GardenDesignOnline

A Rare Garden Film

Film Previews Open This Week --
"A Man Named Pearl"

Pearl Fryar has a love of plants, an eye for the unusual, and a fierce determination to succeed.  The son of a sharecropper, he was born in rural North Carolina in 1939.  He lived in New York City and Atlanta before he and his wife decided to move to Bishopville, South Carolina in 1976 to be closer to family.  The Fryars looked at a house for sale in an all-white neighborhood -- and, as the story goes, they were notified they were not welcome in that part of town because "black people don't keep up their yards."  So the Fryars bought property in the "black" part of town, and Pearl began his quest to win Bishopville's "Yard of the Month" award.

One day, he cut up a holly that was in his front yard, and the rest is history.  After a 12-hour shift in the soda can factory where he worked, Pearl would work until late in the night, under street lights and spotlights, fashioning topiaries from plants discarded by local nurseries. He finally achieved his goal to win the town's top yard award in the early 1980's.

Pearl's abstract topiaries now fill more than three acres of his property and attract more than five thousand visitors a year. Pearl has also worked as an artist-in-residence at Coker College, near Bishopville, to teach students there how to create works of art in the garden.

The Garden Conservancy is working to ensure the preservation of the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden, and Pearl is the subject of a new documentary film by Scott Galloway and Brent Pierson, to be released nationwide by Shadow Distribution.

Pre-release previews:

May 23  Washington DC (Avalon Theater)
            Santa Fe, NM (The Screen)
June 13-16    Detroit MI (Detroit Institute of Arts)

OPENING:

July 18    New York City (Angelika Film Center)
July 25    Encino, CA (Laemmle Town Center)
             Irvine, CA (Regal Westpark
             Laguna Niguel, CA (Regency Laguna Niguel)
             Los Angeles, CA (Laemmle One Colorado)
Aug 1     Pleasantville, NY (Jacob Burns Film Center)
            Seattle, WA (SIFF Cinema)

(image: Shadow Distribution -- click to enlarge)
   

National Design Awards 08

The Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum has announced the winners of its 9th annual National Design Awards, and the Olin Partnership of Philadelphia is this year's winner of the Landscape Design Award. 

Pictured left is the firm's design for the Gap Headquarters in San Francisco.  Olin, founded in 1976, is one of the leading landscape architecture firms in the United States, and it was cited by the museum for its dedication to "sustainability and green design." Some of the firm's recent projects include the Fran and Ray Stark Sculpture Garden at the J. Paul Getty Center in LA, and in New York City, the restoration of Bryant Park, and the reconstruction of Columbus Circle.

Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd of Seattle was a landscape design finalist, cited for its high-use landscapes in complex urban contexts.  The practice is led by partners Katherine Gustafson, Jennifer Guthrie and Shannon Nichol.  Shown here is Seattle's City Hall Plaza designed by the firm.

Stoss Landscape Urbanism of Boston was also a landscape finalist, for its practice "at the juncture of landscape architecture, urban design and planning.  Shown here is Stoss's Perkins Park in Somerville, Massachusetts.

(images: top, Marion Brenner; center, GGN Ltd; bottom, Stoss Landscape Urbanism)

In the Magazines May 08

American Gardener May-June

• Designing with Vines, including a list of invasives to avoid.
• Fruit trees for the back yard
• How to protect yourself from mosquitos and ticks (other than moving to a state with an arid climate, which might be a better idea)
• A book review by yours truly on page 52
• A nice profile of Rhododendron occidentale, native to the Pacific Northwest and California.
• Interview with plant breeder Harold Pellett, who has brought us 'Northern Lights' azaleas, 'Center Glow' ninebark, 'Silver Star' clematis and many other trees & shrubs.

Coastal Living May
This magazine is obviously about a lot more than gardens, still, a couple of very useful articles in the current issue.

• GREAT article on outdoor fabrics that are colorful & stylish, water & mildew repellent, and fade resistant. Plus listings of websites and phone numbers where you can order them.
• The coastal garden of Jack and Kay Keohane overlooking San Francisco Bay -- carefully chosen plants that will survive high tides and winter rains.

