[园林设计杂志].Garden.Design.May.2006

$5.9 9 / $6. 99 C AN. M AY 2 O O 6

great ideas for gracious outdoor living

santa barbara style

Plant a Tropical Garden on the Weekend Hydrangeas:Timeless Beauties, New Hotties Almost-Instant Water Features Turn Bouquets into Art Belgian Style

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58

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Features

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La Dolce Vita

Nestled in a geographically blessed Mediterranean climate, Santa Barbara and its suburb of Montecito offer an abundance of ideas and inspiration for gracious outdoor living and creative gardening. This elegant approach to living with nature is inspirational wherever you are. B Y D O N N A D O R I A N

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Belgium Wow

“Cutting-edge floral design” rings true in Belgium, where designers are pushing far past the flowers-in-a-vase paradigm.

Meet Daniel Ost, Geert Pattyn and Nico De Swert, three pioneers in this born-again art form, and take in the beauty and curiosity of their designs. B Y J E N N Y A N D R E W S

On the Cover A stone banco in a Montecito garden exemplifies Santa Barbara style (see page 58).

Photo by Steve Gunther.

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Short but Sweet

Cross over the Maine border into York and all bets are off.

A creative culinary couple and their landscape designer’s inventive way with annuals created a garden that leaves conservative Northeast tradition in the dust. B Y T O V A H M A R T I N

When the sun is out and the wind is still, you’re one month on in the middle of May—R O B E R T

F RO S T

GARDEN DESIGN

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contents Departments 12

Reader Letters

15 Dirt Left- and right-coast museums and their must-see landscapes. Sitting in miniature. Cottage Garden in Piasa, Illinois. Midcentury-modern garden goodies in Pound Ridge, NewYork.And more.

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26 Growing The magnificent and versatile hydrangea.

Décor This coastal getaway is a place for luxurious but casual outdoor living.

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Style Water features that are new in material and contemporary in design.

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45 Entertaining Maximizing your garden for a party: Designer Dan Zelen offers guest-pleasing tabletop ideas.

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Groundbreaker

The inside track on Philippe Starck’s outdoor furniture.

54 Abroad

ExploringVancouver Island’s horticultural heaven.

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Sage Advice

You asked and Jack Ruttle answers.Versatile bamboo.A Native American meditation garden.Tropicals in New Jersey.

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Details

A Mogul garden brings Moorish tradition to the Hamptons.

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For more, check out www.gardendesign.com.

POSTAL INFORMATION GARDEN DESIGN, NUMBER 138 (ISSN 0733-4923), is published 7 times per year (January/February, March,April, May, June/July, September/October, November/December) by World Publications, LLC, P.O. Box 8500,Winter Park, FL 32790. ©Copyright 2004, all rights reserved. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without consent of the copyright owner. Periodicals postage paid at Winter Park, FL, and additional mailing offices. SUBSCRIPTIONS: U.S.: $23.95 for one year, $39.95 for 2 years. Canadian subscribers add $8.00 per year, foreign subscribers add $21.00 per year. For subscription information, please call 800/5130848. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to GARDEN DESIGN, P.O. Box 421145, Palm Coast, FL 32142-1145. For faster service, please enclose your current subscription label. Occasionally, we make portions of our subscriber list available to carefully screened companies that offer products and services we think may be of interest to you. If you do not want to receive these offers, please advise us at 1-800-513-0848. EDITORIAL: Send correspondence to Editorial Department, GARDEN DESIGN, P.O. Box 8500,Winter Park, FL 32789; E-mail: gardendesign@worldpub.net.We welcome all editorial submissions, but assume no responsibility for the loss or damage of unsolicited material.

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What potent blood hath modest May—R A L P H

WA L D O E M E R S O N

E D I TO R - I N - C H I E F Bill Marken Joanna Fortnam Michael Bessire A RT D I R E C TO R Eric Powell S T Y L E E D I TO R Donna Dorian M A N AG I N G E D I TO R Jenny Andrews P H OTO E D I TO R Jason Upright C O P Y E D I TO R Nancy Ogburn O N L I N E E D I TO R / W E B P RO D U C E R Brent Schmierbach S E N I O R A DV I S E R Ken Druse H O RT I C U LT U R A L C O N S U LTA N T Jack Ruttle C O N S U LT I N G E D I TO R S Charles Birnbaum, Dr. Marc Cathey, Ruth Chivers, James David, Dick Dunmire, Amy Goldman, Richard Hartlage, Christy Hobart, Adam Levine, Michael MacCaskey, Deborah Madison, David McMullin, Denise Otis, Diane Dorrans Saeks, Ivette Soler, AltaTingle, EmilyYoung, DavidWinston E X E C U T I V E E D I TO R

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C U S TO M E R S E RV I C E :

from the editor

MY DAUGHTER, VISITING THE SAN FRANCISCO FLOWER & GARDEN SHOW WITH ME and presumably bringing a sensitivity refined by a U.C.-Berkeley degree in art history, loved the bottle tree. A bottle tree is not a real tree, but real bottles hang on a tangle of real rebar—it is garden folk art that I never seem to get.

What you learn from watching people react to plants, exhibits and products at a gardening coming-together event like this is mind-stretching and mind-blowing.You see what people really like. It’s like a big, live focus group.

We are pleased to say that visitors to the show liked the Garden Design exhibit garden enough to vote it the People’s Choice award.

Called Moroccan Modern, the garden was designed by Michele Swanson and built by Modern Landscaping. It was created to display ideas for comfortable and stylish outdoor living, decorating and entertaining.What did our “focus group” visitors react to? The travertine paving squares, the beautiful urns from Eye of the Day and the ribbony disguise for the Sundance Spa, among many things. I coveted the elegant, tank-sturdy Kalamazoo grill. My daughAt entry of Moroccan ter-in-law, also a show visitor, had her eye on the ArmaModern garden, designer da chaise by Brown Jordan.You can see more about the Michele Swanson and show garden in one of our upcoming issues. builder Mike Hertzer of Beyond our garden, the show revealed lots of inspirModern Landscaping. ing landscapes, exciting plants and further observations Crowd-pleasing antique on the gardening public’s behavior, including my own. urns and reproductions.

Digging Dog Nursery’s booth offered an amazing array of perennials and flowering shrubs, including two viburnums I took home. At Annie’s Annuals, I saw for the first time blooming in cultivation the legendary giant coreopsis (Coreopsis gigantea) that grows wild on the islands off Southern California. Happy to tell you that both nurseries sell their plants online: www.diggingdog.com and www.anniesannuals.com.

I spotted a great solution for a boring slab of concrete: Cover with an ipe deck in modular form (www.ecowoodscalifornia.com). And I thought pretty seriously about bringing home a garden gong that you hammer with a drumstick.What would neighbors think? On my dream wish list: a garden teepee

by Jesse Salcedo (jdsalcedo@earthlink.net).

Random observations: More small gardens than usual. More diversity, with garden styles from Japan to Baja to Morocco to Provence.Wonderful green and blooming meadows by John Greenlee. I’d like to see an award for Best in Show baby stroller—all the latest models were on parade.

It’s great to see so many people passionate about what we deal with in every issue of Garden Design magazine.They’re spouting long Latin names, rubbing their hands on fine teak and treating garden designers like rock stars. If only editors were treated that way!—B I L L M A R K E N , E D I TO R - I N - C H I E F

A little madness in the spring is wholesome even for the king—E M I L Y

DICKINSON

C A RO L I N E KO P P ( 2 )

People’s Choice

mailbox On Deck We own an urban home in a historic section of downtown Indianapolis that’s very much like the home shown in the article “Urban Spaceman,” by EmilyYoung, in the January/February issue.The article shows a back deck with a sofa/storage center and mentions KyleTracy as the carpenter.Would this gentleman have a plan or drawing for this sofa/deck? If so, I would like to obtain a copy for our home.The deck is perfect, and the sofa fits with our backyard landscaping plans this year.—Jim Newman/Kathleen Houlihan, Indianapolis, IN According to landscape architect Rob Steiner, the design of the deck and bench (above) was simple enough to not require plans. A good carpenter should be able to customize a similar setup for your space by using the photo for reference.What doesn’t show is the simple rail and drawer system under the bench—like a single oversize dresser drawer—that was retrofitted as an “aha moment” afterthought.

the trees. Another option would be to use a native species like river birch, B. nigra (especially ‘Heritage’), though its bark is pinkish rather than white.

More “NameThat Plant” What plant is pictured in your March issue on page 76, the grasslike plant in the foreground?

It looks like a variegated Dianella tasmanica in a more yellowish color.There are two of these plants in the picture, one is next to a bromeliad. I would love to know what kind of plant that is for future reference.Thank you so much and keep up the great work!—Redelyn Guiting, Burbank, CA According to landscape designer Art Luna, that’s actually a furcraea, which is in the agave family.

Best Ohio Birch What species of birch did Michel Desvigne and Christine Dalnoky use in the garden on page 112 of the March issue? —Megan King, Central Ohio The designers were unavailable to answer your question by press time.We consulted our horticulture expert, who has narrowed it down to either Betula pendula from southern and eastern Europe or B. mandschurica from China.You might have more success with B. papyrifera, a white-barked birch better-suited to the heat in the Midwest (specifically Zones 2 to 6 and sometimes even to 7), or B. utilis var. jacquemontii.The problem with white birches in the Midwest is their susceptibility, when stressed by drought, etc., to infestation by borers, which typically kills

Retail Customers Welcome As the owners of Mesogeo Greenhouse on Bainbridge Island,Washington, we’d like to correct a small error that crept into the article about us in your July/August 2005 issue. It referred to us as a “wholesale nursery.”We are actually a retail nursery open to the general public.Thanks much for the chance to set this straight.—Terry Moyemont, Mesogeo Greenhouse,206-8559017, www.mesogeogarden.com

Correction On page 36 of the April issue the city of Fremont, California, was misspelled as Freemont. We do apologize to the good people of Fremont for the extra “e.”

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MUSEUM GARDENS

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PAT I O C L E M AT I S

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N E PA L I V Y

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A L C AT R A Z

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N I K I I N AT L A N TA

Museum Quality

a masterful blend of old and new, also merits praise and Above left: Native a close look. Landscape arIS IT A TREND FOR GROUNDcrop garden at D.C. breaking new museums to crechitect Walter Hood faced museum.Above ate innovative gardens to comseveral challenges.While deright, next page: plement the buildings and add signing a landscape to comTree ferns inside to the visitor experience? If so, plement the about-to-beand magnolias outwe are certainly in favor of it. iconic building, he also side the de Young.

In San Francisco, there’s the wanted to honor the origistartling new garden surroundnal garden and plants. ing the de Young museum in Golden Gate Historic, century-old Canary Island palms Park, rebuilt to replace the earthquake-dam- (Phoenix canariensis), saved from the old landaged landmark there. Around the National scape, were replanted after almost five years Museum of the American Indian in Wash- in storage and now break up the southern ington, D.C., a garden pays homage to the face of the building. Old favorites are given relationship between Native Americans and a new twist:A circular Pool of Enchantment their natural environment. replaces the old rectangular Turtle Pool.

The de Young museum opened last fall, New artworks are showcased alongside old: and Herzog and de Meuron’s copper-clad Andy Goldsworthy’s meandering Drawn building has earned worldwide attention, Stone, underfoot at the museum’s front enmost of it very positive.The new landscape, try, contrasts admirably with the reposi-

Museums do not just happen—J .

PA U L G E T T Y

tioned Dore vase. Native plants like redwoods and sand-dune-like mounds of soil remind you of the park’s wild heritage.

Fitting in with neighbors—a familiar theme for homeowners—was also an issue, with the venerated JapaneseTea Garden next door. A clipped hedge of white camellias is just the right connection. More of Golden Gate Park is also inside the museum—tree ferns and eucalyptus in the skylit courtyard.

Visitors can best see the nearly 5 acres of landscaping from the building’s 144-foot tower.A bird’s-eye view reveals a zigzag of ferns and a grove of eucalyptus almost slicing one building into three. From this height, the abstract ground shapes of the Garden of Enchantment resemble a Miró painting.

InWashington, D.C.,The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian opened in fall 2004, and the permanent plantings have settled in nicely—the birch

C O U RT E S Y N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F T H E A M E R I C A N I N D I A N ( 1 ) ; C O U RT E S Y D E YO U N G M U S E U M ( 1 )

Bold new gardens in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco match their museums for innovation and viewing pleasure

GARDEN DESIGN

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AND BILL MARKEN

For details on visiting the de Young museum and exhibitions, see www.thinker.org/de young/index.asp. For details on the NMAI, see www.americanindian.si.edu.

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plants

Patio Perfect

AS MORE PEOPLE CHOOSE TO LIVE IN TOWN- care dwarf cultivars designed for growing houses and apartments, their gardens are in larger containers.The plants reach only shrinking, often to the size of patios or bal- 3 or 4 feet tall, but their flowers are large conies.What can gardeners do to overcome and are produced freely on both last year’s the space crunch? Grow up. stems and new growth.This means that even That was the impetus for me to develop if a severe winter kills top growth back to dwarf, bushy new varieties of one of my fa- ground level, the clematis will still grow and vorite plants—clematis.These “patio clema- flower the following spring. tis” as they’ve been dubbed, can be planted Like other clematis, the dwarf varieties in containers among flowering annuals, pro- need a companion plant or some other supvide columns of color to define an outdoor port to grow on, lots of water and excellent room or enhance the view from a deck. drainage.They also like their roots to be kept And the multistemmed plants, which aren't cool.That’s easy to accomplish—just plant leggy like so many of the colorful annuals or even shalolder clematis, will keep low-rooted perennials in the flowering from spring same container and they will through late summer. protect the clematis’ roots, Last year the fruit of my as well as add extra oomph labors, the Raymond Evison to the flower display.

