Plant Torture? Not Necessarily.

A couple of years ago a client told me she wanted to drive into her driveway to a beautiful garden and asked me to design one for her. Easy enough request. She also wanted to screen off the back yard with some trelliage but didn't want climbers on it. Easy enough request. She wanted a deer resistant cottage style garden in her favorite color combination--blue and yellow. Again, easy enough request.

When the trellis work was installed, there was only one logical place for it so that's where it went. What was left for this garden of easy enough requests was a 30" wide bed between the fence and the blacktop in the blazing sun where the plow would push the snow in the winter months. Not so easy any more. These types of garden problems are what landscape designers excel at and when it really makes sense to consult with a professional.

Heat loving, deer resistant driveway garden

Now three years later, the garden is thriving without irrigation or much care and it looks great. What's the secret? Plant choice. All of the plants chosen for this garden are drought tolerant, heat and sun loving, and tough as nails.

Here's the list:

Agastache x 'Black Adder'
Achillea 'Moonshine'
Baptisia austrailis
Iris germanica
Stachys byzantina
Sorghastrum nutans 'Sioux Blue'

The Garden of Lost Plants

My professional need to know plants is how I ended up with The Garden of Lost Plants. My personal gardens looked more designed when I was an amateur.

The sunny 'Deer Eat This...Sucker!' garden with a Buxus topiary awaiting installation elsewhere

I am not a plantaholic, although to look at my home garden, you would think I was. My planting design knowledge of plant needs, form, structure and maintenance comes from personal experience. As a landscape designer, I learned early on that specifying plants for a specific site without having firsthand knowledge of them can lead to garden disaster in a season or two. I just can't design a great garden from pictures and descriptions in a book or a catalog...I have to know the plant. Obviously I can't grow everything so that's where garden visits come in.

A woodland native I'm trying this year--Silene virginica
photo via Northcreek Nursery

I have one of many plants--with few multiples--I watch each grow, observe how big it really gets, what texture the foliage creates, if the bloom color and time is what I expect, and if the way I neglect them allows them to survive. I am always experimenting and have found winners and losers through this hodgepodge, totally unscientific process. My garden is not fenced or sprayed--I barely have time to pull the weeds. It is in a sub-urban environment with deer, rabbits, chipmunks, moles and a dog who has no respect for my efforts. Add kids and this is a similar environment to many of the landscape design projects I work on.

Another new one for '09 although I can't believe I haven't grown it before--Asarum canadensis
photo via Rush Creek Growers

I try to make The Garden of Lost Plants look as if they've seen a designer's hand, but it's a challenge with one of each. I group plants together using basic design principles--contrast of foliage texture and color, diagonal repetition of color, shape and structure that helps to create a visual pull through the space. I make sure plants are peaking out from around corners to beg further inspection. Those that I suspect will be showstoppers get the 'look at me I'm a star' placement.

I rotate plants in and out of empty spaces that are still in containers until they go to a new home and I've been known to dig something up and take it to a client--leaving a hole until a new orphan or test case takes its place. Some plants are so successful that I have too many--bearded Iris for one, Leucanthemum superbum 'Becky' is another. A couple of years ago I added some woodies for trial and structure. That has helped with design cohesion a bit.

Plants move in and out of my garden constantly. It is pretty and somewhat over the top and yes, there are things that stay for years. Sometimes they even survive the lawn guy's string trimmer.

Mired In Tradition

Last Sunday, in Bucks County, PA, I went on my second Open Days garden crawl of the season. These visits recharge my creative juices and offer me a first hand opportunity to see what other landscape designers and talented amateurs have created. I look carefully, take photographs and experience the gardens in three dimensions. Being in a garden is so much different than looking at pictures of one especially for a designer as interested in creating spatial relationships as I am.

What I already knew, and what three of the gardens I visited confirmed, is that on the east coast, those with the means to build a landscape of substance opt to emulate traditional English gardens. The old stone houses and barns that give Buck's County its lure form the backdrop for the gardens. Although one garden had a beautifully enhanced woodland, there was not one meadow in the acres and acres of mixed borders and mowed turfgrass that I saw. Planting styles differed within these gardens but the traditional garden design paradigm did not.

A rustic twig bridge in the woodland at Hortulus Farm Garden & Nursery

There were some beautiful vignettes and ideas within these classic schemes. One, at Willow Farm, had a grey/blue and burgundy palette juxtaposed with honey hued native stone that I particularly liked.

Blue/grey and burgundy plants with native honey colored stone

Another, at Hortulus, had a bold yellow planting scheme punctuated by a large terra cotta urn that was dramatic and interesting.

