Garden Designer's Roundtable: Memory and Plants

NOSTALGIA: The idea that a plant or group of plants can evoke certain emotions based upon an evolved memory of the landscapes they are associated.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about our emotional experience of landscapes.  Why do some landscapes make me feel relaxed and contemplative, while others make me nervous or uncomfortable?  Landscape architects, designers, and gardeners have long explored the aesthetic experience of landscapes, but rarely the emotional experience.

I was delighted that the Garden Designer’s Roundtable topic for the month is “Memory and Plants.”  It is the perfect excuse for dwelling a bit more deeply on a concept I’ve articulated before, but only partially.  I want to write about “nostalgia,” a word I’ve used to describe our emotional reaction to planting design. 

Why does this matter?  For me, understanding our emotional connection to plants and landscapes holds tremendous potential for all those who design or garden.  First, it pushes landscape design past the endless (and tiresome) pendulum swing of geometric vs. naturalistic (or formal vs. informal) design.  This fundamentally formalistic concern has distracted us from exploring the full potential of landscape as a dynamic art form.  Second, it offers designers a framework for understanding how to create emotional experiences within gardens and landscapes.

Plants, Memory, and Emotion

We are all likely to have very personal and subjective reactions to specific plants.  The scent of orange blossoms remind me of a winter afternoon I spent in a Dumbarton Oaks conservatory; Southern Magnolias remind me of a giant tree on my grandmother’s property I played in as a child.  These personal memories are poignant connections to plants, people, and places; but these subjective responses are not what I’m interested in here.

Gardens are Strange

"The fact that human beings create such things as gardens is strange, for it means that there are aspects of our humanity which nature does not naturally accommodate, which we must make room for in nature’s midst. This in turn means that gardens mark our separation from nature even as they draw us closer to it, that there is something distinctly human in us that is related to nature yet is not of the order of nature…"

Robert Pogue Harrison - Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition

The Garden in October

October is one of my favorite times in the garden.   The weather is pleasant and I find myself less manic than in spring.  I enjoy the garden more now.  As the plants prepare for dormancy, there is simply less for me to do.  I’ll defer decisions about what to plant for dark winter evenings when green thoughts are necessary for my sanity.  Now I move through the garden with a calm repose.   The boxwood, yews, and espaliered firethorn get once last clip before the winter; sprawling summer annuals are cut back; and I make a few strategic transplants.  Otherwise, I walk and look at the angled, autumnal light as it falls over the plants.

The garden is in its second year. Despite the fact that certain parts of the garden have an adolescent awkwardness, the garden is beginning to look a bit more established.  As the garden settles into itself, I have a strange sensation that I’ve never felt before: the feeling of dominion. 

 “Dominion” is sort of an archaic, unfashionable sentiment, isn’t it?  It reeks of colonialism and the idea of man controlling—even dominating—nature for profit.  Not only is it a politically incorrect sentiment, but it is silly as well when applied to a tiny perennial border on a tenth of an acre lot.  This is not Downtown Abbey, after all.  But it is precisely what I feel.  Two years of breaking the earth, planting, watering, re-planting, and endless gardening have resulted in the creation of a place that is anything but natural.  I’m not simply a proud owner; I am the gardener who reigns over this plot.  It is my dominion—not just a place, but an expression of identity and self.

That a garden can be an expression of identity is an interesting idea to me.  The pre-modern man believed identity is a product of birth.  You are who your father was, where you live, and what your social station is.  In many ways, it is good that we’ve liberated identity from birthright.  But modern man has perhaps too much power to dictate identity.   We live in a post-authentic age.  I have to remind myself that each time I participate in social media.  Social media creates a seductive mirage, a watery image of our selves.  Identity is not created by what you tweet, but what you do.  What you create.  What you love.  

A slant of light shifts through the trees and illuminates a tall grass in my border.  The October light is soft yet intense.  The grass seems to glow from within, vibrating in incandescent ecstasy.  I raise my hand to shield my eyes, but stop and instead stare into it.  The intensity of the light makes my eyes water.  Standing on the path, I try to absorb the moment.  But just as quickly as it began, the sun slips again on the horizon and the moment is over.  The grass turns a dull gray in the dusk.