And, based on my expePatio Clematis™ Collection, was launched at last and this rience, you can forget all spring three new colors have those complex rules about been added to the group— pruning associated with oldBourbon™ is purple-bander clematis varieties. Plants ed with red, Angelique™ is in the Patio Clematis Colpalest lilac and Parisienne™ lection do well with the is mauve with reddish an“ponytail prune.” Before new thers.The designer hues fit growth appears, grasp all the Sampling of the Patio with the trend to extend instems 12 inches above soil Clematis™ Collection, terior decor to outdoor livlevel, and cut off the tops.— clockwise from top left: R AY M O N D E V I S O N ing spaces.

Panache™,Versailles™, It took 10 years for the new lilac Angelique™ For more info on the Raymond Evison™ and Poulsen® breedand Hyde Hall™. ing program to develop this Evison Patio Clematis Collection, new kind of clematis, easyvisit www.evisonclematis.com.

A little saint best fits a little shrine.A little prop best fits a little vine—R O B E R T

HERRICK

C O U RT E S Y D E YO U N G M U S E U M ( 1 ) ; R AY M O N D E V I S O N ( 4 )

trees’ bark is peeling off in hefty chunks and looks ready for canoe making.

The landscape around the curvy, roughhewn sandstone building occupies much of the site’s 41/2 acres and gives the visitor a sense of how Native Americans lived with nature.

Ethnobotanist Donna House conceived the garden in conjunction with landscape architects at EDAW in Alexandria,Virginia.

Plantings of some 150 species represent traditional crops and the forests, meadows and wetlands of the Chesapeake Bay region.

The focal point of the landscape is the pond near the front entry; realistic touches include cattails, bald cypress and fallen trees left for visiting birds. Along the building are native grasses. During the growing season, another section is devoted to native crops grown for food and medicine.What you won’t notice are plant labels—a no-no for House, a stickler for maintaining an authentic native spirit.

Of special note are several dozen boulders placed around the property.These are known as grandfather rocks, symbolic of the relationship between nature and America’s native peoples.—R U T H C H I V E R S

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growing

TOP SEED

fyi For more information, email inform@botanicalinterests.com or see www.botanicalinterests.com. Seeds are available from retail stores and independent Web sites.

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Left to right: Cottage Garden nursery offers a choice selection of tropicals for Midwesterners; rex begonia vine (Cissus discolor) in front of Hosta ‘Golden Sculpture’. destination nursery

PrairieTropical THE MOST STYLISH GARDENS ALWAYS SEEM TO be exotic paradises thriving in coastal climates.To a Midwestern prairie gardener, used to stifling summers and blood-stilling winters, such lush displays are an unfair tease.

Fret not, flatlanders, because in a place not far from St. Louis dreams of a backyard jungle can be fulfilled, if only for a few months.

Cottage Garden, in small-town Piasa (pronounced PIE-a-saw), Illinois, is run by a selfprofessed plantaholic who feels your pain.

Chris Kelley and husband/business partner, Bill Kelley, opened a retail and mailorder perennial nursery in 1987.A passion for the colorful personalities of tropicals gradually overtook Chris.Today she calls the nursery a “plant zoo” specializing in “tropicalismo on the prairie,” unusual tender annuals that love the region’s steamy summers and balmy early autumns.

The mom-and-pop operation still offers a hefty share of hardy perennials, including hostas and many hard-to-find natives such as pale-yellow Baptisia x ‘Carolina Moonlight’. But it's the tempting tropicals, skill-

fully arranged in sample containers and beds, that are the draw for an experimental palate. Look for Brugmansia‘Super Nova’ with its 16-inch-long white trumpet blooms, tiny Caladium humboldtii, and fabulous Nicotiana mutabilis. New last year was Jasminum officinale Fiona Sunrise™, grown in the Midwest for its striking golden foliage.This year it’s shrimp plant, Justicia carnea ‘Radiant’. Visitors can shop from among 60 varieties of hummingbird favorites and tour the stock-plant greenhouse for a peek at what’s coming next season.

Make a day of it by first visiting the inspirational Missouri Botanical Garden (www.mobot.org) in St. Louis. Cottage Garden is only a 45-minute northeasterly drive away, and proprietors the Kelleys will recommend several charming eateries nearby to satisfy a gardener’s more visceral hunger.—L AU R I E G R A N O Cottage Garden, 6967 Illinois Route 111, Piasa, IL 62079. Call 618-729-4324 or see www.cottgardens.com.

Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders—H E N R Y

DAV I D T H O R E A U

C Z A C H S TO VA L L ( 1 ) ; C H R I S K E L L E Y ( 2 )

More than 10 years ago Curtis Jones and Judy Seaborn came together in life and in business.

Now their family-owned company, Botanical Interests, in Broomfield, Colorado, has become a source for top-quality flower, vegetable and herb seeds.The rigorously tested, hand-picked seeds are untreated with chemicals and represent more than 400 varieties, including a Certified Organic line and heirlooms.

A sampling of noteworthy items includes ‘Black Magic’ bachelor button, ‘Chater’s Double’ hollyhock, ‘Candy Stripe’ cosmos,‘Teatime Red’ hibiscus,‘Thumbelina’ carrot, seven varieties of gourds, 10 basils and 23 peppers.

Botanical Interests artfully includes plenty of information, outside and inside the beautifully designed seed packets, on everything gardeners need to know and then some—water, soil, light, planting depth, days to harvest or bloom, color and habit, frost dates, and even a historical or culinary tidbit or two. Each packet is like a ministory about the plant. Jones and Seaborn say,“Our aim is for the gardener using our seeds to say at the end of the season,‘What a terrific gardening year this was. I did a great job.’”—E L L E N W E L L S

books

QUEST FOR EDEN As anyone who has ever gardened even briefly knows, it can be an epic journey, sometimes to the funny farm. In The $64 Tomato (Algonquin Books, $22.95), gentleman farmer William Alexander recounts with wry humor and dead-on insight his joys, woes, epiphanies and philosophies as he realizes that the road to his idyllic garden is paved with Japanese beetles, groundhogs, weeds and misguided contractors. He says, "Gardening is often thought to be a genteel, relaxing hobby....For me, gardening more often resembles blood sport." So why do it? For Alexander it's a fascination with the cycle of life, the triumph of optimism over experience, and the food. Ah, the food!

A litany of every possible gardening experience—from deer fencing to weed-filled topsoil to canning an overabundance of peaches to planting a meadow—this book will strike a chord (and hit a few nerves) with anyone who dreams of orderly rows of ripening veggies and eating a tomato fresh off the vine. In the end, it's worth all the drama even if, when expenses are tallied and amortized, the tomato does cost $64.—Jenny Andrews

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fyi Chairs are available at Vitra, 29 Ninth Ave., New York, NY, 212-463-5750; 557 Pacific Ave., San Francisco, CA, 415-296-0711; and MoMA Design and Book Store, 11 W. 53rd St., New York, NY, 212-708-9700, www.MoMAstore.org.

Clockwise from top left: Panton Chair set, Gala by Franco Albini, Indoor chair Lockheed Lounge designed by Marc Newson in 1986.

collecting

WHEN IT COMES TO ADDICTIONS, COLLECTING miniature chairs is a stylish vice—and a great way for space-strapped furniture junkies to live with history-making design.

TheVitra Design Museum has added four new mini chairs, including a palm-size version of the wicker Gala designed in 1950 by Franco Albini, to its ever-growing Miniatures Collection which now includes close to 100 tiny perfect copies of classic chairs, indoor and outdoor, from the past 180 years.

In 1992 the museum, inWeil am Rhein, Germany, started producing handmade chairs that are one-sixth the size of famous originals housed in Vitra’s permanent collection, which includes seating by Ludwig Mies van

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der Rohe, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Charles Eames, Frank Gehry and Philippe Starck. Special licensing agreements are arranged with designers or designers’ estates, Vitra officials say, to ensure the minis are exact, albeit much-scaled-down, replicas.

Garden-, patio- or porch-centric chairs in the miniatures lineup include the castiron Gartenstuhl designed in 1820 by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the painted-metal Midway Gardens Chair by Frank LloydWright in 1913, and the 1986 painted-steel Thinking Man’s Chair by Jasper Morrison.

Other indoor-outdoor creations include the 1986 sinuous bent and welded steel Spine by Andre Dubreuil and the 1952 lat-

ticelike Diamond Chair by Harry Bertoia.

(Vitra’s mini-Diamond is the indoor chrome version; the original chair was also made in a rubberized white for outdoor use.)Verner Panton designed the colorful, stackable plastic Panton Chair in 1960, then costly to make and considered too precious for outdoor use; today, the mini-Panton (sold in sets of five) and a full-sized model are reproduced by Vitra in an inexpensive polypropylene that works well on a patio.

Still, the petite Panton and other Vitra miniatures are valuable collectibles and should be displayed in a protected area.The little chairs range in price from about $100 to more than $600 each.—LAURIE GRANO

A chair is a very difficult object to design.A skyscraper is almost easier—L U D W I G

M I E S VA N D E R RO H E

C O U RT E S Y V I T R A D E S I G N M U S E U M ( 3 ) ; P E T E R L O E W E R ( 1 )

Big Design, Small Package

i love this plant

NEPAL IVY One of the happiest times as a horticulturist or nursery person in North Carolina was the annual plant distribution engineered by the late J.C. Raulston, founding director of a unique plant collection and arboretum in Raleigh now called the JC Raulston Arboretum in his honor.

Each year in this salute to plants, a black trash bag full of rooted cuttings was handed out to members of the nursery trade at conventions across the state. For the arboretum the purpose was to broaden the selection of plants available for sale to keep the industry in high gear.

I was lucky to collect a wonderland of unique plants from those horticultural handouts.At the top of my list is the variegated Nepal ivy (Hedera nepalensis var. sinensis 'Marbled Dragon') I acquired in 1997.Today this treasure spills over the stone wall in my side garden. Its 5-inch lobed leaves have cream-colored veining and neat splatters of lime green.

Mature plants can produce striking yellow or orange umbels of fruits. Plants are easy to propagate using only single-node cuttings.

The ivy’s hardiness has been listed as Zone 8 (usually in British references), but I’ve found it quite hardy in my Asheville garden (Zone 6b), where we often have windy winter nights around 0 degrees.While there is some leaf burn in really cold winters, the vines recover in spring.

One difficulty in writing about great plants is including a source. Fortunately I live near Sandy Mush Herb Nursery (www.sandymushherbs. com). Since the owners are longtime admirers of Raulston, I called proprietor Fairman Jayne and learned that the nursery does stock this plant and that it’s hardy at their location in the North Carolina mountains.“It's a beauty,” agreed Fairman,“and a continuing salute to Raulston’s genius at collecting.”—P E T E R L O E W E R

dirt restoration

ALCATRAZ ISLAND, HOME OF THE INFAMOUS prison, each day attracts thousands of visitors who are ferried across San Francisco Bay’s unforgiving waters to tour the creepy historic cellblock. Over the years, few people noticed the gardens.

Yes, there are gardens on The Rock, at one time at least 2 acres of them, in meager soil amid tumbled ruins and wild overgrowth.When the prison closed in 1963, plants maintained by inmates were on their own.The budget-strapped National Park Service took over the site in 1972, and since then the skeleton staff has had its hands full preserving the crumbling buildings, let alone the once-vibrant gardens.

The neglected roses, agaves, ice plants, calla lilies and fuchsias (among nearly 200 native and exotic varieties found so far) have proven to be as tough as the convicts who once tended them, and their resilience is be-

or so years shows the gardens to be an intriguing microcosm of how plants are introduced to an initially barren habitat, how humans and plants interact, and national gardening trends.The gardens date to the late 1860s, when the island was being transformed from a U.S.Army fort into a military prison. Officers and their wives, in attempts to make the bleak landscape more inviting, designed small Victorian-style plots planted in soil brought over by barge. Plantings later increased when a gardening rehabilitation program was created for prisoners. (The fascinating history is covered in the 1996 book Gardens of Alcatraz by John Hart, Russell A. ing rewarded. Led by the Golden Gate Na- Beatty and Michael Boland.) After Alcatraz tional RecreationArea, Golden Gate National became a federal penitentiary in 1934, FredParks Conservancy and The Garden Conser- die Reichel, secretary to the warden and selfvancy, and fueled by volunteers, restoration taught gardener, guided a team of inmates in of the abandoned gardens is underway. further improving the island’s colorful casInformation accumulated over a hundred cading gardens, which at their peak offered neighboring San Franciscans dramatic views.

Alcatraz gardeners sought out plants from parts of the world with climates similar to that of California’s coast; the restoration is teaching just how hardy exotic ornamentals can be. “People always talk about using natives for sustainable gardens,” says Carola Ashford, project manager of the Alcatraz Historic Gardens Project for the Garden Conservancy. “These Agaves (above), exotics are thriving without a pink geraniums lot of intervention, chemical or and yellow sedums otherwise.” (left) thrive among “This place is so harsh with all other tough plants the gray rock and concrete, to at Alcatraz. see the gardens is to see the island’s softer side,” says Jayeson Vance, park service ranger. In restored sections visitors linger and take care not to litter.

The hidden gardens of Alcatraz, once apparent only to those who knew where to look, are being set free for all to enjoy.

Perhaps one day the plantings will be as powerful a draw as the haunting prison buildings.—L AU R I E G R A N O For information see www.parksconservancy.org and www.nps.gov/alcatraz/nature.

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It looks like Alcatraz has got me licked—A L

CAPONE

L I N DA OYA M A B RYA N ( 2 ) ; C O P Y R I G H T L E C H J A R E T KO ( 1 ) ; C O P Y R I G H T S A R A H C A R M O DY ( 1 ) ; A N D R E B A R A N O W S K I ( 1 )

Paradise on Devil’s Island

shopping

AVANT GARDEN

exibits

NIKI IN ATLANTA To walk through the Atlanta Botanical Garden this spring is to enter a dreamscape peopled with oversize animals, eerie totems and zaftig dancing women.Welcome to the fanciful world of noted French artist Niki de Saint Phalle, whom ABG director Mary Pat Matheson

Above: Nana on a Dolphin, 1998, and Guardian Lion, 2000; two of the works

by Niki de Saint Phalle on display.

calls "one of the most significant female artists of the 20th century."

