By Carol Stocker
Landscape architects and historians from around the country converged on the Boston Athenaeum Saturday night to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Library of American Landscape History, the foremost publisher in the genre, which is headquartered in Amherst. The non-profit has published a cannon of 26 books on the history of landscape design in this country, working with the University of Massachusetts Press. They include the award winning “A Genius for Place: American Landscapes of the Country Place Era,” by Robin Karson, LALH’s founder and executive director, who briefly addressed the gathering.

Also in attendance were Iris Gestram, executive director of the National Association for Olmsted Parks in Washington, director Mark Zelonis of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Bob Cook, former director of the Arnold Arboretum, Meg Winslow, archivist for the Mount Auburn Cemetery, and Lee Farrow Cook of the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic National Park Service site, named Fairsted.

Nancy Turner, the LALH’s founding president, was honored. “I met Robin when she came to write about my Fletcher Steele garden,” recalled Turner in an interview. The famous Boston landscape designer had had an office on Louisburg Square, but had retired to Pittsford, N.Y., near her estate, and created his last garden there for her. Karson documented it in her great book, “Fletcher Steele, Landscape Architect.” Written shortly after Steele’s death in 1971, the book documented many of his gardens before they were lost. Steele gardens were generally high maintenance and seldom survived their owners, “but Mabel Choate preserved her Naumkeag,” said Turner. She referred to the The Trustees of Reservations’ Steele garden in Stockbridge, famed for its series of white Art Deco staircases and waterfalls framed by birch trees..

Turner now lives in Connecticut. Does her own Pittsford garden still exist? “I don’t know. I never went back to look. There has been a tremendous increase in the cost of maintenance.” She smiled. “Gardens are like sand castles. It survives in Robin’s book,” she said as she flipped though the book’s pages, which featured photos of her well planted granite staircase, orchard, and a series of terraces that led to a round reflecting pool. “It’s very quiet, a placid place that reflected the final year of Fletcher Steele’s life.”

It was after completing this survey of Steele’s rapidly vanishing gardens that Karson decided there needed to be an organization that published books on American historical landscapes. She was able to start one with Turner’s support, and has kept it going for 20 years, during which she has assembled the most important authors of books on landscape architecture in this country.

New books include “Community by Design; The Olmsted Firm and the Planning of Brookline,” by Elisabeth Hope Cushing, Roger G. Reed and Boston University professor Keith N. Morgan, who was at the party. After designing Central Park, Olmsted deserted New York for Brookline, which had proudly anointed itself “the richest town in the world.” Little has been previously published on the importance of Brookline as a laboratory and model for the Olmsted firm’s work. This book will detail how his son and namesake saw the town as a grounds for experimenting in the new profession of city planning.

It will be followed next year by a study of another important locally based designer. “Arthur A. Shurcliff and the Making of the Colonial Williamsburg Landscape,” by Elizabeth Hope Cushing, will spotlight this under-appreciated force in the Colonial Revival house and garden movement. His projects included aspects of the Charles River Esplanade, the Franklin Park Zoo, and, at the end of his life, the iconic gardens at Colonial Williamsburg.

Next year will also see the LAHL’s publication of “The Best Planned City in the World: Olmsted, Vaux, and the Buffalo Park System,” by Francis R. Kowsky, cq writing about Buffalo, N.Y. “We try to focus the study on individual places,” explained Karson. It will be the first in a series edited by Ethan Carr called “Designing the American Park.” Another new series will deal with environmental design.

Interest in the history of American landscape architecture has blossomed in the last three decades, said Carr at the gathering. He linked it to the resurgence of interest in New York’s Central Park and it’s history. That park, which sunk to an all-time low in the 1970’s, is now in the best shape of its history, thanks in part to LALH board member Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, the founder of the powerful Central Park Conservancy.

Boston’s Emerald Necklace, another Olmsted masterpiece, has also enjoyed rejuvenation and scholarly attention. The Frederick Law Olmsted Papers Project will soon publish Volume Eight of Olmsted Sr’s letters, dealing with the 1880’s when the Emerald Necklace was created, said Carr, who is the editor.

The U. Mass professor is also the editor of one of LALH’s prizewinning books, “Mission 66: Modernism and the National Park Dilemma.” And what is the dilemma? “Too little money, too many visitors,” said Carr succinctly. “And too many cars.”