It is enough though.  I may have dominion over this plot, but the life that animates it is from beyond.  I am grateful for a handful of luminous, radiant moments. They remind me who I am. 

Fabulous Succulent Pots

I had a period where I hated yuccas.  Probably had something to do with their overuse in the 1980s.  Many suburban yards in my neighborhood had one forlorn yucca abandoned in a bed.   Of course, my horticultural tastes constantly change, so now I adore yuccas and other succulents.  What’s not to love?  They are the perfect focal point: their architectural splendor, rich colors, and then there’s the light.  The way a slant of sun spills over each blade creating such magnificent chiaroscuro.

Many of the better agaves, yuccas, and other succulents are Zone 8 and warmer, but those in Zone 7 and above can enjoy them in pots.  What business does a desert plant have in a mid-Atlantic, temperate Piedmont garden?   Well, I am embracing my inner-Victorian: why deny myself the pleasure of a bit of horticultural fetishism?  Go ahead , try it: throw yourself into the crowd of mail-ordering, zone-pushing horticultural compulsives whose lust for exotic species leads them down dark (and expensive) paths.  It’s worth it.  And if my endorsement doesn’t persuade you, perhaps these fabulous succulent pots designed by the U.S. Botanical garden will.

What's not to love about this overloaded succulent pot? I could stare at this for an hour--I think I did actually . . .

Or contrast the intricacy of the previous pot with the simplicity of this arrangement:

Can anyone identify this species?  Some kind of Euphorbia? Really wonderful, especially with the yellow fall color behind it

I can't imagine a place where this pot would not look good:

Euphorbia tirucalli is always visually spectacular:

And sometimes the pot can speak for itself . . .

The Best Daffodil Plant List Ever

Gardeners and Designers, save this List! Naturalizing Daffodils Organized by Bloom Time

 

Daffodils blooms may be months away, but fall is the time to order and plant your spring bulbs.  I've always said that bulbs are by far the best bang for the buck of any plant you can buy.  For a few hundred bucks, you can create a spring spectacle with flowering bulbs.  Bulbs are a wonderful asset for the gardener and designer.  Designing with bulbs can be as complex or simple as you like. I've experimented quite a bit with different bulbs, from species tulips to woodland ephemerals, but my staple—the most reliable and rewarding spring bulbs—continues to be naturalizing daffodils.

 

All Narcissus are good perennial plants, but there are a handful of daffodil varieties that actually naturalize.  Naturalizing plants actually reproduce new bulbs underground, thickening over time and producing more flowers.  Since these bulbs reproduce rather easily, they have another advantage: they are the cheapest daffodils on the market.  You can’t beat that.

 

In my designs, I like to mix at least three varieties of daffodils—an early, mid, and late-blooming Narcissus—in order to extend the bloom time over two months.  But I’ve always had the problem of determining when daffodils bloom.  Bulb catalogues are notoriously vague about this information (mostly because it varies so much depending upon where in the country you are).  They often organize their catalogues by Divisions, making it almost impossible to determine what blooms when.  There are so many hundreds of varieties of Narcissus, it becomes incredibly difficult to choose.

 

But thanks to Van Engelen company out of Connecticut for providing this wonderful resource of naturalizing Narcissus—the most affordable and reliable Narcissus on the market—and organizing them by bloom sequence.  This list includes bulbs from multiple Divisions, including the ever popular Large Cupped and Small Cupped daffodils.  But what I’m increasingly drawn to are the smaller, heirloom Cyclamineus, Jonquilla, Poeticus, and species daffodils.  These smaller bulbs have tremendous potential for combining with other perennials in the garden, creating outstanding spring combinations.  Designers and gardeners, you’ll definitely want to save this list as a resource:

Fall/Winter Talks & Speeches

I have the pleasure of talking with different groups about landscape architecture, garden design, and sustainable design.   This fall and winter, I have a number of talks and lectures lined up throughout the mid-Atlantic.  Most of these talks are open to the public.  Click the links below to find out more information or register.  And see who else is speaking at some of these events—there are some great rosters here. 