"Niki in the Garden" is one of the most extensive exhibitions of Saint Phalle's sculptures, including 36 large pieces—some as long as 25 feet—as well as smaller works, their polymer forms covered with glittering mosaics of tile, glass and semiprecious stones. Coming from as far away as France, Germany and California, some of the figures are so large they had to be moved in sections.A few sculptures can even be entered and the mosaics continue on the interior walls.

When Kristin and Charlie Allen saw the dilapidated gas station in the idyllic Westchester County town of Pound Ridge, NewYork, they realized that its industrial look and soaring ceilings were a perfect match for their garden antiques shop,Avant Garden.

“We wanted to invigorate the vocabulary of garden antiques,” says Kristin, who, with Charlie, opened Avant Garden in 2003.They are part of the new generation of antiques dealers drawn to the clean, spare lines of midcentury modernism, and their passion is evident in the shop filled with industrial containers, zinc-topped tables, sculpture and amoebic-shaped planters.

When they aren’t minding the shop or showing at top design and garden shows in the New York area, Charlie, who is English by birth, is often on buying trips to England, France, Belgium and Italy.“There is really a big difference between American and European industrial.A European étagère, for example, has extraordinary detail— even its rivet pieces are interesting,” says Kristin.

Because the warm-weather season is so short in the Northeast,Avant Garden is also a perfect stage set for innovative pieces that bring the outdoors in, from faux bois, industrial street lanterns to stone-topped game tables and anthropomorphic lamps.“One of our most satisfying recent sales was a complete set of Woodard’s classic wire-mesh Sculptura line from the 1950s,” says Kristin.—D O N N A D O R I A N For more information call 914-764-0010 or see www.avantgardenltd.com.

Saint Phalle was unconventional as an artist and a woman—fashion model, set and costume designer, self-taught artist and the only female member of the Nouveau Realisme movement, which included Christo, Gérard Deschamps,Yves Klein and her husband, Jean Tinguely. She was famous in the 1960s for her "shooting paintings," created by firing a gun at containers of paint, but eventually sculpture became her primary medium. Influenced by artists like Antonio Gaudi and Salvador Dali, she created monumental, surreal figures, "Niki in the Garden" will be on display through October. Every Thursday evening the garden will be open to the public and the sculptures lit for "Niki Nights."

both startling and joyful. Her work can be seen in public spaces worldwide, including the Tarot Garden in Tuscany, the Stravinsky Fountain in Paris and Queen Califia's Magical Circle in Escondido, California. —J A

But man does not create…he discovers—A N T O N I O

GAUDI

GARDEN DESIGN

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dirt

RECIPE

the cutting edge

SPRING POTAGER BANCHET JAIGLA STARTED MAKING FLORAL DESIGNS 19 YEARS AGO, WORKING OUT OF HER barn in Bedford, NewYork.Today she has an international reputation, having won awards across the globe for a unique visual vocabulary underscored by the variety and quantity of flowers she regularly garners from growers in Asia,Africa and South America.

Her latest project is Flower Bar, to open early this summer in her enlarged flower shop in Manhattan’s edgy meatpacking district, where wine, champagne and readyto-go floral arrangements will be offered.While bars are generally lined with liquor bottles, Banchet’s effusive orchid arrangements will be on display instead. Flowers and cocktails are an irresistable combination—and it happened at Flower Bar first.—D D

Celebrate spring this year by giving vegetables a place of honor in your bouquets. Here are instructions on how one floral designer, Banchet Jaigla, approaches the season.

To wrap the bowl in fava beans, stretch an elastic band around the bowl and slip the beans under it. Conceal the band by tying over it tightly with raffia wire. Bunch the tulips together in groups of five, using raffia to tie each group together. Pour enough water into the bowl to reach the bottom of the tulip stems, then add the tulips to the bowl. Cut the green tops off just-picked carrots and place one top between each group of tulips. Bunch up the lettuce and place it at the top of the arrangement.

Banchet Flowers:809Washington St.,NewYork,NY;212-989-1088;www.BanchetFlowers.com.

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The fountain is my speech.The tulips are my speech.The grass and trees are my speech—G E O R G E

T. D E L A C O RT E

MICHAEL KRAUS

30 pink parrot tulips 6 long green carrot tops 24 red-tinted fava beans one small bunch of red-leaf lettuce raffia wire 1 round glass bowl about 8 inches in diameter, the length of the fava beans

growing Heavenly Hydrangeas

Voluptuous or dainty, hydrangeas offer color and solid-citizen stability to borders and containers MORE THAN SUMMER DECORATION FOR SEASHORE COTTAGES OR SPACE-FILLERS ALONG FOUNDATIONS, hydrangeas are versatile shrubs suitable for almost any garden in areas that experience some winter cold. Most of the familiar kinds hail from China, the Himalayas, Japan and North America, but others in this genus of around 100 species come from the Philippines, Indonesia and South America.Almost all bloom in white, pink, blue or lavender on mounded or treelike coarse-leaved plants.

Lacecap types bear demure seed-producing flowers surrounded by sterile ones, while mopheads offer zaftig clusters of all-sterile flowers.The latest trends are dwarf, gold-foliaged and reblooming hydrangeas and ones with oversize flower clusters on sturdy stems.The rebloomers have revolutionized hydrangeas and made them available even for gardeners in colder climates. —R AY RO G E R S

P H OTO G R A P H S B Y L E E A N N E W H I T E

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Appeal Mostly easy to grow, hydrangeas can be abused and still reward the gardener with lush foliage and showy flowers.Think of them as workhorses with a strong desire to please. For longer enjoyment, their flower heads can be dried; gather in peak bloom and hang in an airy, warm place.

Zones Selections of arborescens and paniculata are hardy to Zone 4, and those of quercifolia to Zone 5.

The flashier macrophylla and compact serrata types do best from Zone 6 and southward, but rebloomers like Endless Summer™ flower on both new and old wood and can be grown in Zone 4, used almost like a perennial—dying back to the ground over winter and H. MACROPHYLLA ‘GENresprouting in spring.

ERALE VICOMTESSE The species involucrata DE VIBRAYE’ AND needs the milder tem‘BRUNETTE’ peratures of Zone 7 Container culture mainand warmer areas. tains alkaline soil condiVirtually all of them tions, allowing ‘Brunette’ to withstand the heat of bear red flowers, while the Zone 9 summers. more acidic soil in the open ground promotes Exposure While most blue in Generale. hydrangeas thrive in full sun (given ample water),

To analyze the charms of flowers is like dissecting music—H E N R Y

THEODORE TUCKERMAN

H. INVOLUCRATA

Although not obvious in this picture, Hydrangea involucrata bears pleasingly fuzzy leaves.These offer an attractive backdrop for the open, airy lacecap clusters of pale blue to pink-mauve fertile flowers punctuated by a few showier, sterile ones.To 3 feet tall and twice as wide.

Blue color is everlastingly appointed by the Deity to be a source of delight—J O H N

RUSKIN

GARDEN DESIGN

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growing

[1] H. MACROPHYLLA ENDLESS SUMMER™

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Without question the hottest hydrangea in the trade. Unlike most macrophyllas,‘Endless Summer’ starts blooming early and keeps producing flowers (on new and old wood) throughout the season.

New enough that its ultimate height isn’t well-documented; may reach 3 to 4 feet tall and wide.

[2] H. PANICULATA ‘LIMELIGHT’

Similar to the ‘Grandiflora’ (PeeGee) types,‘Limelight’ goes one step beyond the others with its big clusters of lime-green flowers that age to white. Expect a mature plant to reach 10 feet high by 6 feet wide.

Hardier than many hydrangeas, to Zone 4.

[3] H. MACROPHYLLA ‘MME. FAUSTIN TRAVOUILLON’

Somewhat smaller than loftier macrophylla types at about 4 feet tall, it flowers freely and over a long season. Blooms are dark pink in low-aluminum soils.

Also known as ‘Peacock’.

[4] H. MACROPHYLLA

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acidity or alkalinity is an issue for macrophylla types. In acidic soils, aluminum is readily available, promoting blue and purple flowers; alkaline soils restrict access to aluminum, leading to red, pink and lavender.

Regular applications of aluminum sulfate promotes bluer flowers.

Care Remove dead wood from established plants of macrophylla,

serrata and involucrata as spring growth begins, but don’t knock off flower buds at the ends of the shoots. Cutting back paniculata types hard in spring promotes larger flower clusters. Cut arborescens selections to the ground every other year or so to keep them neat.

Pruning is rarely needed to keep most quercifolias looking good.

‘BRUNETTE’

Always richly colored, whether aluminum is available in the soil (flowers in shades of blue and purple) or not (flowers red). Not as tall or vigorous as many of its kin, making it a good choice for containers.

I will be the gladdest thing under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers and not pick one!—E D N A

S T. V I N C E N T M I L L AY

S U S A N A . ROT H ( 1 )

they grow equally well in partial shade, especially in areas with long, hot summers.Try them in east-facing locations in your garden and in the bright shade under high-pruned trees in a woodland setting.

Soil Reasonably fertile, well-drained, moist soils with lots of organic matter make hydrangeas happy.While they all tolerate a range of soil pH,

growing

fyi Thanks to Wilkerson Mill Gardens in Palmetto, Georgia, where most of these photos were taken.

For more information see www.hydrangea.com.

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The very pink of perfection—O L I V E R

GOLDSMITH

[1] H. MACROPHYLLA ‘MARÉCHAL FOCH’

Though less cold-hardy than many macrophyllas, the profusion of saturated rose-pink mopheads of ‘Maréchal Foch’ makes it a favorite as an indoor plant in cooler regions.

[2] H. QUERCIFOLIA ‘SNOWFLAKE’

Handsome oaklike foliage and attractively peeling silvery brown bark are reasons enough to plant any quercifolia, but this selection also features footlong, pyramidal, drooping heads of sterile flowers that look like stacked stars.

Expect it to reach 8 feet tall and nearly as wide.

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We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hands and melting like a snowflake—F R A N C I S

BACON

GARDEN DESIGN

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growing

[1] H. MACROPHYLLA ‘KARDINAL’

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In the presence of soil aluminum, the intricate lacecap flowers bear small fertile mauve flowers contained within a circlet of large, dark pink sterile flowers, as seen here.The entire cluster becomes red in the absence of aluminum. Less cold-hardy than other macrophyllas.

About 3 feet tall.

[2] H. MACROPHYLLA ‘GIMPEL’

Fully mature flower heads show a strong contrast of white fertile flowers and pink sterile ones.Among the newer selections (introduced in 1986) and not as cold-hardy as some.

Vigorous plants mature at less than 4 feet high.

[3] H. MACROPHYLLA ‘NIGRA’

Although the pink or pale blue flowers are of some interest, grow this hydrangea more for its striking black stems. Extra fertilizer and routine removal of older shoots encourages stronger, darker new growth. Can grow 3 feet tall and almost twice as wide.

[4] H. MACROPHYLLA ‘TOKYO DELIGHT’

d e s i g n i n g w i t h hy d r a n ge a s White-flowered selections create the illusion of snowballs in summer, especially on plants grown in partial shade. Mass pink and blue types with similarly colored garden phlox (Phlox paniculata selections) and lilies for a visual confection of candy colors. Blue selections look like sapphires against a gray wall or set alongside a slate patio. Macrophylla selections make imposing container plants—feature a pair in big lead-colored urns—and paniculata selections can be maintained as good-sized “trees” in large terra-cotta pots. Remember hydrangeas in containers will need extra watering. Quercifolias are the boldest and have the coarsest texture of the lot, lending visual strength to shrub borders and woodland plantings.

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White lacecaps gradually turn pink as the season progresses. Has an attractive upright plant habit, and the dark green leaves acquire red and purple shades in autumn.

Spotted stems offer additional visual interest.

Under 5 feet tall.

’Tis my faith that every flower enjoys the air it breathes—W I L L I A M

W O R D S W O RT H

decor

C R E AT I V E I D E A S I N E X T E R I O R D E C O R AT I N G

The pergola extends toward the Pacific Ocean, offering multiple options for elegant but relaxed outdoor living. “We've had 40 to 50 people over at one time, and it never felt crowded,” Witt says.

OceanView

T I M S T R E E T- P O RT E R ( 2 )

Luxurious, casual outdoor living, combined with wild, rugged plants, makes this coastal retreat a California dream WHEN PAUL JUNGER WITT AND SUSAN HARRIS WANT TO GET AWAY, THEY SKIP THE AIRPORT HASsles and jet lag. Instead,Witt, a film and TV producer, and Harris, aTV writer/producer, motor up the California coast from their home in Brentwood and, in just over an hour, are comfortably ensconced at their seaside retreat on Rincon Point just outside Carpinteria. “We love to be here without the phone ringing. It feels much farther away from L.A. than 76 miles,” saysWitt, who produced the movies Insomnia, Three Kings and Dead Poets Society.The couple’s stylishly understated weekend escape began as one house over 20 years

By the deep Sea, and music in its roar I love not Man the less, but Nature more—L O R D

B Y RO N

GARDEN DESIGN

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decor

ago. Back then, they hired Santa Barbarabased Eric Nagelmann to design a “wild, natural and unrestrained” garden to blend with the rugged, windswept site. “We wanted it to look like he hadn’t been here, like it just grew,” says Harris, whose sitcom credits include Soap, Benson and The Golden Girls.

Then, in the early ’90s, the couple bought the house next door, razed it and built a guesthouse. “With five children and two grandchildren, we needed more room,”Witt says. Afterward, Nagelmann knit the two lots together and softened the architecture using lavish masses of hardy rugosa roses, grasses and sedges such as Ravenna grass and Carex pansa, westringia, lavender and lan-

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tana.The result is a dreamy oceanfront paradise worthy of a five-star resort.