Garden Design May

• Garden antiques dealer Barbara Israel (author of Antique Garden Ornament, Abrams 1999) has a new business called Garden Traditions replicating some of her classic antiques -- and wow! - made in the USA.
• Profile of Connecticut's Maywood Estate in Litchfield Country  -- 16 gardens in one.
• The French "rock" garden of interior designer Wendy Owen in Sonoma, CA.

Horticulture May

• Profile of the Missouri Botanical Garden's director Peter Raven
• Tony Avent's mountain-top garden
• Author Valerie Easton on the mocha plants at  Chocolate Flower Farm

Land Art

You have to applaud the hort students at Cornell.
This "turfwork" covers more than one acre and is to be unveiled today, on Mother's Day. "Passengers flying in and out of Ithaca and people flying in to the East Hill Flying Club Mother's Day breakfast will have the best view," says Marcia Eames-Sheavly, Senior Extension Associate in Cornell's Dept. of Horticulture.   

Under the guidance of Eames-Sheavly and artist Jeff de Castro, the hort students "painted" their design onto the landscape using mulch, straw, and black plastic to turn the grass yellow in certain places.  It took them an entire semester, using a field at a hort research facility adjacent to the Robert Trent Jones golf course. Eames-Sheavly said the goal was to "create a simple, powerful, sensory surprise with maternal overtones nestled into the landscape."

I'm not sure about the maternal overtones, but this is pretty spectacular.  Wonder what you could do on a good-sized suburban lawn -- to view from a second or third-story window.

(image: Peter Cadieux)

Ideas for Designers

Quick Solutions All in One Place

Need an idea, fast, for a fence, a walkway, a fountain or gate? Then you might want to consult 1000 Garden Ideas: The Best of Everything in a Visual Sourcebook (Artisan Books, 2008) by designer Stafford Cliff.

This book is heavy on traditional and/or British garden style, so don't go here looking for modern ideas.  But there are plenty of ideas throughout the book to get you started on design details.  It's a photo book -- with hundreds of photos in each section to get you thinking about design in a serious way.

I particularly liked the sections on gates and fences, paving patterns and edging ... where you can always benefit from looking at photos of a pattern you might not have seen (or noticed) before. There are also sections on pools, fountains and bridges; pergolas, gazebos, and follies; garden seats and benches; containers; hedges, parterres and topiary; and color.

It's a good book to leaf through before you start to design -- but the how-to is up to you.

(click on image or link to purchase book)

Harvard Fountain - Landmark Award

Harvard's Tanner Fountain is to receive this year's Landmark Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  Designed by landscape architect Peter Walker of the SWA Group, it's the first project for an institution in the "Landscape as Art" movement.

When the fountain was commissioned by then-Harvard president Derek Bok, he asked the designer to come up with a fountain without a basin.  Past fountains at Harvard had all been eventually filled with soil by maintenance crews and turned into planters. This fountain is roughly a 60-foot diameter circle formed by 159 granite boulders that were cleared from regional farms around the turn of the century. 

The water for the fountain comes from 32 nozzles imbedded in and around the stones, and they produce a mist that hovers above the circle spring through fall, producing rainbows when the sun falls just right.

After the fountain was installed, some critics suggested that it is a symbolic representation of the Big Bang.  Whatever the maintenance requirements, this fountain is not likely one day to be filled with plants.

(image: Alan Ward)

A Tree to Covet

For only the second time in 15 years or so, have I managed to be at the National Arboretum in Washington DC when the Dove Tree was in bloom.  And here it is, covered in white, leaf-like bracts, a sight that will simply take your breath away when you see one in full bloom.  It's also sometimes known as the Handkerchief Tree or the Ghost Tree.  Whatever you call it, it's a true specimen that would look great if tucked into a corner in front of an evergreen hedge where the white bracts would show up beautifully.  If you've ever seen one of these trees in full bloom, you'll surely want to find a place for it in your own yard, and well ... nobody else is going to have one.   

The arboretum's tree is located in Asian Valley, just a bit to the right of the parking area.  the amazing thing is that several visitors walked right by without even looking up.  How you could fail to notice this tree is simply beyond me. The Dove Tree (Davidia involucrata) has bright green leaves, is hardy to Zone 6, is pyramidal in shape, and reaches a size of about 20 to 40 feet high and wide.