September 30, 12:30-1:30: Adkins Arboretum, Tent Symposium Queen Annes County, MD 12610 Eveland Road, near Ridgely, MD


October 20, 9:15-10:15am: Green Springs Garden “Garden Design Symposium: Nature’s Inspirations”
4603 Green Spring Road Alexandria, Virginia 22312


November 17, 1:00pm: Piedmont Blue-Ridge Horticultural Society.
Learning Center, Museum of the Shenandoah Valley at Glen Burnie in Winchester, VA. 801 Amherst St, Winchester, VA 22601


February 6, 2013: Annapolis Horticultural Society, “Native Plants in the Cottage Garden.”  St. Anne's Parish Hall, 199 Duke of Gloucester Street, Annapolis, MD 2140.  Open to the public.


February 13, 2013: Lewis Ginter Botantical Garden, Winter Symposium
Massey Conference Center, 1800 Lakeside Avenue, Richmond, VA 23228

My Turn to the Dark Side

How an Annual Snob became an Annual Obsessive

I’ll admit it: I was an annual snob. I really wanted a T-shirt that said, “Friends don’t let friends plant annuals.” For me, annuals meant overused bedding plants: red begonias plopped in front of the Wendy’s sign; straggly petunias past their prime in a hanging basket; or squatty little orange marigolds that never blended with anything else. Plus, annuals are simply impractical. Why spend money on an annual you’d have to throw away in the fall when you could plant a perennial?

Plus, there was something just downright tacky to me about annuals. They are loud, over-the-top, and always stick out in a crowd—kind of like that redneck cousin who drinks too much at family reunions. Perennials, on the other hand, were more refined. I spent the better part of a decade mentoring under the late perennial genius Wolfgang Oehme. I understood the medium. Perennials are a thinking man’s plant. I loved the cerebral challenge of arranging perennials. They constantly change. Arranging a border requires the mental acumen of a chess master. Leave the annuals to the fast-food chains and gas stations; perennials were my game.

But something’s happening to me now. No, I have not stopped adoring perennials, but I am increasingly captivated by annuals, tropicals, and bulbs. It first started when I was tasked with designing a raised median in downtown D.C. The client wanted a seven-foot wide median to be a beacon of color. It had to be beautiful in every season; stand out among the busy downtown environment; and never have a down moment. Gulp. I quickly sped through my shortlist of long-lived perennials. Nope. Long blooming shrubs? Nope. It would have to be annuals.



Median with boughs and stems in winter



We ultimately decided to combine annuals and bulbs with sculptural shrubs such as columnar hollies and cloud-like hedges of boxwoods. Designing four seasons of spectacle—including the dead of winter—proved to be a one of my toughest horticultural challenges. At first, I was reluctant to use bedding annuals at all. We specified an elaborate mix of rare tropicals, designer annuals, and shrubs with colored foliage. I was rather pleased with the cutting-edge selections I made until I found out that the contractor could not find most of the plants. Not to cover a median that stretched three blocks. Last second substitutions meant dealing with what local annual nurseries had available: lots of pansies, lots of mums, lots of vinca. I remember being horrified with the first season rotation was almost nothing but yellow pansies and blue mums.



But the bedding annuals looked good, particularly at 45 miles per hour. From then on, we figured out how to use a base of bedding annuals and interplant more interesting combinations of tropicals, bulbs, and even shrubs used as annuals. The bedding plants provided the impact, and the accents provided the designer look.

Janet Draper's fabulous Ripley Garden

Of course, through my horticultural journeys, several great plantsmen have tempted me with the dark and seductive world of annuals. Janet Draper’s Ripley garden at the Smithsonian Institute always featured fabulous exotic selections like the purple-spiked silvery leaves of Solanum quitoense or the inspired combination of Golden Shrimp Plant (Pachystachys lutea), the deadly Firestick Plant (Euphorbia tirucalli), and Yucca ‘Hinvargas’. And there is Dan Benarcik’s mind-blowing combinations of tropicals and annuals at Chanticleer. And of course, Nancy Ondra’s blog was another inspiration. Every time I see one of her combinations of annuals and perennials, I immediately go out and drop $20 on some mail order seed catalogue. Finally, there’s the Long Border at Great Dixter. I’m obsessed by what Fergus Garrett is able to do in that strip. So much horticultural expertise goes into such a concentrated space. Is it over the top and gaudy? Perhaps, yes. A hot blooming mess? Definitely. But it is one of the most brilliant stretches of planting anywhere on the planet, and I am forever haunted by what they are able to do.

