A rose by any other name...

I've started to wonder about my blog name. Few, mostly those with kids, know the wonderful book by Barbara Cooney, Miss Rumphius, and the story behind it. Read it if you can.

Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney

About ten years ago I got all paranoid about using my real name as an identifier on the Landscape Design forum at GardenWeb. Miss Rumphius had been my favorite book to read to my son when he was small and I identified with her as a character--hence the screen name. Most people referred to me as Miss R. I stopped posting at Garden Web shortly after it was taken over by iVillage, but that's another story.

I decided to carry the Miss R moniker over to my blog for no real reason other than people already knew me by that name. Now I wonder if it might not be the best name for what I write about. Miss R's third third rule 'Do something to make the world more beautiful' still is, but the name...maybe not so much.

I have no idea what I'd call my blog other than Miss R, but I'd be interested in what everyone who reads here thinks. Leave a comment and let me know.

Dreaming of Other Places

I have itchy, gypsy feet. When the weather gets nice my longing to pick up and go gets worse.


I want to go some place exotic--full of color, odd sounds and history.

Bali

I want to go some place I've never been that will inspire me.

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

I need to get outside of my comfort zone.

India

Maybe it's just the May-hem of being a landscape designer at this time of year causing me to want to escape.

Yellowstone National Park

Don't get me wrong--I love what I do, but I need to recharge and my creative batteries sometimes need a jump start.

Nikko Temple, Japan

Travel does that for me--it jolts me into a new direction every time.

Buenos Aires, Argentina

I've always had wanderlust and have luckily been able to indulge it on mostly a whim. When I was younger with less responsibility, I'd just pack a bag and go.

Fez, Morocco

Now it's not so easy. I dream of the places I want to see and save and save until I can afford to go. One of the above will be next.

Garden Visits--Chester and Far Hills

Accompanied by a friend, who is also a landscape designer, a map and our cameras we set off to see three gardens in Morris and Somerset counties for an Open Days garden crawl. With my trusty point and shoot, I took many more photographs than I have here. Some are for inspiration, some are for reference and others will be shared here later illustrating other posts.

This area of New Jersey is known for its history and tradition. Homes dating from late 18th and 19th century sit side by side with those built in the last real estate bubble. The three gardens we visited were traditional, based in European traditions, and on properties with old homes. All three gardens were several acres, the result of years of vision, personal attention and financial commitment. Aliums were in bloom everywhere. Container plantings were significant players at both Hedgerows and Kennelston cottage forming their own small 'gardens' or creating focal points within larger plantings. I think I'd like to explore containers as a contributor and design element later.

A stone pier, containers and gate at Hedgerows

With the morning's fog still creating an atmospheric haze, down Old Chester Road we drove, our first stop was Dan and Jeanne Will's garden, Hedgerows. For me, the most interesting part of this garden was the woodland. Meandering paths wove in and out of plantings that were in places highly edited and in others self seeded. The combination of intent and abandon was charming.

Self seeded Primula japonica were abundant, as were Myosotis sylvatica

Gravel paths weaving in and out of plantings

A small rustic yet elegantly proportioned summerhouse

Our second stop, Hay Honey Farm, was one of two we planned in Far Hills. I first visited this garden 4 or 5 years ago. This time, the owner requested that photos not be published, so I won't share mine here. A series of gardens included hillside woodland with a beautiful Rhododendron walk, a hayfields with remarkable views across the valley and a Laburnum allee. This garden is well worth the visit.

A gravel path through a shady garden room at Kennelston Cottage in Far Hills

After a drive on dirt and gravel roads through some of the most beautiful country in New Jersey we arrived at our final stop--Kennelston Cottage. This was the most traditional garden of the three. Recently featured in New Jersey Life magazine, Kennelston's gardens are a series of interrelated rooms and vignettes.

The Potager with chimney pot planters

A lovely purple and white poolside planting scheme

The view to the house from the pool

Books

I love books. Since I first learned how, I have been a voracious reader.

For me, books have been gateways to the larger world. They have been a source of inspiration, information and escape. I like them as objects as well. I am always fascinated by the mystery between the covers, the tactile discovery of turning a page to see what's next. I have spent hours of my life in libraries and everywhere I've ever lived, both here and abroad, I've had a library card.

I am no longer an indiscriminate book buyer. At several points in my life I had more books than anything else. I am fortunate to have The Chatham Bookseller, a great used bookstore , in the next town over that has three shelves of books on gardens and landscape design and many more on interiors, graphic design, fine art and just about any other subject I might want to explore. With their greatly reduced prices penciled in on the flyleaf, I've bought more than a few books here.

My design library isn't big since I don't have the room for the hundreds of books I would have if I did. It is carefully edited and often culled when new additions need to find a home on the overstuffed shelves. Some of my favorites are out of print, some are new, some are eye candy coffee table books, some are serious reference books. I'm going to share some of my favorites over the next few weeks.