WHEN a designer enthuses about his client’s cooking skills with mouth-watering descriptions of crisp potato and blue cheese pizzas, a soup and a lemon tart enjoyed in a finished garden, it is safe to assume the garden design project was a success.

And when the client, who “didn’t know anything about plants”, and had at the outset no intention of gardening tells you he recently planted 150 tulips and enjoys weeding on a Saturday morning because “it’s good for the hangover”, you know all is well.

At the heart of it is the medium-size garden designed by Sam Walker from Red Oxide for Gavin and Mary Bain to the rear of their recently-built house in a semi-rural landscape between Kellas and Redbank near Dundee. The sunny, south-east-facing plot in a raised, open position was windy and the couple had done little beyond identify a west-facing area to build a patio. Just a low drystane wall separated the front of the house from the road outside, a feature Gavin was keen to retain as he enjoys chatting to passing neighbours.

Gavin explains: “I am a keen cook and wanted to grow some herbs, but we didn’t know how to set about improving the garden.” He also wanted a pizza oven and had thought of using a kit to build one.

An internet search for a designer yielded one or two ideas but what really caught the couple’s attention was an advert describing Thornhill-based Red Oxide’s services. “We talked to one or two people,” Gavin says, “but when Sam came to see the garden he blew us away with his ideas.”

Before Sam had time to identify that his clients “wanted something quietly elegant and modern,” the deal was clinched when Sam, also a keen cook, suggested building a pizza oven, rather than assembling one from a kit. Shortly thereafter he established a need for privacy for the couple and their baby, Harris, shelter from the wind and a low-maintenance planting scheme that would suit non-gardeners.

Privacy and shelter around the patio area were addressed by the design and construction of a highly original, crisp and stylish fence. Sam explains: “We used smooth-finished timbers in six different widths, which were pressure treated. The result makes a fantastic statement at night with uplighters washing light up it.”

Herbs were cleverly incorporated into the seating area. Here, a rendered concrete bench topped with paving was designed to double as seating whilst retaining the planting area behind. “The aim was to provide a herb garden and scented seating area with a splendid backdrop,” Sam says. As a contrast to the wooden verticals, he added soft, textured grasses with height and movement coming from fennel combined with tall, delicate purple sprays of Verbena bonariensis. Splashes of pink Lychnis coronaria add a touch of drama with more scent coming from Rosemary and lemon verbena.

The wider garden was enclosed by a second, more substantial, fence which gives shelter and privacy. Constructed using 300x300mm section posts cut and treated to order, this fence, Sam says, “is elephant proof”. And yet it retains an elegant quality inkeeping with the contemporary style and feel of the overall design. Sam says: “The posts are large but they have great rhythm and presence and, like the patio fence, have the benefit of looking dramatic uplit 
at night.”

While a large area west of the house was returfed and laid down to lawn, the patio was paved with blue slate laid in bands for a contemporary feel. “For detail we used sawn grey granite setts for a number of the bands giving a contrast in colour and texture. The four planting beds break up the paving space a little and create a softer silhouette,” explains Sam, who carries out the majority of the work using his own team.

By the time the mixed perimeter border planted for year-round interest had been in place for a couple of weeks, Gavin was hooked. Here, cardoons, hostas, anemonies, peonies, honeysuckle and clematis jostle for position, adding a note of old-fashioned romance. “Sam encouraged us,” Gavin says “and got us enthused.”

By this stage the team had reached the point everyone was waiting for: the construction of the pizza oven. Gavin, who had had dough-making lessons at Visocchi’s café and ice cream shop in Broughty Ferry, understood the system and knew what he wanted.

Siting the oven, Sam explains, was key, as enough room needs to be allowed to manoeuvre the pizza peel, or shovel, away from the sitting area. “It was situated so that you can see how the fire is doing from the kitchen.” As a result, the oven now forms a functional focal point of the garden and has even been used to cook Christmas lunch.

The igloo-shaped oven was installed above a raised cooking floor. Sam explains: “The fire is pushed to the sides when it’s time to cook. For pizza you get it ridiculously hot, cook it in three minutes, and it tastes amazing. Then as the oven cools you cook meat or roast vegetables with great smoky and caramelised crispy bits.”

Sam Walker, Red Oxide Contemporary Landscape Design (01786 850 210, www.redoxide.co.uk)

The orderly nature of modern design appeals to our need for simplicity in a progressively complex world. The simple lines of both modern architecture and interiors offers respite from strip commercial, traffic and media where color and image change faster than ever.

