Miss R's Facelift

As of 3:00 pm EST on June 18, 2009

Miss R has moved to a new location

Please join me there

Arching Bells

Maybe because its Latin name could inspire fear in any designer, or maybe because it isn't seen often, but Nectaroscordum siculum ssp. Bulgaricum should be used by more garden and landscape designers. A bulb, hardy from zones 6-10, it is delicate yet architectural with mauve, ivory and pale green bells arching from a single stem. N. siculum is sometimes called the Sicilian Honey Lily or sold as Mediterranean Bells. It is another underused plant that deserves more attention.


I have used it in my garden as well in those of several clients. The deer don't eat it and it starts its show right after the alliums--to which it's related. The leaves, like alliums, aren't terribly attractive and can easily be hidden by careful planting design that allows N. siculum to punctuate shorter plants with more interesting foliage. The first time I saw it in a garden, its companion was Hosta 'Sum and Substance' and the combination stopped me in my tracks.

A European native, this bulb is easy to grow in sun or partial--so easy in fact that these have been slowly multiplying in an abandoned garden near here for as many years as I can remember.

Talking to Myself

I have in some way and in fits and starts kept a journal for years. There have been times when just the act of chronicling what ever was happening in my life has helped me sort it out. As a teenager they consisted of pages and pages of laments, descriptions of parental and personal drama, social slights and ad hoc adventures.

After graduating from art school I starting making illustrated journals in black bound sketchbooks and for years I kept them safely in a box to be looked at now and then. Ten years ago, all but one of these sketchbook journals were destroyed in a basement flood.

Studies for a series of landscape inspired brooches circa 1977

What wasn't destroyed were the two new types of journals I had been keeping. In dated composition books I kept a series of garden journals. My garden composition books were often carried with me to the nursery, library or bookstore. My first designed garden is in one. Although I have an extensive design education and years of experience, I am a self taught gardener. My garden journals contained sketches, ideas, bloom times, receipts, plant labels all types of information that I wanted to remember.

A page of one of my garden composition notebooks

In small sketchbooks I kept travel journals. Since I have always had to travel on the cheap, these journals became souvenirs of my adventures. I recorded descriptions of places and made collages of tickets, postcards and sketches. Ephemera was collected and the notebooks were created on the go. They were a record of where I had been in the world larger than my own backyard.

From a trip to London in 2001

In both of these new journals there were also tidbits of the old journals--personal notes and the occasional lament.

When I first started writing Miss R, I didn't realize that it would evolve into a new type of journal. The first year was stop and go, and I didn’t really pay much attention to the content or frequency. Now I realize that the content is really an extension of my years of writing about my life. No, I don't often write about personal drama, but I do definitely write about the way I feel about what I do. I also write about places I've been and plants I've seen and post drawings, designs and other tidbits of my creative life.

A recent page from my current notebook

I still carry a notebook with me to jot down ideas, plant names, or make a quick sketch of something--although digital pictures have replaced some of my sketches. I realize that recording my ideas and experiences has been part of my life long creative process.

Showhouse Season, Volume V, Issue 12--The Home Stretch

Things were hopping at the showhouse garden today. I'm beginning to be somewhat satisfied with the results...

My assistant, Joanne, and one of Frank's guys drove out to Steven Snyder's Cedar Maze studio in PA to pick up the bird sculpture. The geraniums (an odd choice for me, but it works) from Hamilton Farms and Ajuga from the Perennial Farm for the parterre arrived in two separate trucks. You know what happened don't you? The sod also arrived early this morning.

Everything everywhere

With all that good news, the bad news is that half of the Heliotrope for the containers has decided it's too cold and windy and gave up the ghost. We're going on a nursery run tomorrow to find replacements. At this point I want to see everything since there's absolutely no wriggle room. The gala party is on Saturday.

I concocted a center piece for the table that is almost finished and will hold postcards and business cards for people to take on their way through. I also bought some cushions for the chairs to soften up the space since it wasn't really looking too comfy.