F U N C T I O N : Witt and Harris visit their weekend getaway throughout the year to indulge their passions for reading, long walks, playing charades and lingering over casual meals of salad and grilled Top:The shady entry fish. “We have a blended family, so courtyard is filled with the garden is full of happy memohydrangeas and Impatiens ries of when the kids have all gotbalfourii. Right: A removten together,” Harris says. able canopy blocks the F O R M : “Paul and Susan wanted a sun’s glare in summer, the full view of the beach, but they outdoor fireplace warms wanted privacy, too,” Nagelmann the patio in winter. says. He removed a fence that once separated his clients’ beach house

Alone I walked on the ocean strand, a pearly shell was in my hand—H A N N A H

FLAGG GOULD

T I M S T R E E T- P O RT E R ( 2 )

How fine has the day been! How bright was the sun, how lovely and joyful the course that he run!—I S A A C

WAT T S

GARDEN DESIGN

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decor and wood deck from the neighboring property, now the guest quarters with a pergola shading a cozy fireplace and spacious Cantera stone patio. He built a massive seawall out of basalt boulders, which added 8 feet to the garden, and finished it with a wroughtiron gate based on an original at the Casa del Herrero estate in nearby Montecito.

S T Y L E : Exposure to the seashore’s extreme heat and cold, drying winds and corrosive salt spray made decorating with sturdy furniture and plants a must.

“The garden is kind of Right:A Weatherend glamorous without being bench sits on a carpet of too ‘done,’” Nagelmann zoysia atop the new seasays. “There’s a practicalwall—an ideal spot for ity to it because things watching the sun set. have to stand up to the Opposite:A small patio harsh elements.” between the two lots gets PLANTS: Harris asked for both sun and shade next pink and purple blooms, to an Australian tea tree. but since she and Nagelmann were on the same

page, the couple otherwise gave him free rein. “What’s so unusual about this garden is how unplanned it was.There were never any drawings; it just evolved,”

she says. In the entry courtyard, hydrangeas, Impatiens balfourii and nemesia clamber around clipped boxwood and potted junipers, while ‘Checkerboard’ fuchsia, bougainvillea and podranea spill over a pergola.Along the beach, Carex glauca and

Ravenna grass sprout from the sand, westringia buffers the deck, and small Australian tea trees (Leptospermum laevigatum) hide the pergola supports. Side hedges of Melaleuca nesophila and Pittosporum crassifolium screen out neighbors, and thorny ‘Mermaid’ roses discourage trespassers.

F U R N I S H I N G S : The pergola’s gossamer polyester canopy shelters a faux-stone dining table lit by a crystal chandelier, McGuire rattan seating and an antique Indian bed upholstered in fade-resistant Sunbrella fabric.

The deck featuresWeatherend teak chaises and tables, Santa Barbara Umbrella umbrellas and washable white terry-cloth slipcovers.A small patio tucked beneath an existing Australian tea tree recycles a wicker sofa and armchairs found in storage.

Whether old or new, almost everything has taken on a weathered patina the owners adore. “We had some wood furniture refinished, but it turned out reddish-brown,” Witt says. “We had to wait two years for it to turn silver again.”

B O N U S : Like the surfers who flock to catch Rincon Point’s spectacular swells,Witt and Harris relish winters at the beach almost more than summers. “Days are shorter, but the light is golden, the surf is huge and the beach is empty,”Witt says. “We love being here when it’s cold in the afternoon and we can start a fire at dusk.”—E M I LY YO U N G

T I M S T R E E T- P O RT E R ( 2 )

For more information contact Eric Nagelmann: 805-966-3928, fax 805-963-2306 or e-mail nag@silcom.com.

style

BY DONNA DORIAN

[1] S O F I E WAT E R F E AT U R E : Resistant to extreme temperature, sun and corrosion and available in a range of colors, this handsome concrete fountain is ideal for any setting.

Comes with a preassembled underwater pump and simply requires a standard electric source. Underwater lights optional. From Studio Four Los Angeles: available in custom sizes, starting at $1,350. Call 818-343-1600 or see www.studio041a.com.

[2] S TA I N L E S S - S T E E L G L A Z I N G B A L L F O U N TA I N : Use this contemporary water sculpture to add tranquility indoors or out. Includes UL-approved pump and submersible light. From Unique Arts: $129 to $149. Call 800-928-3738 or see www.uniquearts.com.

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Fountains of Life Contemporary water features for a modern garden

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FLOWING ONTO STONE, GURGLING THROUGH RUNnels, overflowing from fountains, cascading in falls, water ushers meaning, movement, sound and tranquility into the garden, just as the means by which it is introduced—be it fountain, basin, pond or bog—adds a decorative element into the overall composition.

But how to successfully bring water into the garden has often been the question.Today, with water-garden nurseries and garden-ornament shops more present in the marketplace than ever before, much of the expense and maintenance traditionally associated with water features have disappeared. In turn, craftsmen have begun to evolve a new vocabulary for the design of water features that addresses the innovative aspects of landscape design. Here are a handful of manmade, easy-to-install options in new materials from stainless steel to concrete that have begun to redefine the ancient repertoire.

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[3] A S I A N FA L L S : Standing just over 4 feet tall, this fountain features a cascade of rippling water over beautiful, natural slate. Nestle the piece in a garden or use it as the focal point on a terrace.Available with recirculating pump, halogen lighting and decorative rocks. From Beckett Corporation: $269. Call 888-BECKETT or see www.888beckett. com.

For fountains, they are a great beauty and refreshment—F R A N C I S

BACON

style

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[4] VA S O A

C A M PA N A F O U N -

TA I N : Converted from a terra-cotta pot designed by the renowned Italian craftsman Francesco Del Re, this fountain is fitted with a hidden pump beneath a bed of stones at its base and over its inner liner, creating an unusual, naturalistic effect. From Eye of the Day Garden Design Center: fountain: $2,755; pot without pump and liner: $2,209. Call 805-566-0778 or see www.eyeofthedaygdc.com.

[5] A R C A D I A N B A L L F O U N TA I N : Made from a unique waterproof, frostproof cast-stone mix, this timeless design is perfect for the contemporary garden.Available in Coade yellow, Portland gray, slate, terra-cotta and creamy Bath. From Haddonstone: ball fountain, $343; pebble ball fountain and bowl kit,

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$504. Call 856-931-7011 or see www.haddonstone.com.

[6] C E R A M I C WAT E R F E AT U R E : Water only enhances the subtle lines and color of this handcrafted, handdrawn stoneware piece inspired by natural forms and ammonite fossils.

Frostproof, hollow, light and easy to carry. From Katrina Trinick Ceramics: small, $148; large, $340 to $385. Call 011 44 1208 831716 or see www.ktceramics.co.uk.

[7] P O L I S H E D M I L L S TO N E F O U N TA I N : Inspired by the traditional millstone, this contemporary handmade fountain of polished black granite doubles as a contemporary water sculpture. Installation kits available. From Stone Forest: $1,500. Call 888-682-2987 or see www.stoneforest.com.

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I may not hope from outward forms to win the passion and the life, whose fountains are within—S A M U E L

TAY L O R C O L E R I D G E

find balance

D

DOMILA A Division of Amexiport

“New classics for the modern garden”

The Equilibrio Chaise Lounge All-Weather Wicker

www.domila.com

866.359.0085

entertaining

E N J OY T H E G R E AT O U T D O O R S

Plein Air Dining

Designer Dan Zelen creates an al fresco tabletop with ideas inspired by the fruits of the sea and the garden P H OTO G R A P H S B Y S T E V E G U N T H E R

“WHEN ENTERTAINING OUTDOORS, bring the outdoors to the table,” says Dan Zelen, a multitasking designer whose Los Angeles-based shop, Zelen Home, opened its doors in spring 2004. (At only 800 square feet, the shop is where good things—furnishings, accessories, and tabletop wares—come in small packages.) Also working as a stylist and the creative director of the trendsetting garden décor shop Inner Gardens in L.A., Dan is known for his instant recognition of what’s hot and what’s not—and for having an eye for imbuing each of his floral arrangements with all the je ne sais quoi of a fashion statement.

Invited to decorate a table for an early-evening party outdoors, Dan worked with L.A. landscape designer Scott Shrader, who designed the outdoor space, to make sure that table, Designer Dan Zelen, top, chairs, terrace and pool decorated a tabletop for an environment all worked outdoor party as if he were together.Then focusing designing a small seaside on the tabletop itself, garden with plants and Dan looked for inspiraobjects from the sea. tion in his own shop, where a set of look-alike

The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure—M I C H E L

D E M O N TA I G N E

GARDEN DESIGN

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entertaining

An overview of the table displays an ocean-themed assortment of mesquite wood, succulents, starfish and shells interspersed between vintage dishes and stemware.

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sea urchin shell bowls and a candelabra he designed from mesquite wood sparked the idea of designing the table with an ocean motif.

In a sense it was just like designing a room, where a single piece of furniture—here a single accessory—sets the stage for every style decision that follows.

Dan’s point was to make a table

look like a seashore garden. So instead of engineering the usual flowers in a vase, he placed the driftwood candelabra at the center of the table and then set white sand, sea shells, succulents, coral shells and the sea urchin bowls directly on the table, as if the tabletop were the beach itself. Like a well-orchestrated still life, every-

thing became part of the scene— the Martini picks were each topped with a cultured pearl, and even the fruits matched the color scheme.—D O N N A D O R I A N For more information on Dan Zelen Home, call 323-658-6755. For more information on Scott Shrader, see www.shraderdesign.com.

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely—S O M E R S E T

MAUGHAM

tips for outdoor tabletops:

Begin with a theme—here Dan drew on objects found along the seashore. Incorporate flowers and foliage from the garden at hand; for example, use grapevines as runners, hosta leaves as placemats—or visit your local nursery for ideas. Before the meal begins, accent the table with food that participates in the color scheme—here the grapes and the wine repeat the purple of succulents and sea urchin shells, while strawberries pick up the colors of the cranberry glass bowls and napkins.

After the meal is over, plant what you can back into the garden (which means don’t remove their roots!).

Clockwise from top left: An olive pierced by a Martini pick topped with a cultured pearl suggests an attention to detail that never goes unnoticed.

The textures and colors of a purple succulent, a starfish and a ceramic bowl designed to simulate a sea urchin shell reiterate the overall seaside concept.

To bring the memory of the beach to the table, Zelen scattered sandlike crushed white glass on the table and topped it with a starfish and a succulent.

Decorated with the fruits of the garden and the sea, the tabletop is sprinkled with red strawberries on red linen napkins held down by a coral seashell in a coordination of color as well as theme.

But where is the man that can live without dining?—O W E N

MEREDITH

GARDEN DESIGN

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entertaining

s o u rc e b o o k Yin Yang dining table by Kenneth Cobonpue: $3,113; Mosaix Athena dining armchairs: $1,250 each, both available from Janus et Cie. Call 800-24-JANUS or see www.janusetcie. com.

Dan Zelen’s sandblasted mesquite-wood candelabra: $325; vintage stemware: various prices; ceramic sea urchin bowls: $40 to $120; sterling silver Martini picks with cultured-pearl tops: set of four, $225, all available at Zelen Home. Call 323-658-6756 or see www.zelenhome.com.

Large blue French ceramic chargers: $40 each; Nouvel Studio cranberry glass bowls: $14 each; linen napkins by Libeco Home: $20 each, all available at Barneys New York. Call 212-826-8900.

Professionali Martini glasses:

By Colle for Table Art, set of 4, $120. Call 323-653-8278 or see www.tartontheweb.com.

Placemats by Thomas O’Brien:Target, $4.99 each.

Available from Target stores.

Shells, starfish and crushed white glass:Wasabi Green.

Call 213-629-0068.

Assorted succulents: Inner Gardens. Call 310-838-8378 or see www.innergardens.com.

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I am thankful for the mess to clean after a party because it means I have been surrounded by friends—N A N C I E

C A R M O DY

groundbreaker

I N N O VAT I V E M I N D S I N G A R D E N D E S I G N

Plastic Fantastic

Philippe Starck:“I think of the outdoors just like the indoors, but without a roof ” IN THE PANTHEON OF CONTEMPORARY DESIGN, Philippe Starck has earned a unique place.

Arguably the most influential designer of his era, he is one of a rare few to achieve international rock-star status.Although he is bestknown for designer hotels, a genre he helped invent, his work encompasses an improbable spectrum that includes air-traffic-control towers, motorcycles, Olympic torches, sneakers and, interestingly for people with gardens, outdoor furniture.

Starck has received myriad awards and has held exhibitions French designer in almost every major city Philippe Starck around the world. He’s also the revolutionized outrecipient of other, less-obvious door furniture with but perhaps more-coveted acthe plastic Bubble colades. First, he has earned the Club Series and admiration of his hard-core Prince Aha Stool. modern design peers, despite a certain goofiness.This admira-

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tion is deserved because he embraces new technologies readily and is a forward thinker whose personal and social agenda is one of rebellion—the core value of modern design.

Second, and perhaps more impressive, is that the Italians have embraced and supported him as if he were one of their own.

I consider this to be an uncommon trait for Italians since they are fiercely protective of their cultural uniqueness.You’ll have to search hard to find French restaurants in Milan, yet chairs designed by this particular Frenchman are common in the chic outdoor cafés near the Duomo.

Radical designs for the outdoors, such as

Style can make complicated things seem simple, or simple things complicated—J E A N

COCTEAU

groundbreaker

the 2000 Bubble Club series, are quintessential Starck statements. Inflated versions of traditional interior lounge chairs and sofas, they are made from polyethylene, a kind of plastic.The series is a blend of fantasy and function, Felliniesque in humor, iconoclastic, yet highly functional.When I asked Starck recently about the inspiration for these pieces, he said the idea came to him as he was kayaking to one of his oyster beds in the south of France. His boat was made using a strong, durable and cheap material, and he decided it might work just as well in outdoor furniture. Bubble Club is the result.

But in general Starck and his retailers avoid labeling his furniture “indoor” or “out.”