There has been difficulty in understanding the relationship of plants to this style.

But one group of plants seems intrinsically suited to modern design. It is the cactus, but not all of them. Specific types of cacti are so remarkable in their symmetry that it is difficult to believe they are living things. Moreover, their uniformity of growth is so rigid that many individual plants can be used to create pattern and shape on a small scale.

Cacti best suited to modern design have round, symmetrical forms. These are often perfect globes that remain so throughout their lives. Only with time do they grow larger in size, but their surface details are static.

At Sunnylands, the former estate of the Annenberg family, an innovative modern garden was completed just over a year ago. Within its confines are examples of cactus in modern architecture on a grand scale, illustrating how to exploit uniformity of growth. However, the Achilles heel of such rigid uniform plantings is the reality that these are plants, and plants will die or sometimes be unpredictable. If one of 100 identical golden cacti is lost, only a replacement of the exact size and age can fill the void.

Cacti are perhaps even better suited to modern interiors. Whether an apartment in New York City or an expansive period restoration in Palm Springs, Calif., the role of cactus as interior decor remains paramount. So long as there is adequate light, and with most modern homes there is, these plants can become highly decorative elements. Here, too, the uniformity of growth allows multiplicity in design, with a series of identical plants emphasizing line or highlighting space.

To use cactus for decorative elements, it is essential to understand their primary needs to maintain perfect health and appearance over time.

Above all, cacti hail from areas of express drainage, which may be a ledge on a cliff face or a dry wash of nothing but sand and gravel. Any container selected to hold a cactus plant must be extremely well drained. Ensure this by choosing a pot with a very large drain hole in the bottom or with many perforations that enhance drainage potential throughout the soil mass.

Cactuses are watered so infrequently that a saucer is unnecessary. The key: The entire soil mass must be saturated, which can be done only if the pot is moved to a sink or bathtub for watering. There, it can either be set in water to wick moisture upward through the drain holes, or watered from the top by filling and allowing it to drain through a number of times consecutively.

Once saturated and entirely drained, the pot may be replaced to its original position. If you’re worried about damaging the underlying surface, you can set a simple glass disk or tile underneath without jeopardizing the simplicity of its appearance.

There are more species of cactus grown in volume today than ever before. Gold, purple, maroon and blue are all color options provided by this willing group. When set in the perfect pot, each becomes a living sculpture. Whether a single specimen or a number of identical candidates, they remain perfectly streamlined and tidy living things to bring nature into the all too spartan interiors of today’s modern homes and rooms.

JANESVILLE — In the plant world, exposure can be a good thing.

Rotary Botanical Gardens category win in the All America Selections Landscape Design Contest will help it gain some valuable exposure on a national scale.

“We’ll see our name in national magazines and other garden publications,� said Mark Dwyer, horticulture director. “We’re so pleased with winning, but also realize all the publicity—information sent out to 6,000 sources—we’ll get.�

All 175 AAS display gardens across the country were invited to participate in the competition, which was divided into three categories based on number of visitors.

Rotary Gardens entered in the largest category, more than 100,000 visitors each year, which included gardens such as the Denver and Chicago botanical gardens, Dwyer said.

“They were all considerably larger with larger budgets so I knew we would have some stiff competition,� he said.

Although Dwyer was confident about Rotary Gardens’ display, he still was surprised it took top honors.

“We are very proud of our display, considering the drought and the work involved,’’ he said.

The contest required each entry to have a minimum of 50 percent of its total landscaped area comprised of past and present AAS winners, labeled with the variety name and the AAS logo, according to the group’s website.

In a news release about contest winners, AAS wrote:

“Rotary Botanical Gardens reigned supreme in gardens … with its expertly designed garden beds that were bursting with color. Rotary used an impressive 127 AAS winners in its landscape design—the highest number of any contest entry.�

“The criteria for judging by a panel of independent garden experts nationwide was based on different factors, such as design and how the display was promoted to get the public to see it,� he said.

When Dwyer submitted the final product it included a report and pictures of the landscape area empty, being planted by volunteers, and finally the end result, he said.

Denver Botanic Gardens in Colorado finished second and Marjory McNeely Conservatory, Minneapolis, finished third behind Rotary Gardens.

