Even as a 13-year-old, Ron Kotcho had an eye for design. Walking to school in Squirrel Hill, he admired a house that looked a little like a French cottage but grander.

Nearly 40 years later, he returned to the same house to design an appropriate garden for its current owner. His design was recently selected for inclusion in the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Gardens in Washington, D.C., a collection of more than 7,000 plots and 70,000 images documenting a variety of public and private gardens.

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Each year, more are added. In addition to this garden, called “Le Petite Maison,” two others are included this year: Hartwood Acres in Hampton and Indiana Township and a Pittsburgh garden identified only as “Reverie.” Many already on the list are in the Sewickley Valley, including Newington, a private garden on a little more than 10 acres that dates back to the early 1800s.

The Squirrel Hill project began in 1999 when Mr. Kotcho, 59, met with the owner, who prefers to remain anonymous. It took nearly six months of collaboration to make both owner and designer happy, but it took him only a few more weeks to complete the plans.

The most important thing for Mr. Kotcho is to pair the home with the garden.

“The relationship between the architecture and the garden, to me that’s one of the most important things. The garden has to complement the architecture.”

Noted Pittsburgh architect Brandon Smith built the house in the late 1940s in the style of a small cottage on the property of a larger chateau or castle.

“The house is designed on a very long axis. It’s like looking down a gallery in an art museum. I wanted that to be repeated out here,” he said, standing in the garden.

Each room in the home is mirrored in the garden. As visitors walk inside, they see through the windows a garden with a very French flavor. Mr. Kotcho calls the design semi-formal.

“It’s not totally symmetrical, but it is very balanced.”

‘Nikko Blue’ hydrangea line the edges of the beds, the blue mopheads perfectly complementing the pure white conical flowers of ‘Tardiva’ hydrangea. At the far end of the garden, a round mirror seemingly doubles the size of the garden; it’s covered with sweet autumn clematis, whose tiny white blooms have recently faded. Under the mirror is a beautiful blue Lutyens bench flanked by planters filled with boxwood and sweet potato vine. It offers a spectacular look back at the garden.

Each outdoor room is carefully thought out, and although it’s just 10 years old, the garden seems much more mature. Thick deep green arborvitae reach over 20 feet and act as the bones of the garden, looming over white phlox filled with fat bumblebees buzzing from flower to flower. Other ornamental trees and perennials, sculptures, planters and a fountain all serve their purposes beautifully.

When Sally Foster of O’Hara first saw the garden two years ago, she fell in love. She is co-chair of the Garden Club of Allegheny County’s Garden history and design committee and was the person responsible for nominating the garden for the Smithsonian’s archives.

“I was blown away by not only the beauty of it, but the care, the flowers and the color scheme. It spoke to me,” she said.

She has helped several other Pittsburgh area gardens find their way into the archives and for a good reason. “Gardens are ephemeral. They come and they go. A garden that’s important enough to get into the archives will be interesting to scholars down the road.”

It took her two years to complete the paperwork and navigate the system to have this garden approved. The Archives of American Gardens began with a donation of glass lantern slides from the Garden Club of America in 1997. Since then, the club has continued to scout out and nominate gardens its members discover. Some are chronicled simply with an historic photo Others are recognized, like Le Petite Maison, with a plan, documentation and photos.

Mrs. Foster said she and her committee are always looking for gardens that might be deserving of a place in the archives. Discovering them is like finding Easter eggs as a child, she said.

“You get to see the most interesting, fabulous gardens, but they don’t have to be estates. They don’t have to be this big. It’s the spirit of the artist who creates that’s so interesting to find.”

Mr. Kotcho had never heard of the archives before his work was nominated. He’s thrilled to see his work alongside places like Mount Vernon and Monticello.

“It was quite an honor to be selected,” he said, smiling. “Gardening is a long process. It’s a growing art form.”

For more information on the Smithsonian’s Archive of American Gardens, go to www.gardens.si.edu/collections-research/archives-american-gardens.html

A trip to New York City might bring to mind shopping, theater, dining and a much lighter wallet upon your return home. But gardeners can enjoy some superior examples of their craft in the Big Apple.

From Central Park to the New York and Brooklyn botanic gardens to Wave Hill in the Bronx, there are many options to escape the concrete jungle and enjoy a restorative visit with nature. On my last trip to New York, I checked out the charming garden on 91st Street in Riverside Park, made famous in the movie “You’ve Got Mail.”