Advances in durable plastics and new technologies have allowed him to apply his creative talents to a range of furniture that can be used outdoors, from the polypropylene (read plastic) Dr. No chair and Prince Aha stools in the 1990s to his recent polycarbonate Ghost Family of products. But his motivation was not so much the versatility of use between the interior and exterior as fyi Philippe Starck’s range the availability of of indoor and outdoor well-designed furnifurnishings are available in ture for the masses. the United States through What makes these Design Within Reach pieces singular, and (www.dwr.com; 800-944why have they been so 2233) and Kartell (www. successful?There is no kartellus.com; 866-854mystery here. It is all 8823). See also www. about “play.”Traditionphilippe-starck.com. ally, outdoor furniture has been treated as a serious matter, constrained by a limited palette of materials. Prior to WorldWar II, the materials best able to endure the elements were limited to teak and coated cast iron. In the years since, modern materials such as stainless steel, aluminum and plastic resin have become available. But gardening traditionalists, whether their styles

are Japanese, French or EngAbove: Made of lish, have typically favored polycarbonate, the old standards. Designers Starck’s Louis have not had much latitude Ghost stools, like —or attitude—for experithe rest of the mentation. So even today, Ghost line, are most outdoor furniture is practical, colorful proudly derivative. and adorable.

Starck, in contrast, brings anAlice-in-Wonderland sensibility to this genre, producing colorful, oversize pieces with lounge and living-room references. He tweaks the appropriateness of tradition as he upends the notion of appropriate materials. Much modern architecture and design is associated with connecting the outdoors with the indoors, which usually translates into making the outside accessible and visible to those inside.

Starck’s Bubble Club group goes further, literally turning the inside out, transporting the living room to the garden.This reversal results in what Starck would call “surrealism,” merging modernism with classicism.

There is one obvious and inevitable criticism that can fairly be leveled at this work.

To be truly modern today, designers and manufacturers must take into account issues of sustainability and recycling. In a time of justifiable environmental consciousness, Starck’s otherwise admirable pieces are questionable.While such big, bulky objects technically can be recycled, many will end up in landfills, creating another surreal, if unintended, image. Starck should play around with this concept a little more. But then again, he is less interested in the “responsible” side of modernism. He leaves that to us as well.—R O B F O R B E S Rob Forbes founded Design Within Reach in 1999, where he works with all aspects of design, and edits Design Notes, DWR’s highly regarded online newsletter. He can be reached at rforbes@dwr.com.

abroad

MoreThan Butchart LAST FALL, WHILE I WAS “RESEARCHING” A BOOK on great garden walks, a sojourn to Vancouver Island, B.C., reminded me how its temperate climate—and British gardening tradition—has contributed to an inspiring collection of horticultural riches. For anyone interested in gardening, the island is brimming with evocative landscapes that extend well beyond The Butchart Gardens, a destination point for droves of tourists— highly pleased tourists, I should add.

VICTORIA,THE ISLAND’S JEWEL The capital of British Columbia, at the southern tip of Vancouver Island, the city of Victoria boasts an English ambiance and 19th-century architecture.Visitors typically arrive en masse by ferry from Seattle or mainlandVancouver, especially in midsum-

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mer, which is also high garden season—but don’t let the crowds scare you off.

Horticultural feasting peaks from late February to the end of May, as flowering cherries and plums brighten city streets. Look for magnolias and billowy, double pink Higan cherries, crabapples and horse chestnuts.

Come summer, Victoria’s Inner Harbour lampposts, among some 1,000 citywide, are bedecked with hanging baskets trailing bright blooms—these are the postcard baskets that have come to symbolize the city.

Among many choice places to stay, consider Abigail’s Hotel, where you’ll enjoy luxe lodgings and proximity to Beacon Hill Park.WildTop left, clockwise: flowers blanket the park Garry oaks with in springtime, followed blooming azalea at by radiant Victorian bedAbkhazi Garden. ding schemes in summer Sooke Harbour and fall. At the park’s House on the boundary with Dallas Strait of Juan de Road, a waterfront path Fuca. Restaurant reveals grand vistas of the at Harbour House.

Olympic Mountains and dazzling sunsets.

Enchanting Abkhazi Garden is tucked away in a quiet Victoria neighborhood. Garry oaks preside over a panoply of species, including 100-year-old rhododendrons, in the garden’s artistically planted rocky terrain. Created over a span of more than four decades by Prince and Princess Abkhazi, the glorious land-

Vancouver is lovely—A N T H O N Y

M. HALL

GREG ELIGH (1) SOOKE HARBOUR HOUSE (2)

O N T H E ROA D W I T H G A R D E N D E S I G N

abroad

La Garden Show MAY 6 & 7, 2006 An Entertaining Garden See the finest examples of entertaining gardens designed by the best designers in Southern California.

Buy unique plants, shop at the Marketplace and learn from well-known experts and authors. The ongoing entertainment, food and children’s nature crafts will create a fun-filled weekend for all to enjoy.

Garden Show Hours are 9AM to 4:30PM. Early admission for Arboretum Members is 8AM. Regular admission fees apply: $2.50 – $7.00 Arboretum members are always free.

For More Information visit www.arboretum.org or call 626.821.3222 Thanking Our Sponsors for Their Support 301 North Baldwin Avenue Arcadia, CA 91007

Abkhazi Garden, created over four decades, with a sprawling old rhododendron underplanted with fawn lilies (erythronium).

scape is now cared for by The Land Conservancy of Canada. A tearoom in the property’s heritage home is a fine spot to re-energize with a snack.

BEYOND THE CITY About 14 miles north of Victoria, The Butchart Gardens, with beds and borders brimming with seasonal color, has drawn over a million tourists. The remarkable transformation of a limestone quarry began a century ago, when Jenny Butchart began creating her bit of garden.Today, the 55-acre landscape is famous for its Sunken Garden set off by a fountain and ponds. In December, festive Christmas lighting creates a fanciful night garden.

A journey fromVictoria west to Sooke is an exceptional outing.The trip traces the West Shore’s Old Island Highway and calls for a stopover at Hatley Park, one of NorthAmerica’s finest examples of an intact Edwardian estate. Stroll through the voluptuous array of Japanese, Italian and English rose gardens surrounding regal Hatley Castle.

Nestled in the countryside near Sooke, Markham House Bed & Breakfast gives over a wing of a Tudor-style home and a separate cottage to inviting accommodations.

Outside Sooke village, Sooke Harbour House, an idyllic retreat perched on a bluff overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca, offers dreamy rooms with views.The inn’s restaurant features fresh local ingredients flavored with delicacies such as the light

green needles of grand firs. Guests and the public are invited to daily tours of the organic gardens of edible plants.The mist-shrouded-hillside setting encompasses another wonder: Meander to the water’s edge for a glimpse of sinuous Whiffen Spit, a natural formation akin to an earthwork.

If you are interested in visiting private garden sanctuaries reflecting Pacific Northwest style, check withVictorian Garden Tours; they can put together a day with access to gardens designed by true colorists and avid plant collectors.

And don’t overlookVancouver Island’s public garden displays, especially Government House Gardens and the demonstration gardens of the Horticulture Centre of the Pacific. —A L I C E J OY C E Alice Joyce is the author of the recently published Gardenwalks in the Pacific Northwest (The Globe Pequot Press,March 2006,$14.95).

What to See:

Abkhazi Garden. Call 250-598-8096 or see www.conservancy.bc.ca/abkhazi.

Beacon Hill Park. Call 250-361-0600.

The Butchart Gardens. Call 866-6524422 or 250-652-5256 for recorded information. See www.butchartgardens.com.

Government House Gardens. Call 250356-5139 or see www.ltgov.bc.ca.

Hatley Park National Historic Site. Call 866-241-0674 or see www.hatleypark.ca.

Horticulture Centre of the Pacific. Call 250-479-6162 or see www.hcp.bc.ca.

Victorian Garden Tours. Call 250-3802797 or see www.victoriangardentours.com.

Where to Stay:

VA L E R I E M U R R AY ( 1 )

Abigail’s Hotel. Call 800-561-6565 or see www.abigailshotel.com.

Markham House B&B. Call 888-2566888 or see www.markhamhouse.com.

Sooke Harbour House. Call 800-8899688 or see www.sookeharbourhouse.com.

Ferry Information:

BC Ferries. Call 888-223-3779 or see www.bcferries.com.

Victoria Clipper. Call 800-888-2535 or see www.victoriaclipper.com.

A curtain of cape fuchsia (phygelius) drapes the gate leading to Penny Bianchi’s outdoor living area, where she entertains her friends under the arms of a live oak.

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LA DOLCE VITA

SWEET IDEAS FOR GRACIOUS OUTDOOR LIVING FROM MONTECITO—A HAVEN OF HORTICULTURE IN THE HEART OF SANTA BARBARA

THE SECRET OF SANTA BARBARA—AND ITS ELEGANT SUBURB MONTECITO—LIES IN ITS GEOGRAPHY. Located on one of the few east-west coastlines in the country and nestled below the SantaYnez Mountains, the beaches and hillsides face sun all day and temperatures remain mild year round. Its very special Mediterranean climate has nurtured a staggering assortment of plants and outdoor-living opportunities. Nurserymen and fruit growers discovered the area in the late 19th century.The rich and glamorous followed in the 1920s, designing grand Spanish Colonial Revival estates and gardens.The traditions of expert horticulture and exquisite outdoor design continue today. Join us as we share ideas from three gracious Montecito gardens—full of ideas for outdoor living and decorating wherever you live. And if you get to the area, we offer places to visit and shop for Santa Barbara style.

BY DONNA DORIAN

PHOTOGRAPHS BY STEVE GUNTHER

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A GARDEN FOR QUAIL AND CASUAL ENTERTAINING GROWN FROM THE GROUND UP TO ENCOURAGE A HABITAT FOR NATIVE WILDLIFE, PENNY BIANCHI’S Montecito garden, flush with gates made from willow, roses, olive trees and thickets of vines, holds all the resonance of a carefree cottage garden in the Provençal countryside.

An interior designer with a penchant for creating the enchanted mise-en-scene, Penny formed the vision for her garden soon after she and her husband purchased their property nine years ago.While exploring a neighboring 45-acre nature preserve and working closely with her landscape advisers, she began to observe firsthand what it would take to create a garden that would follow nature’s course.

Penny’s first act in her own garden was to create a pond.Today a list of wildlife almost too long to cite—blue gill and bass, deer, raccoons, skunks, ducks, great blue herons, redtail and cooper’s hawks, some 50 other species of birds and even a coyote— can be seen in and around the pond. In the midst of the pond is a duck cote. Penny anchored it there after discovering that it takes at least 52 days for baby mallards to fly, making them prey to a great range of animals. Now nine Above: A gate made from full-grown pairs of mallards make their home in her garden. willow leads to the guestSome years after the pond went in, a longtime resident of Montecito house. Right: Punctuated came by and mentioned how nice it was that Penny had brought the pond by purple butterfly bush, back after it had been covered up so many years ago to make room for a the pond is at the center riding paddock. It was only then Penny realized that her first act in the of a certified National garden was to restore a native wetland.

Wildlife Federation When Oprah Winfrey moved in next door, a covey of wild quail, upBackyard Wildlife Habitat. set by the initial commotion, made their way into Penny’s yard. Penny didn’t mind at all. (She reciprocated by handing Oprah fresh chicken eggs

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through the fence on many mornings.) Because quail are ground-nesters, Penny planted low-growing shrubbery around the pond to provide them with cover.

Instead of grass or concrete, Penny covered much of the ground with pea gravel, which allows rainwater to seep directly into the soil without runoff. Elsewhere, she planted roses to feed the deer (yes, really) and covered the house with vines (morning glory,Virginia creeper, clematis and wisteria) to feed the birds and provide cover for small animals.At the same time she banned all clippers, blowers and mowers, as well as all pesticides and herbicides.When Penny contacted the NationalWildlife Federation, they certified the garden as a BackyardWildlife Habitat.

Penny and her husband usually wake to the call of their rooster, who seems to think he owns the place. Being partly responsible for the 11 chickens born this year (one of the hens hid her eggs behind a bag of alfalfa), he has certain claims.As domesticated animals, the 22 chickens, rooster and two dogs are all treated just as well as the wildlife, walking behind Penny through the garden, under the arbors and over the bridge that crosses a small stream running across the back of the yard.

Penny hosts parties under the branches of two live oaks.The long table is covered with a printed Provençal tablecloth and set alongside antique wrought-iron chairs, a scene that seems to have stepped out of an Impressionist painting. Penny says, “A visitor once told me that he rents a house in Provence every summer, but he thought I didn’t need to do that. He said,‘You already have your place in Provence right here.’”

“THE FARM TABLE SET FOR A PARTY SEEMS TO HAVE STEPPED OUT OF AN IMPRESSIONIST PAINTING”

Left: Surrounded by oak trees and with a chandelier hanging in the treetops, Penny Bianchi (holding dog, right) hosts her parties Provençal-style.

Succulents and lanterns decorate her table (top).

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A GARDEN EASY AND FUNCTIONAL, ALMOST ALL CONTAINERS SOPHISTICATED AND TO THE POINT, THE SMALL EVERGREEN GARDEN SHOWN ON THESE PAGES summarizes a lifetime of experiences in the landscape. Created by a retired garden designer very much at the top of her form, it takes a restrained approach to the year-round possibilities of gardening in the Montecito area.

Avoiding perennials that change their face through the seasons, the garden focuses mainly on variegated foliage and the contrasts between leaf colors—all to the benefit of form.

Except for a rose garden set against the south stone wall of the house and the blooms that come and go on the apple tree, there is hardly a flower in the place.

The main garden, a handsome potager just outside the kitchen, relies almost solely on the shape and foliage of ornamental herbs and fruit trees. Only lettuce and tomatoes are grown for the kitchen in spring and late summer.

Although the end result is a becoming classicism, the point of the garden is ease and function. Because each herb is planted in a stone pot, there is no digging in the ground, and even the pea-gravel ground cover is maintenance-free.While the herbs are changed out or moved from here to there, the bones of the garden—bay laurel, box, rosemary, and apple and grapefruit trees—remain constant, giving structure to the garden year round.

Adjacent to the potager is a second garden planted with easy-to-maintain shrubs, such as hydrangea, ceanothus and hebe. In between is an outdoor living area centered around an antique lead cistern and decorated with wicker furnishings. Here the family basks in the Montecito climate surrounded by their elegant garden rooms.