“Denver and Chicago would be considered in the top 10 botanical gardens in the country,� Dwyer said. “So I envision people coming to Rotary Gardens to see what we’re doing.�

When it comes to garden design, the vibrant colors of spring and summer are the first things we consider. After all, that’s when we use our gardens the most. But with just a bit of planning and effort, the winter landscape can be unique and interesting, too. The key is diversity. A variety of textures, colors and forms will take a winter landscape from dull to dazzling.   

Start by choosing plants that don’t all look the same after their leaves drop in fall. Contrast shapes (round vs. triangular, weeping vs. upright), textures (coarse vs. fine) and colors (intense vs. pale, dark vs. bright, warm vs. cool). Set up a strong contrast between elements, such as red berries against the white snow; or thin, feathery grasses in front of stiff, upright evergreens. Balance these strong elements with more subtle colors and textures.

If hungry birds and animals don’t get them, many fruits ripen in late summer and fall. They hang on through the winter, making bright punctuation marks on the landscape. Deciduous hollies, chokeberry, coralberry, heavenly bamboo and hawthorn all feature colorful fruits.

After trees and shrubs drop their leaves, their inner beauty comes through in brightly colored stems that grow richer in hue as the temperature drops. Dogwoods, Japanese kerria and many willows offer bright green, yellow and red accents to the winter garden.

Witchhazel and Christmas rose really command attention because their flowers are so unexpected. Most evergreens feature some varieties that burst with color. Try a golden or bluish conifer or a variegated broadleaf like euonymus. There are endless sizes, shapes and textures to work in any landscape.

The scaffold, the trees’ and shrubs’ bare bones, really put on a show in the winter when the foliage is out of the way. The wings on the stems of a burning bush or the spidery traces of Boston ivy snaking along a wall are wonderful surprises. Harry Lauder’s walking stick and corkscrew willow have tremendously twisted branches.

Herbaceous perennials that die back in the winter also add structure. Golden brown and tan grasses look great popping out of the snow, adding a lazy movement that only shows up at this time of year. Purple coneflower, black-eyed Susan and other stiff-stemmed flowers stand up to winter winds and provide a little food for wild birds. Pigsqueak turns a vibrant, golden orange while keeping its ground hugging form. Yucca shoots blossoms to the sky like winter fireworks.

In winter, bark becomes a powerful landscape element. Stewartia and river birch have exfoliating bark that peels off in distinctive shapes. Silver green honey locust and smooth, bronze cherry are also effective players.

Select just a few places to highlight: the front door, views from a favorite room, and the most visible front corner of the lot are good places to feature. Draw a rough plan of the design, first concentrating on shapes, textures and colors. Then select favorite plants that work in your USDA zone and in the various exposures and microclimates in your unique location.

Remember colorful twigs will fade and scaffold shapes change as the plant matures. Keep everything trimmed in a pruning routine that will encourage a fresh crop of striking new growth year after year. And make a habit to tidy up the garden in the fall so it will start winter off looking fit.

Joe Lamp’l, host of  “Growing a Greener World” on PBS, is a Master Gardener and author. Visit www.joegardener.com.

Designing a garden for people who are unable to walk, move or, in some cases, breathe unaided takes some thinking about. Patients at the Duke of Cornwall Spinal Treatment Centre in Salisbury used to face months confined indoors during their recovery, undergoing physiotherapy and repetitive exercises. But a newly-opened garden carved from a blank patch of grass by garden designer Cleve West provides an outdoor space for patients that transcends their physical impairment and provides a respite for family and friends.

The garden was the brainchild of teenager Horatio Chapple, who volunteered at the centre. His research showed patients asking for a beautiful escape, away from the clinical environment, to spend time with family and friends. Horatio never saw his vision materialise: he was killed by a polar bear in 2011, aged 17, while on an adventure holiday on a remote island in the Arctic Circle. The garden, which cost £300,000, was created in Horatio’s memory through charitable donations and fundraising by his parents and friends.

There are curved borders filled with textured, cheerful planting. Seats are surrounded by a froth of erigeron daisies, scented herbs and stands of Verbena bonariensis, full of butterflies. Multi-stem birch trees form tall, fluid pillars. A water feature runs the length of a metal arch that will one day soon be covered in trained apple trees and trailing wisteria. “It is about creating a positive mental space,” West says. “The view is brought into the garden and the repetition of the lines echoes the landscape beyond. The apples have significance, too, as they were a favourite of Horatio’s.”