Yellow and terra cotta in combination at Hortulus

A third really great idea was again, at Hortulus. The formal fountain at the far end of a double mixed border was actually a swimming pool. It read as a fountain until you noticed the steps. This idea could be adapted for many different situations both grand and intimate.

The swimming pool fountain

This contrast between classic and contemporary design was magnified by the last stop of the day, an interior designer's shop in Lambertville, NJ, Reinboth & Company. I try to check this small shop out each time I'm in the area since it is really well edited. The garden accessories in their courtyard were clean, crisp and modern. It seemed restful and welcome after a day of observing such traditional points of view.

Contemporary garden accessories at Reinboth & Co.

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.

Showhouse Season V, Issue 9, Simplicity

Yesterday I took a walk around the gardens, mostly because it was the only way to a port-a-potty that didn't have a mud pit in front of it.

All of the gardens are formal. Mine is formal and simple. No busy planting scheme. Just boxwood parterres and an ultra simple planting plan. I want the space to feel modern and traditional at the same time. We'll see if it works or if it looks like I phoned it in...

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 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

It's right there in Black & White...

I have the opportunity to design a small black and white pocket garden. Tucked into a corner with between a screen porch and the house, the area is also home to multi-utility boxes including a low voltage transformer smack dab in the middle of one wall that has no wriggle room.

My client's request other than a fountain which is a blue glazed olive jar, is that I put Colicassia esculenta 'Black Magic' somewhere in the garden.

A quick color study for the garden

I still render presentation drawings for clients by hand but I use a color add on for my CAD program because it's fast for down and dirty color studies. At the point I'm using it I don't pay much (read some) attention to texture because the choices the program offers are limited--hence the Heuchera x 'Obsidian' in the drawing really looks more like stone than a plant! These quick visual thoughts are working drawings and I know what the plants look like, so the color studies are more for the ratio of one color/texture to the adjacent ones and the rhythmic flow of the planting design. I change my mind often when designing planting plans--it's not always intuitive for me. Spatial relationships and human interation with and through space are much easier.

The very simple plant list includes:

Buxus sempervirens 'Elegantisima' Colocasia esculenta 'Black Magic' Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Nana Gracillis' Hydrangea arborecens 'Annabelle' Heuchera x 'Obsidian' Iberis sempervirens Lamium maculatum 'White Nancy' Odhiopogon planiscapus 'Ebony Knight'

Winter vs. Summer

Much has been said about the merits of the garden in winter. I agree that there is magic in the winter landscape--just not mine.

I leave the grasses and plants with interesting seed heads to winter over, I've added some evergreen structure, plants with interesting bark and other accessories. Unlike the highly considered and tightly designed gardens I provide for my clients, my garden is a constant experiment, it is a haven or death row for leftover plants, a tasting menu for deer, and generally organic in its upkeep and its lack of a plan. I think I still have to experiment some more with its winter interest...

Winter the morning after another inch of light snow

High Summer texture and color

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.

Design with Discipline, Plant with Abandon

I have always had a fondness for the clean lines of formalism. To my eye its geo-organization looks contemporary and fresh. I know there are a many designers who would rather die than design something with a formally organized space--they think it's rigid, unnatural and outdated. Worst of all, they think it's easy--just make a geometric shape, fill it with some flowers, and presto, it's a formal garden. That way of thinking gives these highly considered garden spaces a bad rap.

Clean lines and unexpected formalism out side of the education building
at the New York Botanical Garden

Formal gardens can be current, relevant and engaging. There are two schools of thought on traditional formality. One is an adherence to a classical garden style updated with a scale suitable to today's architecture and lower maitenance requirements and the other juxtaposes the reverse formalism of today's naturalistic planting style with formal structure to create something altogether different. Parterres can be filled with blowzy perennials which soften the hard lines of these gardens.

The second idea will be demonstrated in the design plan to the left. This garden will be installed as part of the VNA showhouse at Sheep's Run in Rumson, NJ in spring 2009, and has been developed as part of a much larger formal estate plan. This small niche garden will be viewed from a screen porch on the short side, a library and an expansive terrace on the long side. The other two sides open to adjacent the landscape. The axial pathways, circular resting places and focal points are extremely formal and geometric. The four enclosed evergreen parterres will be planted with very loosely structured perennials or annuals.

This type of garden doesn't work for every site, nor does it work for every garden owner. Depending on the plants used, formal gardens can be sustainable. For example, I have used low growing native evergreen grasses and other plants with a compact growth habits as a substitute for the ubiquitous clipped hedging plant. With careful planning, the maintenance of the geometric structure becomes less cumbersome, the garden's need for water can be significantly lowered, and native plants can be incorporated.

Following the same design idea, below is a different plan for an entry to a classic residence in Short Hills, NJ. The owner wanted something that would work with the traditional lines of the home yet echo her inclination to blend contemporary ideas within the traditional framework. The garden also had to be appropriate for a very conservative neighborhood.