My favorite garden destination in Manhattan is the High Line. Located on the city’s West Side, it runs from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to West 30th Street, between 10th and 11th avenues in Chelsea. The park was created on an abandoned rail line slated for demolition. Trains had not run on the tracks since 1980, and the industries supporting its usage in the area had nearly disappeared.

With the energy and support of local residents working in concert with the railroads and city government, the rail lines were spared. The High Line is owned by the City of New York and is maintained and operated by the nonprofit conservancy Friends of the High Line.

The seminal idea of creating a garden and walking trail along tracks began in 1999. In the ensuing years political, zoning, financial, design and construction challenges were met. The first section of the High Line debuted in June 2009.

This past July, the city acquired title to the final section, known as the West Side Rail Yards and blessed with sweeping views of the Hudson River and the Midtown skyline. The acquisition of this portion of the rail line will extend the park to 34th Street.

James Corner Field Operations, a landscape architecture firm, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro, an architecture firm, designed the High Line. From a gardener’s viewpoint, the planting plan executed by Piet Odulf is the most exciting aspect. Mr. Odulf is a Dutch garden designer who has designed gardens and public parks around the world. He makes great use of wild-looking plants, looking to their shapes and structure, whether their flowers are spiky spires or simple daisies.

Foliage is paramount in Mr. Odulf’s designs, a takeaway all gardeners can use. The use of grasses is masterful; their texture and movement contrast beautifully with chunky shrubs and the strong, simple architecture of the surrounding hardscape. The palette evokes the wild plants that colonized the abandoned rail line prior to its becoming a park. By choosing plants with interesting seed heads or shrubs with strong silhouettes in the winter, he has created a garden that looks terrific in all seasons.

The website www.thehighline.org provides a comprehensive list of plants used. The choices are diverse and would make a great menu of choices for a mixed border installation featuring trees, shrubs, perennials (including groundcovers) and bulbs.

One of the best reasons to visit gardens, whether on local garden tours or as destinations to visit while on vacation, is to see how plants can be put together in a pleasing way. Books and magazines cannot provide the same experience as being in a garden. Novice and expert gardeners will be inspired by the plantings on High Line.

Plants selected for inclusion on the trail are relatively drought-resistant and tough. Despite the large crowd of tourists strolling on the paths, I managed to snap scads of lovely plant vignettes. While most of the people walking the High Line were engaged in lively multi-lingual conversation, often dressed to be part of the experience that is New York, I was the gardener wearing sensible shoes, craning to get the best shot of plants that caught my eye.

Pirating a great idea from a garden visit is not only encouraged, but also a really smart way to hone your gardening skills. As they say, “imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.”

I visited the High Line in fall 2010 and this summer. Within that short time crowds have gotten larger and changes to the surrounding neighborhoods have accompanied the popularity of the gardens. Real estate prices have skyrocketed, and pricier vendors have crowded out some established local businesses, so there has been a downside to the project. Weekend afternoons can be mighty crowded. If possible, plan your visit for early morning or on a weekday.

That being said, in a city full of tourists and pricey destinations, the High Line is distinctly different, free (although a donation to the Friends of the High Line is suggested) and fun for all ages. Pairing a stroll along the High Line before or after a great meal is a treat. Restaurant choices within walking distance abound. If money is no object you can even stay at The Standard Hotel-High Line and wake up to views of the gardens and the Hudson River.

Gardeners know that growing and enjoying plants add to their quality of life. Based on my visits to public gardens almost everywhere I travel, even non-gardeners respond to verdant, beautiful escapes from tourist destinations. If you’re contemplating a trip to New York City, be sure to include the High Line in your plans. Your wallet will thank you.

The High Line is open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. Park information can also be obtained by calling the High Line information line: 1-212-500-6065.

By NICOLE SWENGLEY

The French artist-designer talks to The Wall Street Journal Europe about how he spends his weekend.

Hervé Van der Straeten is an artistic multitasker whose work is rooted in the hand-craft traditions of French decorative arts. Initially known for his eye-catching jewelry, his main focus now is the contemporary furniture and lighting he makes at his own bronze and cabinetmaking workshops in Paris. These sell at Galerie Van Der Straeten in the French capital while collaborations with French luxury brands have, among other designs, resulted in scent bottles for Dior, Guerlain and YSL.