Central to the design are three representations of spines. At the far side is a long, flowing stone wall in the shape of a healthy spine; its sweeping curves are topped with smooth stones, so it doubles as a seat. To reach it, one crosses the garden via a path that cuts through two other undulating but incomplete “spines”. Their construction is similar to the healthy one, but uncapped and surrounded by foliage, they are rougher. In a situation where patients and their families have to come to terms with what has happened, the journey to healing is a powerful metaphor.

West, who has won best in show at the Chelsea Flower Show for two years running, went to great lengths to understand how patients would experience the garden, by being wheeled around the space in a wheelchair and flat on his back on a hospital bed. The wide, smooth paths made of resin-bonded gravel provide a bump-free passage for patients. David Joliffe arrived at the unit after a paragliding accident. “I went outside for the garden opening – it was the first time in 14 weeks. It was wonderful, feeling the wind on my face, despite being still in bed,” he says.

Intended as an antidote to institution, the design is anything but utilitarian; while there are areas that can be used for therapy, the smooth curves and soft planting would grace any garden. It caters for all tastes, with raised beds and a potting area that would not look out of place in an urban garden, while rough walls and relaxed planting invoke something closer to a country wilderness.

Mike Payne, a 32-year-old electronic engineer, arrives in the greenhouse under his own steam. On a night out last summer, he fell from a bridge, breaking every rib, puncturing a lung and damaging his back so badly that he will never walk again. But he seems extraordinarily cheerful. “I came out last night and it is just so quiet,” he says. “I’m looking forward to reading my book here – before, I would sit in the doorway nearest the car park. But when you have been stuck inside on bed rest for six weeks and can’t even look out of the window, and then you can go anywhere outside… it was the best thing ever!”

The garden offers sensory stimulation and invites interaction – downy leaves of lambs’ ears (Stachys byzantina) and feathery fennel beg to be touched; dense, solid blocks of box anchor the waving grasses in a pleasing contrast of form and colour. Scented herbs, veg and alpine strawberries in raised beds demand to be tasted. There is the sound of moving water, wind in the trees and insects feasting on the nectar-rich planting.

Ian Nixon has been at the hospital for four months. “Mental stimulation makes a world of difference,” he says. “I have only been out twice, and this place will make a big difference because it’s so accessible. I just like being outdoors. It is a freedom that you take for granted when you are able-bodied, but in hospital all you can do is look out of the window.”

SENSORY PLANTS

Touch Common fennel (Foeniculum vulgare); lambs’ ears (Stachys byzantina); giant feather grass (Stipa gigantea); Sedum spectabile ‘José Aubergine’; stars of Persia (Allium christophii).

Sight Eryngium giganteum ‘Silver Ghost’; buckler fern (Dryopteris erythrosora); box (buxus); coneflower (Rudbeckia occidentalis ‘Green Wizard’); black birch (Betula nigra); ornamental onion (Allium schubertii).

Scent Thyme (Thymus vulgaris ‘Compactus’); sweet box (Sarcococca confusa); oregano (Origanum laevigatum ‘Herrenhausen’); rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis).

Taste Alpine strawberry (Fragaria vesca); apples ‘Rosemary Russet’ and ‘Laxton’s Superb’; vegetables including pak choi and ‘Lollo Rosso’ lettuce.

• For more information, visit the Southern Spinal Injuries Trust.

When it comes to garden design, the vibrant colors of spring and summer are the first things we consider. After all, that’s when we use our gardens the most. But with just a bit of planning and effort, the winter landscape can be unique and interesting, too. The key is diversity. A variety of textures, colors and forms will take a winter landscape from dull to dazzling.

Start by choosing plants that don’t all look the same after their leaves drop in fall. Contrast shapes (round vs. triangular, weeping vs. upright), textures (coarse vs. fine) and colors (intense vs. pale, dark vs. bright, warm vs. cool). Set up a strong contrast between elements, such as red berries against the white snow; or thin, feathery grasses in front of stiff, upright evergreens. Balance these strong elements with more subtle colors and textures.

If hungry birds and animals don’t get them, many fruits ripen in late summer and fall. They hang on through the winter, making bright punctuation marks on the landscape. Deciduous hollies, chokeberry, coralberry, heavenly bamboo and hawthorn all feature colorful fruits.