The resulting garden (sorry no good pix yet) is deceptively simple. Rectilinear boxwood groups are staggered to provide planting pockets for naturalistic perennials. These informal cottage style perennials are planted in complete symmetry on either side of the entrance underscoring the geometry of the design. The Pennstemon digitalis 'Husker Red', Lirope muscari 'Pee dee Ingot', Veronica spicata 'Sunny Border Blue' and Alchemilla mollis are usually associated with more informal gardens and they worked to meld the two styles together.

This isn't to say that a more controlled formal style isn't also clean and modern. The photo to the right shows an extremely classical entry. The architecture and details are remarkably similar to the residence in the project above and both gardens have different takes on formality. The photo was graciously provided by Chris Heiler at Fountainhead Gardens in Michigan.

#-21--12 days and counting

With less than two weeks to go, the major boulder work is complete and many of the plants have been purchased and placed. It is becoming a marathon of fits and starts due to the weather and trying to coordinate people to work. The solar equipment is going on top of the mound where it will be hidden from view. The rest of it will be under the still to be constructed patio. There's probably about 2-3 full days of work to go...

Partially planted, the solar tower of power--also known as 'That's a big pile of boulders!'

The nursery shorted us about 60 grasses and other plants so now I have to go on a major hunt to find substitutes. Nothing is ever easy. Here's what it looked like when we were almost done today. The planting is very slow because everything has to be tucked in here and there.

#19--Muck and Mire

We went back to work today for a bit. It was a muddy mess. I had to give Harry the dirty dog a bath immediately upon return home. There's three weeks to go and actually we need to be done in advance of that.

Yesterday, I went to a favorite perennial grower yesterday in the rain to choose some of the plants. It's odd, but when I design a project for a client I don't have any problem deciding on which plants to use, but for me--I go round and round and round. I did see and buy some great plants. Some are native, some are not. I deviated a bit from my original plan, so here's what I bought:

Ameria rubifola
Euphorbia palustris
Phlox subulata Emerald Cushion Blue
Eragrostis spectabilis
Festuca glauca 'Boulder Blue'
Teucrium hyranicum 'Purple Tails'
Salvia argentea
Aethionema coridifolium
Pycanthemum muticum
Sedums--Acre, rupestre 'Angelina', dasyphllum major, floriferum 'Weihenstepahaner Gold', 'John Creech', 'Czar's Gold', 'Vera Jameson'
Artemesia --whichever looks best at shipping
Mixed thymes
Aurinea saxitilis 'Compactum'
Veronica repens

They also had some beautiful Yuccas...I forgot the Dianthus--damn!

Here's two photos of the 2nd emerging rock pile that will have solar panel hidden from view (by virtue of height) on the top. This one is eliptical in shape and stands about 5' tall. This and a smaller circular pile will look vastly different when they're planted. I hope we have enough stone. The patio stone is arriving on Thursday. I hope it's not raining.

#4--Plants and Problems

I've done a quick CAD color rendering to try and approximate the quantities of plants that I will need to order in the next few weeks. It's difficult since I really have no idea what lies beneath the surface stones, how many stones there are, or how many plants I'll be able to squeeze in between the finished placements. Below is one thing I'm sure of--some long dead tree trunks. If you look closely at the base you'll see that a lame attempt was made at one time to cut that baby down.
I'm sure we'll find other under the debris. I also don't really know how far down the boulders go, this thing's been around for 100+ years at least and the area is known for the unusual large boulders that bygone masons used throughout the property. So, long story short, I can only guess at what I'll need plant wise. Below is an image of how I'm figuring it out.
The area is deer ridden, chipmunk infested and sunbaked. Add to that the May bloom time, the wow factor and my commitment to sustainability and you get the picture.

• Here's a short list of contenders so far. The trees are decided and I'm going out to a tree farm in Stockton (about an hour from here) to tag them as soon as it thaws abit.
• These are high up on the list--Euphorbia polychroma, Dianths g. either 'Bath's Pink' or 'Firewitch', Sedum reflexum 'Angelina' and 'Blue Spruce', Phlox subulata 'Emerald Cushion Blue', Teucrium hyranicom 'Purple Tails', Eregrostis spectabilis, Carex morowii 'Ice Dance', Thymus praecox, Salvia nemerosa 'May Night', Sempervivum sp.
• A little lower down on the list--Santolina sp., Yucca filamentosa (not sure which one), some kind of low growing conifer, some of the other sedums.

As you can see I still have some work to do. I don't want to use any annuals because they won't be able to be re-used after the show is over, so I guess that's another qualification for plants--I have to be able to find new homes for them later in the season.