10 minute read
Excellence in Landscape Judges Award
by Heather Prince
In 2018 the Hursthouse team was still enjoying the
afterglow from their first Triple Crown winning project, when they were called to conquer a unique challenge. The homeowner wished to tie a piece of vacant property, across a private drive into the rest of a suburban estate in a quiet historic section of Wheaton. After batting around a bunch of ideas, the team settled on responding to the formal architecture of the home and created an elegant folly garden that not only mirrored the brick masonry of the house but incorporated key structural elements as well.
First lines of the story
The homeowners loved the folly garden, and a long-lasting relationship was born. “This is on a private dead-end road right next to Chicago Golf in Wheaton, one of the oldest golf courses in the nation,” commented Bob Hursthouse, president of Hursthouse Landscape Architects. “The neighbor built a big new house, so this chunk of land started to feel like it belonged to them. Our client called us to ask what in the world can we do with this?” Now as you stand on the front terrace, a sophisticated wrought iron gate hung from brick columns lit by custom-made lanterns draws your eye down
the lush lawn. Step through the gate and you are drawn to an enclosed patio space with a beautiful armillary sphere in the center. Relax on an elegant bench or peek through the circular portal on the rear garden wall. This destination garden space is anchored on each side by an allée of American hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana) set in formal beds of evergreen groundcover. Along the back of the garden wall, a copse of white-blooming redbuds lights up the space in the spring. Sheared low boxwood hedges hug the brick elements, reflecting the formal hedges of the main house. The layers of green feature different textures, allowing light to play upon the leaves while setting a tone of serenity. Until autumn, when the hornbeams turn flame orange and pull rich color into the scene.
“We wanted to tie the folly garden back to the architecture of the home and create some identity across the road,” remembered Josh Griffin, senior designer. “We made it a destination space you’d stroll out to, using a series of columns and gates as wayfinding across the private drive. The clients fell so in love with what we had done out there, we started working our way towards the house.” A circular window on (continued on page 32)
(continued from page 31) the garage inspired the repeated element. “You have a little moon gate out in the folly garden and the circle in the benches. We brought in the armillary and the wall plaques from a dealer in the U.K.,” observed Griffin.
The formal symmetrical home is set on a little less than an acre and a half and anchored by 100-year-old catalpas and a stately mature sugar maple. The homeowners are active members and volunteers at The Morton Arboretum. They treasure rare and specimen trees as well as perennials for bees and butterflies. “The clients are very proper,” commented Hursthouse. “If you’re served a cup of coffee, it’s in bone china. She’s an old soul and he’s a CPA. Nicest people in the world. Their taste is impeccably tailored, elegant, and very traditional. So, we play to those aesthetics in everything we do on site. It’s very tight, very crisp, never a hair out of place.”
Editing, refining, and pulling it all together
The clients’ firmly established aesthetics allow the team at Hursthouse to work within a defined palette of plants. The front elevation features symmetry and strict lines in response to the home’s architecture. In the backyard, a lush perennial border releases the tension of the clean lines, provides layers of color and texture, and buzzes with pollinators. When Hursthouse took on the rest of the site after installation of the folly garden, they made several changes to open sight lines, establish rhythm and structure, and address grade changes.
“When we started on the property there were curvilinear walks of faded pavers that were super casual and nothing special,” commented Hursthouse. “We didn’t change the size of the porch, but it felt small because the paving was so pitched. When you walked out the (continued on page 34)
(continued from page 32) front door, you hit an ornamental tree that spoiled the view. The backyard was also very curvilinear with pieces of outcropping that felt like they had fallen out of the sky for no apparent reason. The fireplace belched smoke out the front because the flue wasn’t tall enough. They had a water garden that didn’t hold water.”
The Hursthouse team imposed formal organization with trimmed boxwood hedges, bluestone walkways, subtle layers of green groundcovers, and small seating areas. They kept to a strict hardscape palette. “Everything vertical was Chicago common brick or dry stacked limestone walls,” reported Hursthouse. “Everything horizontal is bluestone – all the way down to the coping on the fountain, the mantel on the fireplace, and the hearth on the fireplace.”
Aesthetic challenges were not the only difficulties to negotiate. The property has a significant amount of grade change from north to south and water moves from the neighbors across the back lawn, especially in storms. “For a big open space, there was a significant amount of grade change across this property,” remembered Griffin. “Trying to create something mirrored and symmetrical on a cross pitch was a definite challenge to do and still let water flow across the property. We had to avoid creating swampy areas. We did a lot of work with the grade on this property. Even the boxwood hedges are curved. You have to thoughtfully keep the boxwood height consistent because you can’t snap a straight string line. You’re dropping two and a half feet from the gates to the drive.”
But can you keep it nice?