After trees and shrubs drop their leaves, their inner beauty comes through in brightly colored stems that grow richer in hue as the temperature drops. Dogwoods, Japanese kerria and many willows offer bright green, yellow and red accents to the winter garden.

Witchhazel and Christmas rose really command attention because their flowers are so unexpected. Most evergreens feature some varieties that burst with color. Try a golden or bluish conifer or a variegated broadleaf like euonymus. There are endless sizes, shapes and textures to work in any landscape.

The scaffold, the trees’ and shrubs’ bare bones, really put on a show in the winter when the foliage is out of the way. The wings on the stems of a burning bush or the spidery traces of Boston ivy snaking along a wall are wonderful surprises. Harry Lauder’s walking stick and corkscrew willow have tremendously twisted branches.

Herbaceous perennials that die back in the winter also add structure. Golden brown and tan grasses look great popping out of the snow, adding a lazy movement that only shows up at this time of year. Purple coneflower, black-eyed Susan and other stiff-stemmed flowers stand up to winter winds and provide a little food for wild birds. Pigsqueak turns a vibrant, golden orange while keeping its ground hugging form. Yucca shoots blossoms to the sky like winter fireworks.

In winter, bark becomes a powerful landscape element. Stewartia and river birch have exfoliating bark that peels off in distinctive shapes. Silver green honey locust and smooth, bronze cherry are also effective players.

Select just a few places to highlight: the front door, views from a favorite room, and the most visible front corner of the lot are good places to feature. Draw a rough plan of the design, first concentrating on shapes, textures and colors. Then select favorite plants that work in your USDA zone and in the various exposures and microclimates in your unique location.

Remember colorful twigs will fade and scaffold shapes change as the plant matures. Keep everything trimmed in a pruning routine that will encourage a fresh crop of striking new growth year after year. And make a habit to tidy up the garden in the fall so it will start winter off looking fit.

By IAN VOLNER

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Photography by Bert Teunissen

From left: Oudolf in his garden in Hummelo, the Netherlands; Zumthor at home in Haldenstein, Switzerland

PETER ZUMTHOR IS THE CLOSEST THING architecture world has to a true hermit: The 69-year-old winner of the 2009 Pritzker Prize runs a small office from his mountain home in Switzerland; he doesn’t give interviews by telephone; he rarely makes public appearances; and his projects—like the ghostly luminescent bathhouse he created for the Swiss town of Vals—emanate a high seriousness that could only have come from this oracle of the Alps. Yet recently, the typically solitary Zumthor has taken to palling around with another prominent designer: celebrated garden designer Piet Oudolf.

Though not so private as his architectural counterpart, the Dutch-born “plantsman” (as he humbly calls himself) is also something of an ascetic, living and working far from the madding crowd in a bucolic retreat. The garden that surrounds his office—hectic with high grasses and coarse meadow flowers that look good in all seasons—is typical of the style pioneered and popularized by Oudolf, the same that’s given his High Line park and the Promenade in Manhattan’s Battery their quasi-wild charm. The designer, 68, sees his work as a pitched effort to bring a bit of quietude to the modern city. “You try to reconnect people with something they’ve lost,” he says, “something they’ve forgotten, because they are so busy in the world.”

The pair first teamed up last summer for the annual Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London’s Hyde Park. Zumthor knew Oudolf’s work and was eager to bring him aboard. True to form, his approach in their first meeting was forthright and phlegmatic. “I showed him the [design],” says the architect, “and there was a void in the middle for the garden. And I said, ‘Take it.’ ” Critics and the public cheered the project, and now the two are at work again on what will be perhaps the most complex commission either has done to date: De Meelfabriek, a defunct factory in the Dutch industrial port city of Leiden, that will be converted into 40 high-end residential lofts with striking views of the city and lush plantings throughout.

The project is still in its early stages and will require close collaboration before it’s through. Working in tandem may mean checking their monkish credentials at the door, but for these two masters, designing as a duo may yet yield even better results than going it alone.

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©Tim Mitchell/Arcaid/Corbis

URBAN OASIS | Zumthor and Oudolf’s Zen-like 2011 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion

Zumthor on Oudolf

I DISCOVERED PIET AND HIS WORK two years ago, and then we worked together at the Serpentine. We saw we were of the same age, shared a lot of the same ideas; it was sort of like meeting some kind of a brother. So this was really nice. He says he felt the same, very comfortable. He likes that I respect gardens, plants and that I’m always willing to put them in the center if possible. I’m not meeting his prejudices about architects.