According to Michael Dirr in his Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, noted plant explorer EH Wilson traveled to a remote area of China and sent seeds to England for propagation in 1899-1901.  The trip was financed by England's Veitch Nursery, whose owner urged Wilson to make the Dove Tree the focus of his expedition, since the most desirable plants from China had already been introduced.  They apparently did not know that the tree had already been introduced in 1870 by the French nursery Vilmorin via the French missionary Farges.  Only one of the French seeds germinated -- in 1899, and the tree first flowered in 1906.  Wilson's seed produced a tree that flowered for the first time in 1911.

(click on images to enlarge)

Energy-saving Greenhouse

The Cleveland Botanical Garden and Kent State University's Liquid Crystal Institute (LCI) have unveiled a new research project to explore the use of liquid crystal panels to create energy-efficient greenhouses.  Two 8x10' greenhouses have been constructed at the botanical garden -- one with plain glass panels and the other with liquid crystal panels. Over the next several years, researchers will compare plant growth, temperature, light levels, and energy used in each greenhouse.

The Cleveland Botanical Garden's executive director, Natalie Ronayne, says the basic goal is "to design a smart greenhouse."  She explained that the liquid crystal panels can regulate the amount of sunlight reaching plants inside.  The LCD greenhouse has a photo receptor inside that can be programmed for specific plants, according to the amount of light they need. "If you program it to have a certain amount of light and it's a cloudy day, the windows will never become foggy -- they will stay fully on to attract and absorb as much light as possible from the spectrum," said Ronayne. "If it's really sunny and it's a hot day ... the windows will automatically dim to control the shading."

The experimental greenhouses house a variety of plants -- tomatoes, peppers, petunias, lilies, orchids, and more. Ronayne said the experiment will last for at least two years -- to measure plant growth, monitor energy bills, and test the durability of the LCD windows.

The hope is that by controlling the amount of light coming into the greenhouse, costs for heating and cooling major greenhouses will be reduced. 

The Basics in Books

As all of you know, I'm not usually given to gardening basics on this site, but even I have to admit that if you're in the outdoors, not everything is design-related.  Sometimes you need to know how to do basic gardening things, and without getting too involved in that entire subject, if you'd like everything you need to know all in one place, there's nothing better than the completely revised The Garden Primer: Second Edition (Workman Publishing, 2008) by Barbara Damrosch.

From shrubs and trees to lawns, bulbs, fruits,vegetables, herbs, vines, perennials, and annuals, it's all here:  how to plant them, how to prune them, how to take care of them. There are also introductory sections on basic plant requirements, gear you'll need, landscape design, and how to select plants.

Damrosch writes in a breezy, easily-understandable style, and she explains everything clearly without getting caught up in the intricacies of do's and don'ts that make gardening a mystery for many people.  If you're really into the subject, you may have to do some further research on specific cultivars, but Damrosch gives you a great start on everything. She's also an organic gardener and tells you how to deal with pests and diseases without using harmful pesticides.

This is one book you certainly want on your shelf for a quick reference to garden-everything.

Some Cool Furniture

I get a lot of catalogs in the mail, but there's some very nice new outdoor furniture in the latest one from Gloster Furniture, Inc.

The collection pictured at left is Sushi, by California designer John Caldwell. There are also dining chairs and tables in this collection, which is made of man-made, weather-resistant wicker.  This furniture won the 'best of show' in the occasional category at the Chicago Casual Furniture Show a few years back.  This wouldn't fit every garden, but I could certainly see it on many a rooftop or in a garden with clean and simple lines.

The Horizon collection is also by John Caldwell, and is also made of Gloster's wicker. Aside from the armchair shown here, there are modular units that clip together so that you can form a sofa of almost any length and configuration to fit your particular outdoor space.  Not something you often see offered in outdoor furniture collections. Horizon also has ottoman for seating (or feet) -- and side tables with floating glass tabletops.  The "float" allows you to store mags and such under the glass to protect them from rain & wind.