Here's some photos. We're heading down the home stretch.

The Bird

Showhouse Season V, Issue 10, Mud & Mayhem

Here's some photos from today. Furniture and pots arrived. Irrigation and lighting was installed. Today was complicated by too many people in too small a space and downpours.

The plywood & tarps are protecting one of our walks
It's the only access the adjacent garden has. Tomorrow we cut them off

The first container planted--there are 8 in total

Sod, the bird sculpture and a bazillion annuals will arrive tomorrow. After I left at lunchtime I went shopping for something to go on the table. More about that later.

Showhouse Season V, Issue 7, Rain

Here's a laundry list (with today's progress) of most of what has to be done this week and it's going to rain until Thursday. ARGH!

• Irrigation intstallation
  
• Lighting installation (outlet installed today via electrician)
• Pick up and deliver containers (done today I think, one is in my garage so I can stage it here)
• Choose container plants and purchase (some was done today)
• Turf delivery and installation (delivery Wednesday)
  
• Mulch garden beds
• Plant 300 annuals and 1000 groundcover plants
  
• Prune boxwoods into hedges
• Pick up and deliver sculpture from PA
• Install sculpture
  
• Pick up and deliver table and chairs from Western NJ
  
• Install stanchion for info
• Work with graphic designer to make stanchion insert
• Deliver business cards and postcards to site
• Stage table & primp garden
• Photograph garden when finished
  

The majority of this will have to happen Thursday and Friday. Like I've said elsewhere, my head might explode.

Showhouse Season V, Issue 6, In Real Life

Yesterday morning was dedicated to show house business. Frank Scheppe, my contractor extraordinaire, and I were at a local wholesale nursery soon after it opened to choose two Styrax japonica for the garden. After they were loaded we delivered them to the show house site.

Styrax blooms

image via Ambleside Gardens, Hillsborough, NJ

With one week to go, Sheep's Run was a flurry of activity, mud, and mayhem. There were delivery trucks stuck in the mud, people trying to get plants and accessories into spaces that are rapidly being cut off by the spaces adjacent them, and a general feeling of rapid fire problem solving.

All of the gardens are formal. A full trailer of boxwood was delivered last week and ours was included with that. The stonework for the paths & patios was finished earlier this week. We were able to use some bluestone that was leftover from the home's original terrace that is also one of the adjacent spaces.

Peagravel, granite cube edging & bluestone walkways and patio

The goal for yesterday was to layout the big plants and mark off the area that will be filled with groundcover. I also had to decide on what annuals we're using for the parterres and containers. More on that next time...

Defining the four quadrants

The arcs and angles w/space left open for containers

Newbies: Student Projects, Part 2

Below are first landscape designs from the three remaining students in my Principles of Landcape Design class at Bergen Community College in New Jersey.

Principles is their first real design class. One student believes he can't draw--not true, another was so 'tight' that he struggled to get beyond a beautifully drafted base map to create a loose and lovely concept plan. The third student has a great taste level and brings in books and magazines setting up her table like a mini design studio each week.

Decide for yourself who is who, I hope you enjoy their drawings as much as I have enjoyed teaching them. I am thrilled that they have been able to achieve so much in such a short time.

Won Ja Choi--Concept Plan with brick patio & pergola

Conceptual Plan w/formal and secret gardens by Luke Eisenstein

Jason Cina's diagonal plan w/checkerboard patio

Newbies: Student Projects, Part 1

I've always worked at giving back to whatever design discipline I've worked in by teaching. My philosophy is that I've received so much from others that I need to also pay it forward. I was a resident artist with interns as a jewelry designer, a design school instructor and academic officer (not a good fit btw), and now I teach a small (6 students) landscape design class at a community college near here. I believe in sharing knowledge.

Below are three of my student's first projects. I'll publish the other three next week. None of them had designed a garden or a landscape before this class. Only one has had a graphics class. As first attempts by students, I think their projects are pretty great.