My final turning point to the dark path of annual obsession was my own experiment doing a perennial border. After smothering a large area of lawn for six months, I was so tired of looking at mulch and cardboard that my wife and I filled the area with a bunch of aggressive “filler” perennials. That did the trick. It was an instant garden, but the border immediately became one big hazy blob of green. And that’s what I call it now. It’s not the border, but the big-hazy-blob-of-green (BHBOG). Last year, I tried to cut the garden with some “structural” perennials—perennials with more distinctive silhouettes—but they had a hard time establishing in the BHBOG. The BHBOG is hungry and it eats everything you plant in it.

So I’ve had it. Next spring, I’m ruthlessly hacking into the BHBOG. No more mild-mannered perennials. I want over-the-top, shocking color. Ridiculous color. Burn your retinas color. I don’t care what it takes, but I’m throwing every cheap trick for color and foliage I know. Bulbs? Yes! Bazillions of them. Tropicals? Yes! If the leaf is less than six feet long, I won’t consider it. Self-seeding annuals? Yes! I’m buying seeds by the pound, not the packet. Spiky plants? Yes! Agaves,yuccas, acorus . . . it’s all going in. More is more. Yes is more. Everything will be considered as long as it’s effective. If it doesn’t scream color or texture, it’s gone.

And that’s how it happened. An annual snob turned into a foaming-at-the-mouth annual obsessive. “Horticultural exuberance is the new civil disobedience,” I heard Dan Benarcik say recently. Yes. Yes, it is. Now I want a T-shirt with THAT on it.

Fantastic Native Cultivar: Amsonia 'Blue Ice'

Amsonia 'Blue Ice' in my garden late April next to Nepeta 'Walker's Low' & Phlomis

Who needs a compact, attractive, tough-as-nails perennial that--by the way--is gorgeous in two seasons?  Yes, everyone.  Then let me enthusiastically endorse Amsonia tabernaemontana 'Blue Ice.'

The horticultural world is still rightfully swooning over its feathery cousin, Arkansas Amsonia (Amsonia hubrichtii), recent winner of the Perennial Plant of the Year.   I will make the claim, however, that Amsonia 'Blue Ice' may be the more versatile and durable plant.

Amsonia 'Blue Ice' was discovered in a seedling block of Amsonia tabernaemontana at White Flower Farm in Connecticut.  It sports the same broad leaves of the species, giving it a handsome texture to contrast with finer-foliaged plants.  But it seems to be more compact (12-15 inches in height), longer blooming (three weeks + in my garden), and has this incredibly dark blue color of the bud of the flower.  Dark blue is incredibly rare in perennials.  The dark blue buds have this incredible shadowing effect underneath the lighter blue periwinkle-like flowers.  In the mid-Atlantic, it bloomed late April through early May.



Dark blue buds shadow the lighter blue open flowers of Amsonia 'Blue Ice'

Amsonia tabernaemontana is a member of the dogbane family (Apocynaceae).  Like other members of the dogbane family, it has a white, milky sap that is toxic to mammaliam herbivores--perhaps making this a deer-resistant plant?  (Have others of you grown this plant in deer country?  I'd be curious to know how it fares.) It grows natively in rich open woods, rocky woodlands, limestone glades, and moist sandy meadows.