Happenings May 08

Through June 15, Darwin's Garden, Bronx NY
Special exhibit, lectures, symposia on the legacy of Charles Darwin, NY Botanical Garden (718) 817-8700
May 3 Garden Tour, Venice, CA
15th annual tour featuring 25+ homes & gardens by Jay Griffith, Marmol Radziner, Tom Carson & others. (310) 821-1857
May 3-4 Garden Conservancy Tours, NY
Amagansett, Cutchogue, E.Hampton, Montauk, Wainscott, Chappaqua, Mt. Kisco
May 4  Garden Tour "Bringing Back the Natives," Contra Costa & Alameda, CA
10AM-5PM, Self guided tour of 60 native plant gardens (510) 236-9558  Preview the gardens & download plant lists on their website
May 4 Gardens of Ellen Shipman, Far Hills, NJ
2PM, Lecture by author Judith Tankard, Froh Heim Mansion (973) 971-8400
May 7 "Climate Chaos: Emerging Consequences of Climate Change, Glencoe, IL
8:45AM-4PM, Symposium, Chicago Botanic Garden (847) 835-8261
May 8-9 Magic of Landscapes, Orlando, FL
Garden Tour, All-day Symposium (800) 375-3642
May 9 Modernist Parks & Gardens of Robert Royston, Northern CA
Two-day guided tour of Royston landscapes sponsored by The Cultural Landscape Foundation (202) 483-0553
May 10, American Landscape Gardener Beatrix Jones Farrand, Boylston, MA
3:30-5PM, Lecture, Tower Hill Botanic Garden (508) 869-6111
May 10 Georgetown Garden Tour , Washington DC
10AM-5PM, 8 gardens, (202) 965-1950
May 10-11 Garden Tour, Washington DC
51st  Annual Capitol Hill House & Garden Tour (202) 543-0425
May 10-11 Garden Conservancy Tours, CA, NJ, NY, TX, TN
CA: Beverly Hills, Lincoln, Los Angeles, Newcastle; NJ: Ridgewood, Woodcliff Lake, Wyckoff; NY:Bedford, Bedford Hills, Cold Spring; TX: El Paso; TN: Knoxville
May 10, Edible Estates reading, Brooklyn, NY
noon, architect Fritz Haeg reads from his new book Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn, St. Ann's Warehouse, 38 Water Street
May 12, Making More Plants, San Diego, CA
7PM, Lecture by author & plantsman Ken Druse, Scottish Rite Event Center (760) 295-7089
May 14 Urban Gardening, Brooklyn, NY
10:30-noon Workshop, author Linda Yang, Brooklyn Botanic Garden (718) 623-7200
May 14-18 Florida Native Plant Conference , Palmetto, FL
28th Annual Conference, Manatee Convention Center, workshops, lectures, field trips & more (727) 525-6609
May 15 Garden Tour , Boston, MA
9AM-5PM, 79th Annual "Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill," 12 private gardens (617) 227-4392
May 17-18 Garden Conservancy Tours, CA, CT, NJ, NY,PA
CA: Palo Alto; CT: Salisbury, Weston, Washington; NJ: Short Hills; NY: Austerlitz, Hillsdale, Hudson, Amenia, Armonk, Wappingers Falls; PA: Broomall, Gladwyne, Narberth, Penn Valley
May 18, Garden Tour, Washington DC
4th Annual Shepherd Park tour, self-guided tour of 6-8 gardens
May 20-22 Designing Parks, Charlottesville, VAThree-day symposium on the history of park planning & design sponsored by The Cultural Landscape Foundation (202) 483-0553
May 24 Garden Conservancy Tours, NY
Locust Valley, Mill Neck, Old Westbury, Mt. Kisco
May 24-Oct 13 "One Planet - Ours!," Washington DC
Exhibit on Sustainability, US Botanic Garden, with participation by the American Horticultural Society, UN Environment Program, Longwood Gardens, National Wildlife Federation & more.
May 24-Nov 2 Moore in America, Bronx, NY
Exhibit of Monumental Sculptures by Henry Moore, NY Botanical Garden (718) 817-8700
May 28-30 Nat'l Conference on Urban Ecosystems, Orlando, FL
"Nature & the Network," Caribe Royale Hotel, sponsored by American Forests (202) 737-1944
May 30-June1 Garden Tour, Santa Barbara, CA
Guided by Landscape architects Chip Sullivan & Leslie Dean (650) 967-5408
May 31 Japanese Pruning Techniques, Brooklyn, NY
10AM-2PM, Workshop, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, (718) 623-7200
May 31 Garden Conservancy Tours, NJ
Glen Gardner, Bedminster

ASLA Awards 08

What to say about the winners of this year's ASLA (American Society of Landscape Architects) design awards? Well, we might start with edgy, eclectic, and very original.