Inspriation and Influence--1st Dibs

I really like 1st Dibs. I don't visit it every day, or even every week, but when I do it sucks me in and when I'm done I've spent more time than I had planned.

1st Dibs is a huge on-line marketplace for antiques and mid-century modern furniture and accessories--Portobello Road or the Paris Flea Market on steroids. 1st Dibs also has a beautifully designed and edited section on people, places and ideas. There are great garden elements to be found--bought or used as inspiration.

The profiles in Style Compass or books in Required Reading get me every time.

Inspiration and Influence - Bark & Maps

I find the bark of the Chinese Elm (Ulmus parvifolia) to be incredibly beautiful. It is evocative of topographical maps-which I also find to be very beautiful.

Why Fit In?

I have never fit in. There have been times, like when I was in high school, where fitting in seemed important, so I tried. I still didn't really fit in--there was always the nagging sensation that I wasn't really being authentic.

As I grew and evolved as a designer, I learned to get used to blunt critique and/or praise of my work and view it with my own value meter. Reject what I didn't believe, embrace what I did. This process also made me more secure in who I was as a person. The nagging sensation of not being authentic mostly disappeared. What didn't disappear, however, is the fact that I still don't really fit neatly into any ready categories that people seem to need to organize their thoughts, lives and ideas.

Miss R doesn't really fit in either. It's not a garden blog--although I sometimes write about gardens and post garden pictures. It's not a design blog, although I certainly explore that also. It's not a blog of personal revelation, but that is definitely a component. It's not a blog about process either. It doesn't fit in.

It is a blog about the thoughts, ideas, images, work, people and places that fill my creative life. I'm standing in the middle of my life as individual as ever, as unable to fit neatly into anyone's categories as I ever was. The difference is that I now know that's because I don't need to. I am authentically me.

Inspiration and Influence - Garden Visits

An old gate at Greenwood Gardens, Short Hills, NJ on its first Open Days day several years ago.
The gate is no longer there.

Today it's grey and rainy. I'm dreaming of gardens. Yesterday, my 2009 edition of the Garden Conservancy's Open Days Directory came in the mail. Its arrival made me think about how much I have been inspired by seeing gardens. Not only do I visit on Open Days, but the APLD annual design conference also incorporates amazing garden visits. There are some random photos of gardens which I've visited over the years included here. I appologize if some aren't credited to their sources and owners as I rarely write down what I'm photographing as I go along.

The Grotto under the pool at the White Garden in Lewisboro NY, designed by Patrick Chasse

Observing someone else's point of view, details, and planting styles have had a profound effect on my growth as a landscape designer.Over the years I've visited gardens large and small, good and not so good in many countries. All have had some type of impact on my design aesthetic--either as something to aspire to or something to avoid.

Michael Trapp's Garden in Connecticut

When I was first starting out, I focused on all of the amazing plants that I didn't know and dutifully wrote them all down. Now I walk with camera and sketchbook in hand--taking pictures and drawing small details as they strike me. Mostly I snap--sketching takes me too much time!

Robert Irwin's Garden at the Getty Center, Malibu, California

I actually try not to analyze it too much when I'm there--I try to experience the gardens while I'm in them. Sometimes I'll see something that I don't like and that's just as galvanizing as what I do.

Shape and texture on the California coast near Santa Barbara

The Power of 1

Three Dog Night was wrong, 1 is not a lonely number. From my perspective, the power of 1 is a place of professional and personal strength. For me it is impossible to separate life and work, they are so deeply interwoven into a seamless whole.

Often, artists and designers are accused of being self centered--we're not, not really. For some, like me, the solitary stance is necessary to be able to hear the ideas that flow through and around me. Professionally, like the sun king, I'm the center of my own creative life's universe. Mark Twain very aptly said, 'Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thought that is forever flowing through one's head." I choose to live my life in the middle of that storm and to use it to propel forward motion--for myself.

Sometimes I find myself unable (or unwilling?) to start a new project until it is visualized in my head. These broad ideas are the big picture that I work out in detail later. I never get it right the first time--that's where the designer's skill comes into play. If I don't get it right and I loose the thread of the idea I work on developing it so becomes something more richly detailed sophisticated than the big picture was. Drawing, for me, is like the sirens beckoning sailors to crash on the rocks, I draw to call back and develop ideas more fully than they are in the rocks of my mind's eye.

I do collaborate sometimes. I've worked with others who plod and work through ideas--I can do that, but it doesn't result in my best work. In the busy season, when I sometimes have studio assistants, when I'm hanging around the studio making myself busy with other things they think I'm procrastinating, doing nothing, wasting time, pacing aimlessly. They're not quiet enough, they don't understand the process, and they haven't learned to be their own centers yet.

Inspiration and Influence -TV & Technicolor

A few weeks ago in a post titled Inspiration and Experience I wrote about my viewpoint as a designer as a unique culmination of life's experiences. Writing that post has made me--probably temporarily--more acutely aware of what I look for my daily inspirational 'feed'. In other words, I have become more self-aware of what I look at, talk about, read, experience and absorb for future reference. I know this will fade into the background again, but it's winter, I'm inside a lot and have the time to reflect.