'Blue Ice' is a hybrid, but the exact parentage of this cultivar is still unknown.  Tony Advent of Plant Delights Nursery guesses it is a cross with the taxonomically-debated dwarf Amsonia montana (which most nurseries seem to categorize as Amsonia tabernaemontana 'Montanta').  Others have wondered whether it is a cross with the Asian Rhaza orientale, which after looking at images of Rhaza, seems highly plausible.  Whoever the papa is, Amsonia 'Blue Ice' has proven to be incredibly tough.  I planted it where it spills over a public sidewalk.  The heat off this sidewalk regularly tops 95 degrees for weeks in the summer.  And yet the foliage remains steadfast and handsome.    Based on my two year trial, I'd recommend it as a replacement for groundcovers. 

The foliage of Amsonia 'Blue Ice' in the midsummer heat near the U.S. Senate office

In the fall, this Bluestar turns a golden yellow, though  not quite as brilliant as its Threadleaf-cousin (A. hubrichtii).  Fall color was ok the first year, and much better the second year.  The warm yellow autumnal foliage is nice in combination with low grasses and native deciduous shrubs.



The fall foliage of Amsonia 'Blue Ice' is good, though not as strong as A. hubrichtii



The success of two U.S. native Amsonias (A. tabernaemontana and A. hubrichtii) should convince plant breeders to explore more of this wonderful genus.  Piet Oudolf has used Amsonia tabernaemontana var. salicifolia to great effect on projects such as The Highline and the Lurie Garden.  This variety differs from the species in that is has narrower more lanceolate leaves that makes it more willowy in texture.  There are at least 22 known species of Amsonias--most native to North America--and many of them have horticultural potential.  Southeastern natives Amsonia illustris and Amsonia ludoviciana are two others worth noting.  I'm particulalry interested in the Louisiana native A. ludoviciana for its compact habit, heat tolerance, and whitish, whooly undersides.  Could be a great native groundcover that might have some deer tolerance.  Plant hunters and breeders, get to it!

Amsonia hubrichtii in fall is incredibly dramatic

Landscape Architecture's Finest Moment?

Is the profession of landscape architecture entering into a new golden age? If the 2012 ASLA awards are any indication, the answer may be yes.

Award of Excellence: “A Green Sponge for a Water Resilient City: Qunli Stormwater Park,” Haerbin City, China. Design by Turrenscape and Peking University, Beijing. Photos by Kogjian Yu.

Landscape architects have long lived with a dualistic view of the profession. Inside the profession, LA’s see themselves as heirs to Frederick Law Olmsted’s heroic and sweeping ambitions. Landscape architects shape cities, create National Parks, protect the environment, and even stimulate social reform. But this rather ambitious internal view of the profession is undercut by landscape architecture’s relative obscurity in the public eye. Introduce yourself as a landscape architect at a cocktail party and questions about lawn mowers, flowers, or plant diseases immediately follow. Since Olmsted, the chasm between what landscape architects think they do and what the majority of them actually do has been very deep. Until now.

Landscape architects may indeed be gaining influence. “Landscape urbanism,” the theory that landscape—rather than architecture—is more capable of organizing and enhancing cities has moved from obscure theory to the dominant pedagogy in design-related higher education. Large scale urban projects all over the world are being lead by elite landscape architecture firms rather than by architects. Landscape architecture is moving away from merely ornamenting buildings and instead shaping the very infrastructure of cities.

The 2012 ASLA Awards are another indication of landscape architecture’s emboldened scope. The awards feature a stunning array of projects, including a seven thousand acre stormwater park; a park highlighting urban agriculture; a former quarry turned garden; the defining memorial for 9/11; and two new botantical gardens that feature not just plants as horticultural objects, but the ecological relationship between them.

Honor Award: “Quarry Garden in Shanghai Botanical Garden,” Shanghai China. THUPDI & Tsinghua University.

What is remarkable about this year’s ASLA Awards is not just the variety of projects, but the ambition of each of them. The Qunli Stormwater Park in China shows that a gorgeously designed recreational park can also be a green sponge for the entire city. Lafayette Greens in Detroit shows how an engaging public space can also be a productive vegetable garden. The Arizona State University Polytechnic Campus shows how the ecological fabric of the Sonoran desert can be a setting for a campus. Canada’s Sugar Beach shows that playfulness and whimsicality can contribute to the beauty of an urban waterfront.