Pictured here is The Lurie Garden in Chicago's Millennium Park Park, designed by Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd of Seattle, winner of the top award in the general design category.  It's a three-acre rooftop public botanical garden, which, according to Guthrie, "celebrates the built-up, engineered landscape of the Garden site and the City of Chicago."  And they're not kidding.  It's composed of giant "plates" that reflect the city's mysterious and marshy past and its exuberant modern architecture as well. There's also a water feature, a long "boardwalk" that criss-crosses the site, and a monumental "living hedge" that provides shelter for birds and other wildlife.

Many of the perennial  plantings were designed by the reknowed Dutch plantsman Piet Oudolf, using locally grown natives like prairie grasses that are a constant reminder of the Midwestern landscape.  As the awards jury put it, the garden "works on so many different levels, no wonder people love it."

(click to enlarge images by (left) Piet Oudolf; plan: Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd)

New Horizons for Northern Plants

Some years back, I got a chance to visit the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix.  It was a completely shocking experience:  shocking to me, that is, because I had never seen such a vast array of absolutely stunning and gorgeous plants that I couldn't grow back in Washington DC or Massachusetts.  The only solution, I thought, would be a move to Arizona, but how could I ever live in a place with summers hotter than DC?

But now there is a solution, sans Phoenix, and all the answers can be found in Hardy Succulents: Tough Plants for Every Climate (Storey Publishing, 2008) by author Gwen Moore Kelaidis and photographer Saxon Holt. And those of us who live in northern areas are not just stuck with hens & chicks.  We can, in fact, grow majestic agaves, devote a corner to lovely flowering cacti, and perhaps even plant the beaked yucca (Yucca rostrata) as a very funky focal point. Some of the tree yuccas will reach 20 feet in height, and some are hardy as far north as Denver, New York City, and even southern New England.
Not to mention the vast variety of sedums; plus ice plants, the tiny Aloinopsis, Dudleya cymosa, and the midget-sized Yucca harrimaniae, some as small as just 6 inches wide. ANd yes, there are new hens & chicks on the market, too, of many colors: burgundy, pale rose, greens, golds, whites and other shades of red.

Stunning photographs throughout the book illustrate the vast possibilities for new planting designs that include some space for succulents.

This book makes a great accompaniment to last year's Designing with Succulents (Timber Press) by Deborah Lee Baldwin, which focused on plants hardy in zone 8 and above, which tend to be larger and splashier. 

Both belong on the designer's book shelf.

(click on image or text link to purchase book)

Air Pollution Impedes Pollination

Researchers at the University of Virginia have found that air pollution from power plants and vehicles destroys the scent of flowers, making it difficult for pollinating insects to follow fragrant aromas to their source.

The study indicates that diminishing scent trails could be a reason for declining populations of pollinators, particularly bees.   Jose Fuentes  (center in photo) professor of environmental sciences at the University of VA and co-author of the study, said that "scent molecules produced by flowers in a less polluted environment, such as in the 1800's, could travel for roughly 1000 to 1200 meters; but in today's polluted environment, downwind of major cities, they may travel only 200 to 300 meters."  Fuentes noted that this makes it very difficult for pollinators to locate flowers and the nectar they need for food.

Fuentes and his research team found that scent molecules produced by flowers are very volatile and bond with pollutants such as ozone that destroy their odors.  Therefore, the scents are chemically altered and destroyed, and when they travel on the wind, they no longer have the aroma of flowers.  The scientists believe that the pollinators are having to search longer distances to find sources of food, and perhaps are relying on sight instead of smell.

"It quickly became apparent that air pollution destroys the aroma of flowers by as much as 90 percent from periods before automobiles and heavy industry," said Fuentes.  "And the more air pollution there is in a region, the greater the destruction of flower scents."

The entire study appears online in the journal  Atmospheric Environment.

All the more reason, readers, to get on the "green" bandwagon.

Redwoods vs. Sunpower

I first heard about the redwood controversy at a lecture earlier this year by Conard Pyle president Steve Hutton.  It's hard to believe that neighbors in California are fighting over solar panels and large trees that block the sunlight, but a state law has actually been enacted to protect environmentally minded homeowners who don't want their neighbors to plant tall trees that block their sunlight.  Read all about it in this article from the New York Times.