I am first and foremost a designer. My current design discipline is landscape design. I have in the past worked in others. I didn't come to landscape design from a desire to create gardens, but from a desire to design three dimensional living spaces that compelled human interaction and enhanced and respected the environment. Sure, I've been a lifelong gardener and find incredible beauty in plants, but that has never been the departure point for my inspiration.

So, what do I look and where do I go to fuel the creative fire? It's a daily feast of input that swings wildly between subjects--some of which I'm going to explore here and in future posts. I try not to question the process too much and always try and stay open and observant. I am a voracious reader and looker. Even a few seconds spent looking is absorbed in some way. Years ago as a fashion jewelry designer, I found visual inspiration while driving to my studio in Brooklyn in a pattern of diagonal wires on a construction site--those patterns became the basis of a series of pieces while the time spent looking at the original wires was as fast as I was driving by them.

Some of the constant influences have been images from television and old movies - black and white and technicolor. Not just those with fabulous fantasy landscape images in them-like the Wizard of Oz, but others that jog my visual sensibility in some way. Just yesterday I watched an old (and awful) Doris Day move - 'Move Over Darling'. In one scene Day was wearing an acid green ensemble and running up the stairs against a grey background. Add that to Michelle Obama's choice of an acid green Isabel Toledo outfit for the inaugural, and the choice of Hakonechloa macra 'Aureola' as the 2009 Perennial Plant of the year and pop goes the inspiration weasel.


Wow! Would I like to use that combo in a garden. In the movies it's retro, in a garden- modern, provocative and fresh.

Showhouse Season V, Issue 2. The Design Process

All of the landscape design invitees for the 2009 showhouse were provided with a master plan which illustrated the homeowner's and the consulting landscape architect's very formal vision for the property.

There would be an addition to the east side of house to update the antiquated kitchen, create additional living space and add a garage. A new pool and pool house would also be added as well as a sheep barn, greenhouse and an apiary at the southwest corner. We were allowed to re-define the spaces if we chose for future approval. Below is my annotated copy of a later version of part of the master plan.


Some of the project constraints other than the two usual suspects--time and money--were and still are: the rampant deer who eat their way through the unfenced property and that some of the original garden features were to remain or be restored. I added to those caveats my own personal desire to source as much as possible from local nurseries and resources and to limit the amount of work that had to be done by machine for both logistical and sustainable reasons. Once those benchmarks were established, I decided to pursue several ideas within final conceptual design that was submitted to and ultimately accepted by the selection committee. Those ideas, as well as the conceptual plan are below.

Design Idea #1--Go with the Flow. I had the advantage of having done a previous project originally as a showhouse garden for the same owner which was kept as permanently. I knew she loved formality and the master plan clearly showed her input. If there were already 2 votes cast in the formal direction--why rock the boat, formal it would be.

Design Idea #2--Define the space the way I wanted it, excluding some of the peripheral areas. This would tighten up my ability to maximize views out of the house and would enable me to use strong axial relationships and bold geometric forms.

Design Idea #3--Design a space that would draw people into it and cause them to linger as well as creating elegant transitions to and from the adjacent spaces. One of my underlying garden philosophies has always been to make outdoor spaces for living as opposed to being just for viewing.

Design Idea #4--Limit the materials and utilize a very narrow deer resistant plant palette to simplify further. With simplicity the overarching traditional formality will look clean and modern rather than traditional and overworked.

Design Idea #5--Think about adding a water feature. People love water, the homeowner loves water, water makes people linger supporting Design Idea #3.

Design Idea #6--Try to use appropriate native plants without being a slave to that concept. Turf would be allowed since it is a large part of the master plan anyway. Offset the use of turf through of locally sourced pea gravel paths equaling (or close) the same square footage. That boat again.

Design Idea #7--Make the plan as easy as possible to implement since the participating contractors would be partially donating their time. April, the installation month, is the 2nd busiest month of the year.

Although it's a bit difficult to see. Here's the conceptual plan. The koi pond that is noted is a element from the master plan that is to be restored and not part of my garden space. Enlarge it to see the notes.

Inspiration and Experience

When I first started writing this blog, I was determined for it to be about three things: art, design and living a creative life. It's that last item that ties the first two together and has given me the freedom to explore all sorts of topics.

Often people ask me where I get my ideas from--what inspires my work. I believe that my inspiration comes from the sum of all of my individual experiences filtered through an instant. In other words, I am a funnel. The input area of my life is huge and the output is squeezed through the narrow viewpoint of any given moment. I reference and draw from hundreds of thousands of influences based on what I need to solve a specific design problem.

Because my aesthetic is based on the sum of my individual experiences it is unique to me. My perspective filters those that are shared and makes them exclusive. The solitary colors the mutual.

I hope that make sense. It does to me.