designs I’ve seen include sedum exclusively. 

It was refreshing and inspiring to see Barbara’s bold foray toward using a mix of seasonal plants – and using them to great success.

She is a leader in residential green roof design. Her home was a test. 

She passed with flying colors.

Her design is elegant.  The plants and the green roof complement the native landscape.

Contact her for your design. 

Green roof gardens are so glamorous.  (Just don’t tell them they are efficient too)

Another Green Roof source guide, according to Thomas Powell's "The Avant Gardener" is Green Roofs for Healthy Cities www.greenroofs.org  and at 416-971-4494.

Landscape Design Portfolio Lecture featuring Carol Franklin

High Performance Landscapes: The Work of Andropogon

Speaker Carol Franklin is a founding principal of Andropogon Associates landscape architectural services, based in Philadelphia. http://andropogon.com/   High Performance Landscapes is a perfect way to characterize their full-impact, revolutionary, astonishing work.

She and her company have been leaders in greenscaping, ecological historical preservation and sustainable landscape design from the time when she says they were laughed at for their ecological designs.  She remembers being hissed off the stage at an ASLA meeting for suggesting they would take children out to the fields out to the fields and pretend we are gardeners.  To design with nature represented a new generation. 

She finds it refreshing to be considered “fashionable” today.   

Discovering and working from a philosophy of the genius loci – or the spirit of place -- is one of the firm’s signature design platforms.  They also boast a portfolio of complex ecological engineering as well as design, utilizing natural elements of water, plant material and stone.  The result is to interface with the area – even if it’s urban.  Or especially if it’s urban. 

Franklin showed the work they did for Center City’s Rittenhouse Square are for the University of Pennsylvania. This is a wonderful example of utilizing rainwater runoff, incorporating water treatment within the design and producing a green space for the students and citizen to enjoy on this almost 2 acres of city life.   Their design changed the landscape to produce an area that had previously been 93% impervious. Now the high performance water treatment cisterns store 20,000 gallons of runoff and AC runoff – within the parking garage.  The soil also stores water. 

To rediscover places, the firm takes makes a habitat work by using breaking attitudes, working with nature’s concepts: composting, cleaning polluted areas, recirculating water and finding those nooks and crannies – even in buildings – that can tell the story of that landscape’s unique place.

Franklin also demonstrated some comic genius!  Her wickedly witty remarks and behind the scenes commentary made me think she must be a sophisticated, fun pro to work with.

Franklin was also refreshing by not only showing Andropogon completed and proposed projects but competing firms’ too. 

My associates in attendance agreed afterwards this was a welcome approach to presenting case studies.  After all just because politics or budgets precluded design selection or job completion, we still have a lot to learn from the landscape architects’ research and design. 

Andropogon’s work on the Sidwell Friends School courtyard in Washington DC is the scout badge for earned honor in my book. Why?  Because the design is comprised of natural, local materials so much that one would swear the campus building were built around the natural look of the grounds.

The courtyard is a working science project the students used for study, such as water sciences, as well as for socializing.  There’s lots of walking around the garden areas. Today, the rain garden and wetland area is the “heart of the school” according to Franklin.

“Complete Streets” is a design concept Franklin espoused that delighted the audience. Here urbanites can “seize the worst parts of their city and find underused or single-purpose use areas for multiple uses.”  She was quite adamant though about making the areas unique and beautiful and not just copying the highly successful Complete Streets of Portland with their Greek keystone-design shapes

Andropogon collaborated on the dynamic holistic work at the Nikko Kirifuri hotel and spa resort hotel in the forest of Japan is magical.  They worked to restore the surrounding woods, produced a waterfall that serves a water treatment function but you would swear is the handiwork of Mother Nature.  In a way, it is.

The works Franklin presented and their attention to sustainable design must surely be the future of landscape design. We can learn much from the holistic, sustainable work that looks to reuse, repurpose and work with natural, elements.