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Right: An English lead cistern is stationed in the middle of the patio.

Opposite, top left, clockwise:The herb garden; relaxed seating on the patio; a birdbath stops the eye at the end of the shrub garden; herb garden near the kitchen.

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Left: Built on a steep hillside, the Siemon house looks down on a terraced garden planted in olive trees, rosemary and lavender, while a woodland garden (below) spreads on the hillside above. Right:The antique Spanish gate exemplifies the detailing of the outdoor living areas.

HILLSIDE OF OLIVES AND OUTDOOR ROOMS THE THREE GARDENS THAT SURROUND GREG AND BARBARA SIEMON’S HILLSIDE VILLA GIVE A virtuoso performance that explores the range and spirit of Montecito’s climate and all the major themes of the Mediterranean planting palette.

At the end of a long drive, an ancient orchid cactus presides on a limestone bench. Just beyond, a gate opens to a stone-floored foyer and a stone wraparound seating area.There, beneath the wide branches of a native California oak, a banco offers a view of a full house of outdoor rooms—a pergola-covered dining area, a swimming pool, and a casita outfitted with kitchen, lounge and bedroom. Datura and wisteria perfume the air. So inclusive is the space that the Siemons lived in the casita as their house neared completion.

The garden began with Barbara poring over photos of gardens in Provence. She took her cues from French hillside terraces, dry-stacked stone walls and pea-gravel paths—and particularly from the interplanting of lavender, rosemary and olive trees, leading her to import two dozen 100-year-old olive specimens. In her desire for accuracy, she even placed a ladder against an olive tree “partly because it looks so picturesque,” she says, “but also because to harvest an olive, one needs to climb up a ladder and shake the fruit down from the tree.”

Barbara admits that the garden below the house was a major challenge from the first, given that the hillside was covered with nothing but the tough local natives—poison ivy and cactus.And it was so steep that it took three or four people to hold onto her and her collaborator, landscape designer Heidie Baldwin, to negotiate a safe path down the hill. Meanwhile, researching what would grow on a south-facing slope in Montecito confined Barbara to herbs, olives and succulents. If the

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Above:The Spanish-style banco is made comfortable by pillows and protected from the sun by the arms of a huge native oak. Right: An orchid cactus grows beneath a pepper tree at the entrance to the house.

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garden isn’t actually original to the site, it brilliantly presents what nature intended.

Above the house is another world, a woodland garden crisscrossed by a path whose end offers a breathtaking panorama of the canyons of the Santa Ynez Mountains beyond.

Wanting the garden to naturalize under the canopy of its established native oaks, Barbara planted only what could thrive there on its own—agapanthus, pittosporum, chocolate and peppermint scented geraniums, ornamental grasses and iris. At the top of the hillside, she nestled an orchid house moved from an early-20th-century Montecito estate. And a meditation garden, with a pond punctuated by a weeping mulberry and an ancient Chinese soy mill converted into a quiet fountain, provides another retreat.

“Olives, pepper trees and oaks formed the atmospheric mix of the old mission-style gardens of the area,” explains Barbara.They are the grand strokes of this pleasure garden, too, which, after much labor, an acute attention to detail and careful, abundant planting, fulfills the sweet promise of Montecito.

“THE BANCO OFFERS A VIEW FROM THE OUTDOOR DINING AREA TO THE CASITA”

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MUST-SEE GARDEN SPOTS AROUND

eye o f t h e d ay

French

antique Anduze pottery and limestone fountains, English lead urns, handmade terra-cotta, hand-carved stone statuary and American-made benches make this exquisite collection world class (above).

4620 Carpinteria Ave., Carpinteria; 805566-0778; www.eyeofthedaygdc.com.

william laman

Well-edited

lotusland

The late Polish opera singer Madame Ganna Walska spent

shop with an ever-changing mix of looks

45 years designing this flamboyant botanical garden (above). Composed of

and products for interior and garden,

rare, unusual and endangered tropical and semitropical plants, this surrealist,

ranging from the contemporary to the

theatrical presentation is counted among the most outstanding gardens in

antique, gathered everywhere from

America. Reservations required well in advance. 695 Ashley Road, Montecito;

Western Europe to Asia. 1496 E. Valley

805-969-9990; www.lotusland.org.

Road, Montecito; 805-969-2840. www.williamlaman.com.

santa barbara botanic garden

Dedicated to

property with its meadow, mission dam and aqueduct offers premier display gardens and changing exhibitions. 1212 Mission Canyon Road, Santa Barbara; www.sbbg.org; 805-682-4726.

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STEVE GUNTHER (4)

the biodiversity and conservation of native California plants, this historic

SANTA BARBARA seaside gardens This full-service nursery is the garden community’s gathering spot (below).

Functioning as a virtual botanical library, it offers a wide range of unusual plants,

casa del herrero

state-of-the-art display gardens and design

This Spanish Colonial Revival house

services. 3700 Via Real, Carpinteria;

and its array of distinct and fabulous

805-684-6001; www.seaside-gardens.com.

gardens open a doorway into the glamorous world of old Montecito (below).

Tiled fountains and runnels guide the way through gardens influenced by the Spanish Moors, the 16th-century Italian

turk hessellund

Renaissance and 19th-century England.

Named for its original owner, the

Along with Lotusland, this historic

40-year-old institution of Turk

garden continues to have a strong

Hessellund Nursery (above), located

influence on the private gardens in the

among the shops and restaurants of

area. Reservations are required. 1387

Santa Barbara, is now run by the

E. Valley Road, Montecito; 805-565-5653;

knowledgeable Raymond Sodomka. A

www.casadelherraro.com.

one-of-a-kind nursery known for its jam-packed, kaleidoscopic plant offerings ranging from leading-edge introductions to the tried and true, it offers spirited display gardens and a design service. 1255 Coast Village Road, Santa Barbara; 805-969-5871.

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BY JENNY ANDREWS

belgian

wow AT THE HEART OF EUROPE SITS THE SMALL COUNTRY OF BELGIUM, a creative milieu where contemporary and traditional styles easily intertwine. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Belgium’s cutting-edge floral design.The impetus for this is partly historical, partly cultural. Close-neighbor Holland has dominated the floral industry for over 400 years, and Belgium has been renowned throughout Europe for its nurseries since the turn of the last century. Even art history has had its influence— the floral still-life painting of the Dutch Masters in the 16th and 17th centuries set the tone for flower arranging for hundreds of years.Though bouquets are popular in the United States, there is no comparison to the passion for cut flowers in Europe.

They are part of everyday life, a staple like bread and milk; every

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small town has its flower shop (or several).And Europeans take the craft of floral design very seriously—as a field of study it requires years of rigorous education and apprenticeship.

What has emerged is a style that shows a deep understanding of the innate qualities of even the simplest materials, combines European mass arrangements with oriental simplicity, and is familiar yet somehow startling.Three designers whose work exemplifies the best of Belgian floral art are Daniël Ost, Geert Pattyn and Nico De Swert. These are not just flower arrangers but artists, who use the full wealth of nature to sculpt their visions, creating pieces that are both innovative and a fusion of classic styles, a celebration of fleeting beauty and the power of flowers to transform living spaces.

Examples from three of Belgium’s top floral designers. Far left: Geert Pattyn’s sci-fi sculpted aspidistra leaves. Left: Daniël Ost’s stylish combination of Zantedeschia aethiopica ‘Green Goddess’, Aspidistra punctata and Symphoricarpos albus. Below: Nico De Swert’s dainty tapestry of wax flower blossoms.

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Nico De Swert NICO DE SWERT’S PRIMARY INSPIRATION IS COLOR, YET HIS PREFERENCE is not riotous multihued explosions but sophisticated, monochromatic combinations through which he can better explore the sculptural qualities of his materials. In fact, he considers himself a “floral sculptor” rather than an arranger. Educated at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Antwerp and trained in the trenches of the European cutflower industry, De Swert brings an artist’s eye to his work.Also an interior stylist, he is keenly conscious of how an arrangement fits and even transforms a room, like any work of art.

Rather than nature re-created, his arrangements are “nature recast,” using berries, leaves, stems and flowers like actors in a play— hydrangea blossoms in a vertical “painting” or grasses as wall sconces.The traditional often takes a twist, like the beehive hairdo of gloriosa lilies above.Wanting to bring the European love affair with flowers to the States, De Swert now works as a top stylist in NewYork.

Photographs byWendall T.Webber from Nico De Swert: Living with Flowers (Harry N. Abrams, 2005, $40).

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Far left, top: Gloriosa lilies stacked in a glowing dome above a sleek vase.

Far left, below: Mambo速 roses peek from an orb of southern magnolia leaves whose brown undersides complement the tawny blooms.This page: A trio of wall vases with setaria grass adds a wild yet chic element to a contemporary setting.

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This page: A flat bowl makes a mini pond for floating duckweed (Lemna minor), edged by bay laurel leaves (Laurus nobilis) strung together. Far right, top: A dress sculpture made from raffia and money plant (Lunaria annua). Far right, below: A pattypan squash makes a handlike container for a still-green flower head of Sedum spectabile.

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Geert Pattyn GEERT PATTYN IS MORE THAN A MAKER OF BEAUTIFUL BOUQUETS. HIS creations are integral, even if temporary, elements in the overall design of the space rather than simply accessories to a room.There is an elegant minimalism in much of his work, but the apparent simplicity is deceptive—there is ingenuity in weaving steel grass into globes for lights or using a pattypan squash as a vase.

Inspired by working on his parents’ farm, Pattyn knew from a young age that he would become a floral designer.After studying horticulture and floristry, he launched his own business on his family’s property in Geluwe.The renovated outbuildings that now form his studio, house and conservatory serve as a sort of floral-design laboratory, accompanied by a garden where Pattyn gathers materials. His designs range from a bounteous bouquet of cosmos fresh from his garden to a wedding-dinner display to abstract sculptures of twigs and branches.

Twice awarded the coveted title of Champion Florist in Flanders, Pattyn has represented Belgium in international competitions, frequently gives courses and demonstrations, and is a regular contributor to the Belgian floral design magazine Fleur Créatif.

Photographs by BartVan Leuven from Floral Interior Decoration (Stichting Kunstboek, 2003, $73; www.stichtingkunstboek.com).

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Daniël Ost IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO TALK ABOUT FLORAL ART, PARTICULARLY IN BELGIUM, without mentioning Daniël Ost. His very personal blending of Western floral traditions and Eastern sensibilities is unique, and his works often look like a cross between a Baroque Flemish painting and Japanese ikebana. Indeed, Ost’s work is a dynamic study in contrasts— bountiful and thrifty, ephemeral and earthy, contemporary and Old World, celebrating new growth and decline. Born in Sint-Niklaas, where he still lives and maintains a shop (a second shop is in Brussels), Ost has been at the top of his field since the 1980s.

Though he creates arrangements from the sumptuous to the highly stylized, flowers are not always the focus, sometimes not appearing at all amid bark, leaves, twigs, seaweed, moss, fruit and seedpods.And the pieces are often a celebration of senescence as much as burgeoning new growth.All parts and all stages of plant life are fair game.

Ost’s creations go far beyond home décor, challenging conventional views of floral design. Many pieces are more like installation art or performance art for plants, utilizing unexpected materials, unusual containers and even startling settings.As much as a creation of art, Ost’s work is intended to provoke thought, set a mood and spark emotion.

Photographs by Robert Dewild from Remaining Flowers (Lannoo, 2004). Ost’s work can also be seen in his other books Leafing Through Flowers (Callaway, 2000) and Invitations (Lannoo, 2004).

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Far left, top:Whirling dervishes of cycad cones (Encephalartos laurentianus) and Larix decidua stems. Far left, below: Individual blooms of hydrangea perched on a spirograph pattern of Xerophyllum tenax above elderberries.

This page: Maidenhair fern and rubus with a millinery look echo the elegant vase pattern.

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B Y TOVA H M A RT I N

P H O T O G R A P H S B Y LY N N K A R L I N

Left:Where colors are strong, garden designer Jacquelyn Nooney harnesses the power of monosweeps—like this sedum ‘Autumn Joy’, rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’ and boxwood combination at Stonewall Kitchen.

Right:The same theory of blocks of color, form and texture being bounced back and forth plays out at the Stott/ King residence.

shor t but sweet Summers in Maine are fleeting spectacles of color and spice—at least if you follow the “no-fear, no-holds-barred” approach of a culinary couple and their inventive designer

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From top left clockwise: Everywhere the theme is contrast, like the lilysedum combo in the upper garden. In the pool area (next two pictures and lower left), pots limited to a trio of plants or a single specimen make a splash.

Orange Lychnis chalcedonica, Salvia nemorosa and an ornamental grass keep the contrast high.

BOSTON PROPER MIGHT GIVE OUT BUTTONED-DOWN VIBES, BUT nearbyYork, in Maine, wants you to know that it is anything but conventional.The moment you nose north and glide over the Maine border, gardening goes distinctly unplugged.

For Jonathan King, a longtime resident of Maine who knows the weather all too well, to garden or not was never negotiable.

Playing in the soil was intrinsic to his psyche (“It’s one of the few things that keeps me completely focused”), even though the climate renders the growing season brief.Actually, the compressed time slot might be one reason why Jonathan, a psychology major, turned to jam making, a hobby he subsequently turned into the East Coast gourmet empire known as Stonewall Kitchen. Jon will tell you that the jam idea began because of his Yankee distaste for tossing anything that could possibly be squirreled away.At any rate, he devoted his postcollege days to working in greenhouses and moonlighting in restaurants.

Similarly, his partner Jim Stott also had split affinities: He managed his own construction firm during daylight, then waited in a restaurant after dark.

That’s where the two were when they began hauling their hand-labeled preserves from Jon and Jim’s extensive vegetable/herb garden in Hampton, New Hampshire, to a local farmer’s market.The rest is culinary history.