What’s different about these projects is not just their scope, but their voice. The names of the projects by themselves—“Quarry Garden,” “Green Sponge for a City,” “Sugar Beach,”—suggest the extraordinary dramatic authority that is at the heart of all these projects. These projects are not about making spaces that slip quietly into their context; they are instead a declaration of war. Their anthem is a simple: landscape matters.  Lanscape architects are no longer decorators of architecture; they are green knights who march foward with with the conviction that any outdoor space--from quarries to waterfronts, from gardens to cities--can be conquered with design.

Honor Award: “Canada’s Sugar Beach,” Toronto Waterfront. Claude Cormier Associes Inc. Images by Claude Cormier Associates and Nicola Betts.

Honor Award: “Lafayette Greens: Urban Agriculture, Urban Fabric, Urban Sustainability,” Detroit, Michigan. Kenneth Weikal Landscape Architecture.  Images by Beth Hagenbuch.

Honor Award: “Sunnylands Center and Gardens.” Rancho Mirage, California. The Office of James Burnett. Images by Mark Davidson and Dillon Diers.

For the full list of the 2012 ASLA Awards, including more images and fuller project descriptions, click here.

Thirty Seconds Until You are Totally Inspired

Several weeks ago, I wrote a post comparing texture in music to planting design.  The other day, I read this quote by one of my favorite landscape architects in the world, London-based Tom Stuart-Smith, which also compares music to the garden.  Like everything he does, the quote is simple, yet briming in shimmering detail.  Enjoy!

"I rarely listen to music while I’m working since I cannot concentrate.  But instead, some musical phrase takes up permanent residence in a chamber of my ind and accompanies me through the day.  In one very facile respect music is like a garden, with its contrast between form and content.  The formal structure of music is often quite rigid, as with sonota form, which is then contrasted with the embellishment of detail. 

"With Beethoven’s late quartets and piano sonatas, contrast is taken to an extreme: an almost savage starkness and sparse construction is set against passages of eloquent lyricism or gaping silences.  If this music depicts anything, it is a succession of emotional experiences.  Perhaps this is like a garden, with its crescendos and diminuendos, its sudden bursts of energy and silences—all set within an overriding architecture.  Doesn’t the garden at its best become an abstract expression of man’s connection to the world beyond himself?  Like music . . . but just a little less turbulent than Beethoven.” 

Landscape architect Tom Stuart-Smith.  Quote originally appeared in Garden Design Journal, September 2004

Garden for a Modern Pavilion

I was pleased to see a garden I had recently worked on featured in the fall issue of Home and Design Magazine. My involvement in the garden began when director Elliot Rhodeside of my firm, Rhodeside & Harwell, introduced me to a long-time friend and client of his. The client had hired local architect Robert Gurney to design a modern pool house for his Bethesda home. Elliot had designed several phases of the garden several years before and oversaw all aspects of this garden design.

Robert Gurney is a celebrated modernist architect. For this project, he created a jeweled glass and stone pavilion to sit atop a new swimming pool. The old pool was ripped out and a new pool was created to connect the house and pavilion. Gurney sensitively sited the pavilion as far back against the existing woods as possible to ground the structure in vegetation.

The existing planting beds did not relate at all to the new structure, so our challenge was to blend the pavilion into the landscape and the woodland behind it. To that end, Elliot and I enlarged the planting bed and focused on a palette of perennials and grasses to create a foreground for the pavilion. The planting also had to blend the orthogonal geometry of the pool and pavilion with the more curvilinear geometry of the existing lawn. To add structure to the garden, clusters of boxwoods were added at key corners. These clusters will eventually grow together and be clipped into gumdrop shapes. Behind the pavilion, we planted a grove of Stewartias with Palm Sedge grass (Carex muskingumensis ‘Oehme’). We wanted to intensify the feeling of woods immediately behind the pavilion.  Elliot suggested the row of columnar Magnolia 'Alta' that flanks the fenceline along the pool.  These stately trees draw screen the neighboring property and draw the eye toward the pavilion.

Here is a link to the full article.