I’ve worked with a couple of landscape architects for my own house, which I designed around a garden of 12 maple trees. I was doing the design, but I needed their knowledge. I’m not so much looking for a landscape designer—I’m looking for a plant-knower and lover. This is exactly what Piet is. And then he is more, and you can see it: His work is very aesthetical and beautiful, but it is really about the prima materia. That’s what I love.

““His work is very aesthetical and beautiful, but it is really about the prima materia. That’s what I love.””

I’ve been waiting to do something like Meelfabriek, something in the city. I’ve done things like it many times with my students, but people have not given me jobs like this. Maybe it needed some time. Me, starting from the Swiss mountains, staying there and working out of there—I’m not a “network” person, and this grows from my work. I hate consultants, the guys who say, “Give me your watch and I’ll tell you what time it is.”

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Courtesy Piet Oudolf

NATURAL KINGDOM | Oudolf’s home garden features molinia ‘Transparent’ and Sanguisorba ‘red Thunder’ grasses.

I have had this idea in mind: to make the Meelfabriek’s theme the garden in the center of the dwelling place. There was a film, Green Card, with Gerard Depardieu. It takes place in this Manhattan apartment with a beautiful garden. I went to see this movie twice because I wanted to see this garden; the whole apartment is about this amazing greenhouse.

In a way, the Serpentine was an ideal collaboration, because I simply said, “Here, you have the hard part!” But we want the Meelfabriek to reach another step of collaboration. I think that vegetation, plants, they are important for our life. And if you are too much in the city, we lose touch with this. I want a greenhouse. Children, parents, they can have their plants outside over the wintertime. And these are things I don’t have to explain to Piet. I say greenhouse, and he says we need this and we do this and that and that. He is so practically oriented. I love it.

Oudolf on Zumthor

PETER IS AN ARCHITECT, and I’m the plantsman. As an architect, Peter has a very good sense of volume and space. The architect is the lead in design, and he more or less gives you the brief to work in. We plantsmen have to think about process, about how things develop through years, through time—that’s a dimension that we put in our design. You put something in the ground and sometimes it grows forever, sometimes it only grows for a few years.

““I often have to fight for my place as a plantsman. But with the best people, you don’t really have to fight.””

Meeting people in architecture has been a very positive development in my career. Only in the last four or five years have architects become interested in my work—before that, no one was. But working in a world of architects means working in a world of big egos. Some people, their egos are too big to let other egos come close—sometimes it works and sometimes not. The people who it doesn’t work so well with aren’t that good. I often have to fight for my place as a plantsman; you have to defend yourself against very strong characters. But the best people you don’t really have to fight. You find a way to communicate, and they try to understand you.

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Helene Binet

SWISS BLISS | An outdoor bath at Zumthor’s Therme Vals spa

We had this meeting at Peter’s house talking about Meelfabriek. We just outlined the garden, no specific planting ideas—just invented the type of spaces, how it could look. He created a rough drawing, and we sat down at his house and figured out what we could do.

And there was something in our conversation—an openness, honesty, like we can talk freely about cooperation and working together. I don’t have to keep my mouth shut and think to myself, Oh, don’t say that, he might not like it. I’m free to say what I want. Like with the Serpentine Gallery, Peter explained he wanted a sort of summer meadow, but as we started talking, I realized the image he had in mind was not something I could do. I had to change his idea about what was possible. At the end of the conversation, he just gave me carte blanche to do what I thought would work.

At the Meelfabriek, every house owner should have his own little garden. But as soon as they come out of that garden, there’s another part: a greenhouse and a place to sit and read, a place for people to come together who live in the complex, for people that want to have a garden and grow vegetables— there should be spaces for all of this. That is the general idea. It’s still in the early stages. The real work for me has yet to begin.

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Tickets for the 2012 Festival of Trees events are currently on sale at several locations in Spencer: Del’s Garden Center, Design Masters, The Hen House and Spencer Hospital Gift Shop.

There is no charge to tour the numerous festively decorated trees displayed throughout the community, and is encouraged for all residents and visitors during the Festival of Trees, Nov. 15-17.