Apparently, the two had a knack for making summer bloom eternal (if only for your taste buds), because their business mushroomed from the inception of the Stonewall Kitchen brand in 1991, eventually requiring bigger digs.The two now live close by their 55,000-square-foot corporate headquarters in York. Having always cultivated secondhand growing spaces, Jon longed to fashion a garden from scratch. So this time around they bought what was basically an oversize sandbox, 25 acres total. It was all potential with no prearranged footprints.

That’s when Jacquelyn Nooney entered the picture. In the landscape biz since 1984 and with plenty of experience under her belt (she’s the principle of Jacquelyn Nooney Landscape, Inc.), she has dual strengths: strong structure and inventive/off-the-beaten-path plants, which includes a fabled sympathy for annuals. (Since customers are apt to jump immediately to images of wax begonias when they encounter that word, she uses the euphemism “seasonal plants.”) Between Jon’s tendency to be a stark raving collector (so far he has gone ape over 82

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Opposite:There was plenty of space on the greenhouse patio to stage a sizable focal point, but rather than a mixed container, Jacquelyn Nooney used a single, strong conifer with variegated ivy spilling down. A yellow dahlia jutting from the bed behind shows how much tender plants like Maine summers.

daylilies, roses, coleus, cacti, dahlias, alliums and heirloom tomatoes: “We needed something to feed my fetishes”) and Jacquelyn’s design specifically created to welcome annual innovation, there was ample opportunity for derring-do.

The growing window in Maine might not be wide, but the garden packs a succinct statement into a limited time frame, playing brave colors against masses of textural grasses, salvias, sedums, et al., creating sweeping gestures. Strong structure keeps everything in line. Simple, straight vistas direct your gaze. Basically, the beds form a series of mirrored rectangular spaces cut by a strong central axis and an equally pronounced cross axis.A long, leisurely pergola above the cross axis, shouldering wisteria, provides shade from the seaside sun and frames the central focal point—a planted, rustic stone trough. A sparkling, inviting pool is off to the side, accented with containers billowing with grasses, coleus or whatever is hot that year.

Keeping within the Yankee vernacular, the beds are edged neatly with

“The growing window in Maine might not be wide, but the garden packs a succinct statement into a limited time frame, playing brave colors against masses of textural grasses” granite cobblestones, and the paths are pebbled (Jon and Jim requested that the tread be comfortable to walk barefoot). Spaces are given roles.The beds along the pergola are prescribed to receive whatever Jon has fixated on that year. Meanwhile, to preserve the peace, these “wild-card” areas are skirted by a series of nepeta-hemmed architectural beds each featuring a single statuesque hornbeam.The majestic allée they create provides what Jacquelyn calls a “backbone of solid perennials,” allowing her to give the more fluid beds a new “hairdo” every year. Colors are carefully intermingled; textures are similarly meticulously staged.The result is haute horticultural coiffure, balance being everything.

Further gardens have sprouted on the property, and a greenhouse was added to accommodate Jon’s proclivity for flowers despite winter. Since the beds require thousands of “seasonal plants” every year, the greenhouse doesn’t attempt to feed that staggering appetite—Jacquelyn grows the annuals herself off-site. Farther afield is a restful shade garden and vegetable/herb garden.

The cultivated segment is 3 acres and expanding.The garden spaces lead one into the next, a gradual progression that changes mood and material, depending on the light, the theme of the space and Jon’s latest whim. Each garden is intensive but serenely focused, with all components in concert.There are no jarring moments. Sure it’s jam-packed, but it gels.

For more information, see www.jnlinc.com and www.stonewallkitchen.com.

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horticulture hq The raucous flower bed farther up the highway from the King/Stott home was a brilliant move on Stonewall Kitchen’s part. What with the massive plants beside the road sign (“Nothing under 4 feet will do” is Jacquelyn Nooney’s decree), you can’t resist the botanical bait. Giants like castor bean and further islands of flowers serve as a treasure hunt, pulling you into SK’s shop and café.

“Packing it in to engage the public” is Jacquelyn’s goal at the flagship store. She has two long strips to work with, the mission being to “create something that’s wild, zany, wooly and dynamic where guests will stop to admire and touch the plants.” Basically, partaking of the garden becomes an experience just as enjoyable and uplifting as savoring the culinary wares.

Jacquelyn’s signature style is to play the tension of tall and short plants off each other: lettuce and pansies below tulips, ‘Bull’s Blood’ beet below brugmansia, papyrus waving above salvias.

“The garden just rocks and rolls,” she says.

Initially, not everyone in the corporate campus agreed that Stonewall Kitchen Top left:When Jacquelyn turned her talents to the Stonewall Kitchen headquarters, she laid a simple structure with complicated components. A hardworking space, the gardens serve as a pleasant café-side setting, as well as supply cut flowers (Cosmos sulphureus, calendula and bachelor’s buttons, right) for the tables.

needed to invest in a garden of such proportions. But ultimately, the gardens became crucial to the ambiance and inextricably bound with the brand. The garden defined the destination.

“We even made the number crunchers into believers. It was a smart, strategic move,” says Jacquelyn—her final analysis.

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A H O W- TO G U I D E F O R G RO W I N G A N D O U T D O O R L I V I N G

H O RT Q & A W I T H J A C K R U T T L E

Q

French Dressing

What plants can I use to create a Frenchstyle country garden? — CATHERINE TAKPER, ENCINITAS, CA

J E R RY PAV I A

A

You see many garden styles around country homes in France, from classical to cottage and from modern abstract to naturalistic, but I think I know the style you are envisioning—casual but organized, seemingly carefree, always interesting.Your mild climate is well-suited for this.

Actually, France provides better planting models for most American gardens than England because the French climates are more like ours. Summers in parts of France are often dry and warm, sometimes even arid and broiling hot. And Provence, with its Mediterranean climate and frequent watering restrictions, holds many good planting ideas A balanced yet inforfor coastal California armal design of boxwood, eas such as yours. geranium, lamb’s ears, There are some signasedge, rhododendron, are available that would be ture plants that play Boston ivy and columquite suitable in your area. recurring roles in the nar Italian cypress has Another French touch country gardens of a very French flair. would be columnar evergreens Provence.A low hedge of planted as sentinels or in rows lavender along the drive or a walkway, plus a climbing rose trained to mark a property line or drive. Italian on the wall near your doorway, might seem cypress (Cupressus sempervirens) fits the bill cliché, but they are endearing features around but will eventually grow to 60 feet tall. many French homes both large and small. For a similar look you could substitute one For taller hedges, follow the French lead of the shorter columnar junipers, such as with boxwood. Buxus sempervirens is native Juniperus chinensis ‘Spartan’ and J. scopuloacross southern France and grows freely in rum ‘Gray Gleam’ or ‘Skyrocket’.

For summer shade, London plane trees dry alkaline soil, along roadsides and among scrub oaks. Specimen boxwoods are often (Platanus x hispanica) are widely used in sheared into globes and other topiary France along drives and around patios, with shapes. Numerous hybrids and cultivars the main branches pollarded—pruned back

Imagination rules the world— N A P O L E O N

B O N A PA RT E

every winter to form short, permanent arms that support the new foliage. Popular smaller trees are the olive with its silvery leaves and yellow-flowered Acacia dealbata, which the French call mimosa.

For annual flower plantings, French gardeners have a bold way with color. Pure red, yellow, orange and blue don’t scare them.They practically invented the sort of gardening that emphasizes bold tropical foliage and flowers (think cannas and bananas) melded into annual beds. In pots and window boxes, geraniums are still beloved.

A garden in southern France almost always includes a shady paved spot for dining outdoors. Grape vines trained on an over-

GARDEN DESIGN

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Above: The shade of a grapevine creates a place to sit or dine.

Opposite: Watering cans are hot collectibles; make sure they also function.

head arbor are nice; prune them hard annually so they never overwhelm the trellis and admit plenty of light in winter.

Speaking of food, a little kitchen patch out back is an authentic French touch.

Think about growing zucchini, tomatoes, beans and peppers in summer, fava beans and artichokes in winter and spring, and salad crops nearly year round.

Q

I’ve been tempted by antique watering cans I’ve seen in local shops and flea markets.

How can I tell if they are genuine antiques and also if they would be OK to use for gardening chores? — KYLIE ROVERTS, ANN ARBOR, MI Watering cans that actually are more than 100 years old are very rare. It’s unlikely that you’d see one in a shop or a flea market—and certainly not more than one at a time. But galvanized-metal watering cans of a design that originated more than a century ago in Europe continued to be made in large numbers into the 1950s, and a few (notably Haws of England, whose products are available in the United States) are still made.Those “antique” galvanized cans made in Europe are what I mostly see for sale these days.They have an oval body and a long, narrow spout originating at the base of the can.They’re closer to 50 years old than 100, and are priced from about $50 in flea markets to $100 and up in shops.

S U S A N A . ROT H

A

Old watering cans for that kind of money certainly should be usable in the garden. Check one out before buying. Beyond holding water, it should show no rust inside or cracks in the seams.

The handle and neck brace should be solid.The rose (where the water comes out) should still be removable, not soldered in place; should fit tightly, with minimal leaks; and should be able to deliver a gentle shower.

Ask for a demonstration with water (or a no-questionsasked return policy) before you buy a high-priced can. Or get a brand-new one from Haws (www.haws.co.uk) or a reproduction from India or Eastern Europe. A new can will soon develop the patina of age that you like and should have a long, useful life.

Q

I would like a flowering evergreen tree to make into a topiary at the approach to our front door. It needs to take full morning sun. (We tried a camellia but it didn’t do well.) — DIANE RICHZER, MYRTLE BEACH, SC

A

J E R RY PAV I A

Teddy Bear® magnolia, with big glossy leaves, fuzzy brown undersides and large white flowers, would be magnificent.You could prune it into a cone about 10 feet tall

sage advice and 6 feet across the base.This is a more compact cultivar of the southern magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora).

For something slightly smaller, consider Osmanthus fragrans (sweet olive). You could prune it into an evergreen cone or pyramid about 6 feet tall that would cover itself in very small, deliciously scented flowers in winter and spring.

Q What should I know before starting a roof garden? — RICH BROUSSART, NEW YORK, NY

A

Actually, you need to know a lot since a roof is a very different environment from a garden at ground level. In fact, you’ll probably want to get professional help before getting started on a project like this.

First, consider the climate on a roof, which is more severe than on the ground.

It’s often quite windy in summer and very sunny and hot. But if nearby buildings are tall, the garden can be in shade all day, which is too dark for many plants, or quickly switch from deep shade to intense sun.

Never use regular garden soil for a roof garden; it’s much too heavy and doesn’t Below: Osmanthus frahold water well or ofgrans offers handsome fers poor drainage. evergreen foliage and Use a lightweight ar-

ANDERA JONES

tiny flowers with a strong, sweet fragrance. And the plants can be easily shaped.

ANDREA JONES

Above: For colorful rooftop planters, lowmaintenance annuals like geraniums and nemesia are good bets.

Combine plants that need similar care.

tificial soil often called a “soilless mix� in your containers.

Plan on building some wooden or lattice screens on the windward side of your plants to keep them from developing a permanent lean. Lattice can also provide some shade, especially for a southern or western exposure.

Also install automatic drip irrigation.

Container plants need much more frequent watering than plants in the ground. Sun, heat and wind will compound the water requirement. By midsummer, if not earlier, you would need to hand-water at least once a day and in very hot weather, twice a day.That schedule is nearly impossible to maintain every day all season, which is why a drip system is crucial.

Finally, it is essential that you get approval from your landlord or building co-op board and the local planning commission.They will probably require that your roof be examined and certified by an engineer or architect, who will stipulate required changes to the surface of the roof and the weight limits for your structures, containers and plants.

Once you get approval, I also recommend hiring a qualified garden designer who specializes in roof gardens, especially if you have limited gardening experience.

sage advice

SPRING PLANTING

Weekend Tropicals

PLANTING SEASON HAS ARRIVED, AND IN NUTLEY, NEW JERSEY, THAT MEANS IT’S TIME TO UNLEASH the razzamatazz—all-singing, all-dancing borders stuffed with summer annuals and tender exotics that really sock it to you for a late-season finale. Seattle-based landscape designer Richard Hartlage makes an annual pilgrimage to two clients in New Jersey, neighbors Graeme Hardie and Silas Mountsier, to supervise the launch of a summerlong horticultural extravaganza in both gardens.The big planting push happens over a long weekend in mid-May after danger of frost has passed.The stage is set with plants recycled from the greenhouse, houseplants, trays of colorful annuals, choiceVictorian bedding favorites and the odd rarity tucked in here and there for the oooh-factor. —J OA N N A F O RT N A M

SHOPPING For this type of summer tropical display most plants are treated as disposable from year to year, so the weekend begins with a shopping trip to two local nurseries.

Bulk Buys: The first stop, Morris County Farms in Denville, is a hot spot for foliage houseplants (top right) and impatiens (below right). Team Hort: Hartlage (blue shirt) and Hardie (in hat) have worked together for over 10 years, so they know just what they’re looking for. Pastels are used more in Hardie’s garden (to match the house trim), while Hartlage picks out saturated oranges and reds that will pop in the evergreen Mountsier garden. Boutique Finds: Second stop of the Left, clockwise: Choosing day is Atlock Farm, in coleus at Atlock. Ray Somerset (right), a trove Rogers, Graeme Hardie of special finds. Hartlage and Richard Hartlage at picks out coleus—some Atlock Farm.A lime-green topiaries for pots (center dracaena for a dramatic right) and small plants of focal point. Coleus topiarthe old Victorian type for ies. Picking out impatiens. massing in borders (left).

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The long, cold Minnesota winters instilled in me a fascination for exotic far off places—P E T E R

AGRE

P H OTO G R A P H S B Y A N D R E B A R A N OW S K I

All we need, really, is a change from a near frigid to a tropical attitude of mind—M A R J O R Y

S. DOUGLAS

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D E S I G N

A D V E R T I S I N G

D I R E C T O R Y

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From top left clockwise: Just out of storage, these brugmansias and cannas soon spring to life.Ti plants line a path. Specimens wait to leave the greenhouse.

Hartlage watering containers. Below: Even the smallest cactus has its place.