Backyard concept plan by Daniel Siniscalchi

Partial Layout Plan by Alex Kozar with pergola and fountain

Concept Plan by Gleb Denisov

Hussies!

I always know it's really spring when the hussies of spring bloom. Hawking their wares from curbside, stoop, border, and garden these brightly colored plants can't help their garish adornment--they want us to notice them and come hither.


Screaming yellow forsythia and daffodils...fuchsia, shocking pink and cerise azaleas...tulips and hyacinths of every hue...redbuds all call out and strut their stuff

Showhouse Season V, Issue 5--For the Birds

Many of the architectural details at the Sheep's Run showhouse depict birds, so of course I have to honor that. The birds on the grill work shown below are typical of these formal early twentieth century details. They have been restored for the showhouse--some are black wrought iron and some have been re-gilded.

Turkey Detail on balcony

Peacock Window Grill prior to restoration

As the design for the garden has been revised and has continued to evolve, I've become increasingly interested in juxtaposing rustic elements typical of a farm setting within the confines of a formal garden. Originally I wanted a small fountain as the secondary axial focal point, but since that was nixed, I had to explore other ideas. A bird bath--too small, a sun dial--too mundane, an armilary--not appropriate for the rustic quality I wanted for the details of the space.

I wanted a bird. So I turned to Steven Snyder, a stone sculptor from Bucks County whose work I have used and recommended to clients before. Steven very graciously offered to lend one of his sculptures. Although he creates many other things, I love Steven's birds. Shown below, the middle bird still in the studio, worked in terms of height and color, so it will be the new focal point.

Birds in Steven Snyder's studio

Showhouse Season V, Issue 4.1, The State of Things (con't)

Every designer showhouse I've been involved with suffers from the same malady--too little interdisciplinary/committee/designer cross communication. Yesterday, my entire day was dedicated to solving issues with my garden space that could have been a non-issue had all parties worked with each other from the onset. Let me explain...

As you can see from the site map in Issue 2 of this series, my garden space is tucked away between two adjacent exterior spaces and two corners of the building. I used the consulting landscape architect's site plan to create my original concept. I also checked the boundaries of the garden with his office as well as the appropriate committee members. No one told me that the boundaries of the large garden to the south and the large terrace to the east had changed from what was on the site plan.

Confused? So was I. Those perimeter boundaries were modified on two sides without my knowledge and last week when I videotaped the space it became apparent that what I had designed would not be able to be shoehorned into what was actually the space. ARGHH.

I try to be a team player when it comes to these things...but I am the only one being asked to completely revise my plan. It was obvious to me that the original design would have to be modified to work with the space's new proportions. I didn't radically alter the concept, but everything had to be on a different scale and slightly modified. The double axis would now dead end into the south garden's hedge so that definitely had to go. Paths had to be made narrower, garden areas smaller. I was able to make all but one of the spatial transitions work and I can't really spend any more time on the revision (read: I have paying work to do) so it will have to be resolved on site.

So here's the revised design (click on it to enlarge). It doesn't appear to be changed that much but everything is scaled differently. The good news is I'm going to use a fabulous Steven Snyder bird sculpture as a focal point. More on that next time...

Spring's Slow March

No pun intended in the title although after another dose of winter weather this week, those of us on the eastern seaboard might believe it.

Photo by Johann Dreo,via Wikipedia Commons

The coming of this spring's season seems to be interminable. For a landscape designer in a four season climate, the approach of the 'season' is always a crazy mix of anticipation, relief and angst. This year, there is more of each since the economic climate chilled at the same time our traditional outdoor project work season was winding down so there's no real gauge of what might or might not happen.

Just how different will this coming season be? In many ways, winter has been typical. Here and throughout much of the country, it has been a slower time, spent on design and planning, participation in workshops and seminars, and taking a much needed break. It has also been a time to wonder, just how will my design practice be affected by the current 'no spend' consumer climate?