During that time frame, several ticketed events are also planned to offer fun, festive activities as well as to raise dollars to support the Spencer Regional Healthcare Foundation, with funds specially designated for Women’s Health Services.

Ticketed events include two Holiday Design Shows, Morning with Santa, and the Holiday Tour of Homes.

Two Holiday Design Shows will be offered Thursday, Nov. 15, both at Del’s Garden Center in the presentation building located south of their main facilities. An early show is scheduled from 4:30-6:30 p.m. and a late show from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Both shows will include a social time with complimentary appetizers and cash bar, and each show will feature designer presentations on topics including wine selection and entertaining tips, festive dcor, fashions that work from day to evening events, and fabulous gift ideas that can be found locally. Design Show tickets are $15 each. Advanced purchase is recommended.

The Holiday Tour of Homes will be conducted from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 17, giving people the opportunity to tour five festive homes in sunshine or later on in the evening, best for viewing festive lighting. Tour tickets are $15 each in advance and are $20 if purchased at a home the day of the tour.

Morning with Santa will occur from 9-11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 17, at Southpark Mall. Tickets are $5 per child with the accompanying adults admitted at no charge. This is a come and go event; however, we recommend families arrive no later than 10 a.m. to have ample time to enjoy all the activities.

Anyone with questions about any of the Festival of Trees activities is encouraged to contact the Spencer Regional Healthcare Foundation by calling Mindy Gress at 264-6226 or Susan Zulk at 264-6461.

When it comes to garden design, the vibrant colors of spring and summer are the first things we consider. After all, that’s when we use our gardens the most. But with just a bit of planning and effort, the winter landscape can be unique and interesting, too. The key is diversity. A variety of textures, colors and forms will take a winter landscape from dull to dazzling.   

Start by choosing plants that don’t all look the same after their leaves drop in fall. Contrast shapes (round vs. triangular, weeping vs. upright), textures (coarse vs. fine) and colors (intense vs. pale, dark vs. bright, warm vs. cool). Set up a strong contrast between elements, such as red berries against the white snow; or thin, feathery grasses in front of stiff, upright evergreens. Balance these strong elements with more subtle colors and textures.

If hungry birds and animals don’t get them, many fruits ripen in late summer and fall. They hang on through the winter, making bright punctuation marks on the landscape. Deciduous hollies, chokeberry, coralberry, heavenly bamboo and hawthorn all feature colorful fruits.

After trees and shrubs drop their leaves, their inner beauty comes through in brightly colored stems that grow richer in hue as the temperature drops. Dogwoods, Japanese kerria and many willows offer bright green, yellow and red accents to the winter garden.

Witchhazel and Christmas rose really command attention because their flowers are so unexpected. Most evergreens feature some varieties that burst with color. Try a golden or bluish conifer or a variegated broadleaf like euonymus. There are endless sizes, shapes and textures to work in any landscape.

The scaffold, the trees’ and shrubs’ bare bones, really put on a show in the winter when the foliage is out of the way. The wings on the stems of a burning bush or the spidery traces of Boston ivy snaking along a wall are wonderful surprises. Harry Lauder’s walking stick and corkscrew willow have tremendously twisted branches.

Herbaceous perennials that die back in the winter also add structure. Golden brown and tan grasses look great popping out of the snow, adding a lazy movement that only shows up at this time of year. Purple coneflower, black-eyed Susan and other stiff-stemmed flowers stand up to winter winds and provide a little food for wild birds. Pigsqueak turns a vibrant, golden orange while keeping its ground hugging form. Yucca shoots blossoms to the sky like winter fireworks.

In winter, bark becomes a powerful landscape element. Stewartia and river birch have exfoliating bark that peels off in distinctive shapes. Silver green honey locust and smooth, bronze cherry are also effective players.

Select just a few places to highlight: the front door, views from a favorite room, and the most visible front corner of the lot are good places to feature. Draw a rough plan of the design, first concentrating on shapes, textures and colors. Then select favorite plants that work in your USDA zone and in the various exposures and microclimates in your unique location.

Remember colorful twigs will fade and scaffold shapes change as the plant matures. Keep everything trimmed in a pruning routine that will encourage a fresh crop of striking new growth year after year. And make a habit to tidy up the garden in the fall so it will start winter off looking fit.

Joe Lamp’l, host of  “Growing a Greener World” on PBS, is a Master Gardener and author. Visit www.joegardener.com.