To keep the estate looking its best, Hursthouse has a detailed maintenance program, starting with an extensive dormant pruning in the late winter. “All of our plants are layered and balanced to effect, both ornamental trees and the shrubs,” said William Chorvat, maintenance branch manager. “We spent a total of three years correcting some of the Judd viburnums. There were mostly sheared into round balls. We do an extensive seasonal pinching program which takes out the apical dominance of the plants and makes them thicken up. The Judd viburnums are probably pinched a dozen times during the season so they’re not outgrowing the space. And then during the winter we thin them out again and then we pinch them and that’s the rotation that we have on almost all the plants in that front area.” This allows the viburnums to become pieces of living sculpture that are in scale with the home. It also softens their architecture in response to the trimmed hedges. “We maintain them so they look like sculp-
tures,” reported Chorvat. “When the uplighting goes through on the bottom, you can see the unique branching structure on each plant. We really look at each plant individually and maintain it based on what its needs are within its respective space.”
Establishing Rhythm and Release
Within the boundaries of the trimmed hedges and the overhead canopies of the mature trees, the team at Hursthouse has incorporated layers of texture while being mindful to the challenges of monocultures. Although the homeowner adores boxwood, there are two trimmed hedges of Deutzia ‘Yuki Snowflake’ on the front and rear elevation. “We wanted plants that rhyme with boxwood without being identical copies,” commented Griffin. “The guys do such a good job of pruning, it doesn’t read differently.” It also blooms white. “Her guiding rule is everything on the front plane of the house looking forward can only bloom white. The entire front property is a white garden.” From the Judd viburnums flanking the front door within the deutzia hedges to white-blooming fringetrees that anchor the corners, all the plants feature white flowers. The grove of white-flowering redbuds that enclose the folly garden rear wall lead the eye from the house in spring. Plantings of Annabelle hydrangeas spill gently around the seating area outside the front bay window. Even the large black iron urns are filled with seasonal white flowers until replaced with holiday greens. “There’s a grove of white Zumi crabs across the front drive,” reported Griffin. “The neighbor let us plant them when they reworked the line of their drive. The bloom and the fragrance are very nice.”
In the rear garden, however, the restraint of the white palette is relaxed and waves of color fill beds and borders. Here a long, wide mixed shrub and perennial border anchors the back property line, held in by a row of Hick’s yews. “We are very much trying to bring a Gertrude Jekyll vibe to the garden back there,” observed Griffin. The homeowner already had an extensive perennials collection when Hursthouse started. “It’s kind of her collector’s garden so we did a lot of reworking and transplanting what she had, incorporated new, and reorganized by creating some massing while still having some beautiful chaos in the background,” said Griffin. “It’s not too organized, but it’s also not one of each thing. She has her favorite Midnight Marvel hibiscus, for example.” Another priority for the rear gardens is feeding wildlife. “She tries to get as many pollinator and butterfly plants in the (continued on page 37)
(continued from page 35) cottage garden as she can,” reported Chorvat. “The annuals we plant for seasonal color in the black urns as well as the one we’ll pop in between the perennials; all have to attract butterflies or bees.” A custom-built half-moon white arbor gate with a custom lantern anchors the garden and opens to a historic sidewalk. The Prairie Path now marks the old rail line that used to come out from Chicago and drop guests at the Chicago Golf Club. The back property line sits along the old sidewalk that led to the old train station. The homeowners love to use it as a destination as they stroll the rambunctious perennial beds. “That back border is the fun strolling whimsey garden,” commented Griffin. “It’s the release for everything else being buttoned up.”
Attention to detail is found in the smallest elements and binds the site together. All of the lanterns, sconces, and candleholders are from Bevolo in New Orleans and custom made to match. Originally, it was a mix of lighting styles, but as the Hursthouse team developed each section of the site, the homeowners fell in love with their choices. “We had everything powder coated the same to match the lanterns on the gates because every black on that property has to be the same sheen and tone of black,” commented Griffin. “From the urns to the benches to the wall lanterns, we’ve had to disassemble it all and powder coat it. Even the mailbox. I love that degree of detail. It makes me so happy.”
The team at Hursthouse has created a seamless experience that the homeowners adore. “The client obviously loves their home,” said Hursthouse. “They love to be outside, they love the garden, and they work from home quite a bit, especially with Covid. They pop out for lunch on the patio or take a glass of wine for a stroll to the folly garden across the road. It’s been fun as we’ve done this project in stages; across the road first, the front second, the back third, the back property line fourth, so it’s developed over time. It’s fun to watch the client get more and more excited about the space as it better aligns with their inner aesthetic. Walk out the front door and its balanced, its symmetrical, it feels proper and ordered. Walk to the big maple and turn left and down all the way out to the garden across the road. It’s a real nice iteration of the space. Every time I stop and see the client they tell me, ‘Just look at this! Just look at this space!’ It’s super gratifying.”