Like each spring before now, I have decided to embrace whatever happens. I will work as hard as I normally do getting ready for the busy, busy, busy time. I will continue to try to improve my client realtions and give them an exceptional experience with their projects. They are the core of my business. That might take a little bit longer, but thankfully, the clock springs ahead a month earlier than it has in the past so I have more daylight to burn. On Sunday I'll have more hours in each day as Spring finally ends its slow march and arrives just as it should.

Towards the Light

Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA designed by Frank Gehry

Several years ago, in Los Angeles, I visited Frank Gehry's Disney Concert hall. During that visit I was stopped in my tracks by a bit of light that had reflected from one side of the building to another. There were no plants, it wasn't a garden, but the light created magic and a destination of its own. I've often thought about that image and its light in an abstract way knowing at some point I would want to explore its possibilities.

In school--we go to the dark side--shade. We're taught about shade, how to deal with shade, how to create shade, the varying types of shade, and the patterns made by shade. We're taught to make shade studies but we're not taught about light unless it is about how much sun a plant or garden has or needs. We learn about the angle of the sun in winter vs. summer, but not how to harness that light as design element. We consider how to light a garden in the evening hours yet not how to manipulate the light it gets naturally during the day.

Yesterday, as is my habit, I was out walking in the early morning. When I turned around to head home I was stopped short by the most amazing fuchsia morning sky backlighting a stand of trees. It has got me thinking again about the power of natural light in the landscape and how we as designers miss incredible opportunities to create magic by not manipulating natural light.

Miss R. is Angry

Do people refer to their interior designers as their cleaning services or maids? No. Do people refer to fashion designers as seamstresses? No, again.

Then why do people insist on calling a landscape designer, a landscaper? Not just in conversation, but also in print and on the web. I am not the one who mows your lawn, or blows your leaves, or mulches your garden beds. I am not a landscaper.

I design thoughtful outdoor spaces that compel you to spend more time outside and enrich your lives. I design gardens that delight your senses and bring you joy. I design. I don't mow, blow or mulch. I am not a landscaper, I am a landscape designer.

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.

Footprints

Several years ago on a garden tour, I found myself looking at what was on the ground plane rather than what was in the gardens. I started shooting photos of paths and patterns of what I saw for future reference and inspiration. I didn't always record where I took the photos, so I really can't tell you in some cases where the garden is, or whose garden it is. Below are a few that I do remember and have done my best to credit them appropriately. When I need inspiration, these images are some of what I look at--there's even one of mine in there.

Paving pattern: Chanticleer, PA

Paving pattern: Lotus Land, CA

Paving pattern: Private residence, NJ (my design)

Paving pattern: Greenwood Gardens, NJ

Paving pattern: Private residence, CA (designer: Nancy Goslee Powers)

Paving pattern: Greenwood Gardens, NJ

Paving pattern: Lotus Land, CA

Land Speak

At a client's holiday party at their farm, I met one of their neighbors. She asked me how I knew the host and hostess. When I told her that I was their landscape designer, she complemented me by saying how much she liked what I had done and asked if I would come and look at her place. This type of thing happens at a parties.

In further conversation, the subject came up about where I lived and worked. When I told her, she looked surprised and asked, "That's so suburban, how did you know what to do with this property?" My answer was, "I love the land. I listen to what my clients say, but I also listen to the land, it has stories to tell." She smiled and said, "I do too, I love my land. When I lived in the town next to yours for 20 years or so, I hated it, I couldn't see the sky." We made a date to meet in February.

Here are some photos of the ongoing project from the story above.

Some Days You Just Need to Bloom

It's January, I'm getting tired of the cold, the grey, and the dark. I was having a rotten day when I stopped a client's garden last summer. This combination of clematis and roses we had planted the summer before made my day better then, and its picture makes my day better now. Enjoy.

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.