RECYCLING AND PLANTING The chorus line of color and foliage includes some return appearances—from greenhouse specimens and dormant plants. Many have a regular spot in the garden and are simply moved into place.

Sleeping Beauties: Tender plants that go dormant include brugmansias and cannas (top left), just out of storage in the cellar. Greenhouse Stars: Some hardto-find specimens spend winter in the greenhouse, including a prickly pachypodium (above, lower right) and cactus (left).

Dig for Victory: The hard work lasts all weekend. Hardie (top right), spaces out fluorescent Ti plants alongside a path.

Effort Rewarded: Planting the borders

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with standard 24-packs of impatiens or coleus takes a day or two, but the effort is rewarded by a summer of lowmaintenance color. Hartlage plants on 10-inch centers, and the plants fill out in about three weeks.

At a Pinch: Hartlage recommends, when planting coleus, that you pinch out the tips to encourage bushiness.

Follow-Up: Hartlage follows the planting team with the watering wand (above, lower left), checking that pots and borders are saturated. Granular Osmocote fertilizer is added to pots at planting, and all plants are fed biweekly with a 20-20-20 liquid fertilizer.

The highest virtue found in the tropics is chastity, and in the colder regions, temperance—C H R I S T I A N

NEVELL BOVEE

Below:A small Begonia paulensis, bought in the houseplant section, rapidly develops into a shrublike plant that suits the tropical theme of the garden.

Politics, just like the tropical forest, feeds itself from its own waste—P A U L

C A RV E L

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DESIGN TIPS Big impact is the raison d’etre of the tropical look. Hartlage takes a three-pronged approach to achieve this:Tropical plants (of course), bold foliage and forms, and shots of saturated color. Block Style: Rather than planting in a complicated cottage style, concentrate colorful annuals like impatiens in geometric blocks for a strong contrast with the fine-textured background. Foliage Form: Taro, elephant’s ears, the occasional banana and caladiums—great foliage plants with strikingly large, architectural leaves—make a great contrast in an otherwise suburban garden. Spike It Up: Prickly or strapleaved plants are good focal points. New Zealand flax, bromeliads and agaves are drawn from different habitats, but they have the right exotic look, as do many common houseplants, such as spider plant, dracaena and bird’s nest fern.

The long, hot, humid New Jersey summers suit tropicals down to the ground, and these plants grow astonishingly fast, quickly transforming a suburban garden into a lush oasis. Hanging Around: More greenhouse specimens—staghorn ferns and spider plants—are co-opted into the summer display, hanging on walls and from corners (far right, top and center). Foliage Power: Borders cleared of tulip foliage in May and freshly planted with coleus look like this in September —still going strong after most summer perennials have faded (far right, below).

Sources: Richard Hartlage, 253-2840254; Morris County Farms, 973-3664448; Atlock Farm, 732-356-3373.

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J E R RY H A R P U R

FINISHED EFFECTS

Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal—E D W A R D

O. W I L S O N

Around the pond foliage contrasts abound—black colocasia, busy coleus and prickly pachypodium.

Staghorn ferns (top) and spider plants (center) add finishing touches. Coleus (right) lends junglelike rhythm and pattern.

I thought I would be Sheena of the Jungle as a little girl—P A M

GRIER

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A N ATO M Y L E S S O N

Path to Enlightenment PATHWAYS THAT TWIST AND TURN REPRESENT life’s journey.A circular labyrinth, combined with a Native American medicine wheel, suggests different directions in life. Flowing water represents ever-present, continuous change; a still pool allows reflection.

This garden near Detroit, created by designer JeffreyWhite of Detroit-based AguaFina Gardens & Imports, reflects the owner’s interest in different spiritual beliefs, including those of Native Americans.

The space, roughly 4,000 square feet, was reclaimed from a wild corner of the garden in fall 2005. It includes a meditation mound formed from an antique well capstone, a dry riverbed and several symbolic stones.The client walks in the gardens every day, following a route designed to represent the complex twists and turns of life’s journey.

The sinuously curving paths were created largely on the ground, some using the traditional stake and string to create a perfect radius. Others needed an individual touch— “feeling by foot” as White says, to create a comfortable walk.—JF

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The labyrinth/medicine wheel is laid out in sandstone reclaimed from the original garden, with winding paths picked out in gravel and springy moss.

G E O R G E D Z A H R I S TO S ( 2 )

For further information on AguaFina Gardens & Imports, call 248-7380500 or 888-738-0599 or see www.aguafina.com.

GROUND DETAILS

SYMBOL IN STONE

SPECIAL SPACE

Hand-selected glacial boulders provide informal steps to the top of the mound.The firmly packed moss, laid on raised berms of soil, makes a beautifully molded floorscape.

The standing stone is actually a piece of petrified wood. Chosen for its shape and stature, it was placed at a tight, sloping turn on the path to suggest the obstacles encountered in life.

The atmosphere of the garden is reinforced by a subtle separation from the rest of the property.The slope and a grouping of ‘Green Gem’ boxwoods offer solitude.

Nature is a labyrinth in which the very haste you move with will make you lose your way—F R A N C I S

BACON

sage advice 1

2

LANDSCAPE SOLUTIONS

3

[1] A Glassman-built span—dubbed The Yellow Bridge—provides L.A. rocker Perry Farrell with a direct path from his living room to a grove of black bamboo.

[2] A front gate made of black bamboo (Phyllostachys nigra) draws the line at entering a Venice property, yet invites with its airy design. [3] Live Mexican weeping bamboo (Otatea acuminata ssp. aztectorum) buffets a Glassman fence to screen a midcentury modern home and landscape from a public walkway.

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FEW MATERIALS USED IN THE DESIGN OF GARdens offer the dichotomous appeal of bamboo. Geisha-girl delicate in form yet with a tensile strength greater than steel’s, this ancient natural resource can punch up the Asian ambience in a landscape whether used as sculpture or in more utilitarian functions.

Stephen Glassman, aVenice, California, artist, has been applying ancient construction techniques using various bamboo varieties—including beechey bamboo (Bambusa beecheyana), giant timber bamboo (B. oldhamii), golden bamboo (Phyllostachys aurea) and giant Japanese timber bamboo (P. bambusoides)—to create steps, handrails, bridges, fences, shelters, sculptures and more for both private and public spaces.Though his pieces often coincide with an Asian-themed garden, many times his work is commissioned to contrast with the landscape.

“I’m often asked to move into concrete urban areas,” Glassman says, “as a level of counterpoint or to dance with the flow of the design.”—J A S O N U P R I G H T

To contact artist Stephen Glassman, e-mail zolart@artnet.net or call 310-305-1696.

The stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind—B R U C E

LEE

L A U R A H U L L ( 1 ) , S H I R L E Y WAT T S ( 2 )

Bamboo’s Yin and Yang

ANNOUNCING GARDEN DESIGN’S

2OO6 G O L D E N T ROW E L AWA R D S To enter: For the Golden Trowel Awards (open to amateurs and professional landscape designers and contractors), please fill out the form below and return it, along with your completed entry, by June 1, 2006 to Garden Design, attention Golden Trowel, 460 N. Orlando Ave., Suite 200,Winter Park, FL 32789.Your entry should include the following: Your story: Send us a written account. Include your inspiration, the planning and what you started with, the planting, the achievements and the setbacks of your garden.

Be as specific and creative as you can. Submissions must be typewritten on white 8 1⁄2- by 11-inch paper only. Handwritten submissions or those sent via e-mail, disk or CD will not be read.

Garden plan: Send us a drawing of the layout of your garden, indicating major beds, trees, walkways, lawn, hardscapes, structures and other features.We’ll accept anything from a professionally rendered drawing to a homegrown sketch. Be as detailed as reasonably possible, but keep the plan simple to interpret. Include a list of key plants by common or Latin name.

Photography: Submit enough prints to explain the garden, including overall scenes, plant beds, structures, furniture, outdoor kitchen or living areas, etc. Label these prints with corresponding details. (Hint: Copy and enlarge actual snapshots on a color copier, or photograph the images with a digital camera and print them out on a color printer to allow more room for labeling.) Submissions on disk, CD or email will not be viewed.Also include slides of your garden and its features for publication in Garden Design magazine if you win. Images for possible publication must be high-quality color 35-mm slides or larger transparencies only. No dupes.

Open to all home gardeners and do-it-yourself designers as well as professional garden designers, landscape contractors and landscape architects.

Winning gardens will be presented in an upcoming issue of Garden Design magazine.

SPONSORED BY Monrovia will award a $1,OOO GIFT CERTIFICATE to the amateur whose garden demonstrates the most creative use of plants.

H O R T I C U LT U R A L C R A F T S M E N ®

SINCE

1926

ENTRY FORM DEADLINE JUNE 1, 2006 Please complete and mail with entry materials to Garden Design, 460 N. Orlando Ave., Suite 200,Winter Park, FL 32789 Name Address

Phone Fax E-mail All materials become property of World Publications LLC, may be used in print and electronic formats in perpetuity and will not be returned. Photographers will not necessarily be credited upon publication and will not necessarily receive remuneration. By your entering this contest, World Publications assumes you have rights to all provided images and have granted Garden Design magazine all rights to publish said images at the magazine’s discretion.

P R E M I E R R E TA I L PA R T N E R

D I R E C T O RY Barlow Flower Farm Sea Girt, NJ • PH: 732-449-9189 www.barlowflowerfarm.com

Hursthouse, Inc. Bolingbrook, IL • PH: 630-759-3500 www.hursthouse.com

Pollen Atlanta, GA • PH: 404-262-2296 www.pollenatlanta.com

Bath Garden Center Ft. Collins, CO PH: 970-484-5022 www.bathgardencenter.com

International Garden Center El Segundo, CA • PH: 310-615-0353 www.intlgardencenter.com

Riverside Nursery & Garden Center Collinsville, CT PH: 860-693-2285 riverside-nursery@snet.net

Boxwoods Gardens & Gifts Atlanta, GA • PH: 404-233-3400 dbboxwoods@aol.com Burkard Nurseries, Inc. Pasadena, CA • PH: 626-796-4355 www.burkardnurseries.com Campo de’ Fiori Sheffield, MA • PH: 413-528-1857 www.campodefiori.com Condurso’s Garden Center Montville, NJ • PH: 973-263-8814 www.condursos.com Daisy Fields Lake Oswego, OR PH: 971-204-0052 www.daisyfieldsoregon.com Didriks Cambridge, MA • PH: 617-354-5700 www.didriks.com DuBrow’s Livingston, NJ • PH: 973-992-0598 www.dubrows.com Fort Pond Native Plants Montauk, NY • PH: 631-668-6452 www.nativeplants.net Four Seasons Pottery Atlanta, GA • PH: 404-252-3411 www.4seasonspottery.com Gardenology Encinitas, CA • PH: 760-753-5500 www.garden-ology.com Gardens Austin, TX • PH: 512-451-5490 www.gardens-austin.com Grounded Garden Shop Encinitas, CA • PH: 760-230-1563 juli@grounded101.com

J & M Home & Garden Madison, NJ PH: 800-533-5112 www.jmhg.com Kimball & Bean Architectural and Garden Antiques Woodstock, IL PH: 815-444-9000 www.kimballandbean.com Litchfield Horticultural Center Litchfield, CT PH: 860-567-3707 litchfieldhort@msn.com Lovely Manors Garden Design Center Phoenix, MD • PH: 410-667-1390 www.lovelymanors.org Lush Life Atlanta, GA • PH: 404-841-9661 www.lushlifehomegarden.com Marina del Rey Garden Center Marina del Rey, CA PH: 310-823-5956 www.marinagardencenter.com Mostardi Nursery Newtown Square, PA PH: 610-356-8035 www.mostardi.com Organized Jungle, Inc. Winter Park, FL • PH: 407-599-9880 www.organizedjungle.com

Savannah Hardscapes Levy, SC • PH: 843-784-6060 www.savannahhardscapes.com Smith’s Acres Niantic, CT • PH: 860-691-0528 www.smithsacres.com Southwest Gardener Phoenix, AZ PH: 602-279-9510 www.southwestgardener.com Swanson’s Nursery Seattle, WA PH: 206-782-2543 www.swansonsnursery.com The Bronze Frog Gallery Oakville, ONT PH: 905-849-6338 www.bronzefroggallery.com The Dow Gardens Midland, MI PH: 800-362-4874 www.dowgardens.org The Garden Market Carpinteria, CA PH: 805-745-5505 www.thegardenmarkets.com The Treehouse Garden Collection Dunedin, FL•PH: 727-734-7113 www.treehousegardencollection.com

Patios, Walks & Walls Grove City, OH • PH: 614-539-8100 www.patioswalksandwalls.com

The Green Fuse Denver, CO PH: 303-507-4772 jrlivings@comcast.net

Pleasant Pools & Patio Chester, NJ PH: 908-879-7747 www.pleasantpoolsandpatio.com

Urban Garden and Home, LLC Tucson, AZ PH: 520-326-8393 www.urbangardenandhome.com

Call today to find out how to become a GARDEN DESIGN retailer and be included in this list of exclusive retailers. The GARDEN DESIGN Retail Program offers you magazines for resale in your store and exposure for your shop in every issue of GARDEN DESIGN and on the web-site for one low annual cost.

Call Jason Pietras today at 888-259-6753 Ext. 1189 for details.

G A R D E N

A N T I Q U E S

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details

Reflected Glory Atlanta garden designer

From Seascape Gardening, by Anne Halpin, photographs by Roger Foley (Storey Publishing, May 2006, $35).

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Paradise hath room for you and me and all—C H R I S T I N A

RO S S E T T I

RO G E R F O L E Y

Ryan Gainey drew on Moorish tradition for this formal walled courtyard, known as the Mogul garden, in the Hamptons.The high brick walls give some shelter from salt winds, and the brick path, foreground, bisects a canal— home to lotus, papyrus and fish.Yews are clipped into spires to resemble the Italian cypress more typical of such warm-climate gardens. Flanking the canal are neatly pruned ‘Meyer’ lemon trees in large pots.

On the wall behind the fountain is a mirror, a glimpse of paradise.—J F