Cécil Mathieu/courtesy of Galerie Van der Straeten

Hervé Van der Straeten

Next week, the award-winning designer will show his latest limited-edition furniture and lighting at the Pavilion of Art Design in London’s Berkeley Square. A dozen new, highly sculptural designs, including console tables, mirrors, chairs and chandeliers, bear all the hallmarks of his signature style: bold forms, elegant lines and the precision-crafting of contrasting materials, including bronze, lacquer, stone, anodized aluminum, wood and Plexiglass.

“I’m always challenging myself with new shapes and combinations of materials,” he says.

When he isn’t jetting between Paris, London, Berlin, Milan, New York and China, the 47-year-old designer enjoys quiet weekends at his 18th-century cottage in Burgundy with his partner, Bruno Frisoni, the artistic director of shoe brand Roger Vivier, and Alfred, his siamese cat, who travels with them.

How do you start your weekend?

We travel from Paris on Friday evenings by train or car to my house in Burgundy. It’s an 18th-century cottage with a lot of charm and is a complete contrast from my big, modern loft in Paris. Supper is the highlight of Friday evening because cooking is one of my great hobbies—I find it very relaxing. As the house is located between Sancerre and Chablis territory, we drink a very good bottle of wine and I make soup using herbs from the garden and roast a duck, which we have with a tomato and basil salad followed by garden strawberries with verbena jelly or poached pears. I like to use as much fruit and vegetables as possible from the garden.

Do you spend Saturday working in the garden then?

Exactly. Gardening is my other great passion. I bought the property as a wreck six years ago and have slowly been restoring both the house and garden. Tania Compton, a U.K.-based garden designer, helped me choose the right plants for the soil. There are several English rose varieties and lots of verbena bonariensis, which has very elegant, geometric branches and grows like crazy. As well as growing vegetables and herbs, I love clipping the box trees. I’m into structure and shape so the topiary is very precise—a bit like making something in my woodworking studio.

Is gardening an antidote to designing?

For me it’s a form of meditation because my mind is only focused on the aesthetic of the tree. Because I’m mainly indoors during the week, either at my studios or in the gallery, I like to be outside as much as possible at weekends. On Saturday morning I always go shopping in the local farmers’ market, especially if we have visitors from Paris staying with us. On Saturday evening we often have supper with friends in the neighborhood and sometimes someone will hold an informal concert at their house with a jazz singer and pianist.

What about Sundays?

During the autumn and spring, we spend Sunday mornings at a local vide-grenier [garage sale] as there are many in the neighborhood. I bought a big bunch of silver-plated cutlery for 15 centimes a piece at the last one. My cottage is furnished with old furniture bought at local vide-greniers or Drouot, the Paris auction house, where I recently picked up eight stuffed boars for a room I’m turning into a party space. Even though my own style is very contemporary, I’ve always liked historic furniture. You can learn a lot from its proportions, shape and scale.

Do you like to forget about work?

Visiting the cottage with all its old pieces gives me a total break from my own aesthetic. There’s none of my own furniture here. But I always have my sketchbook with me and enjoy working on the move. If we aren’t driving, the train back to Paris on Sunday evening is ideal for dreaming.

David L. Culp has spent more than 20 years creating this magnificent garden in southern Chester County, ripping the bully-honeysuckle off a one-acre hillside by hand not just once, but three times, to avoid using chemical herbicides; hauling heavy rocks from here to there, again by hand, to build walls with indigenous stone; planting and replanting, doing and redoing, and endlessly weeding, all, naturally, by hand.

You’d think his hands would be a mess, which they are not, despite the fact that he wears gloves only when removing poison ivy. And you’d think he’d want to slow down.

Obviously, you don’t know this guy.

“I’ll never be done with it,” Culp says, without a hint of resignation, for he understands what only the horticulturally hard-core do: A garden is never done, except on hyperactive HGTV, where, ironically, he was once a guest.

Culp, with decades of gardening behind him, actually sounds joyful about the prospect of working his back and arms and knees until he can’t anymore, even joking, “If I retire, what would I do – garden?”

This is what he and Michael Alderfer, partners for 20 years, do. And until recently, when they hired a once-a-month helper, they did it all by themselves, something Culp hopes will inspire others.

“We started from nothing,” he says. “We don’t have an endowment. We don’t have a staff. We had a passion.”

Both also have real jobs.

Alderfer does interior plantscapes for museums, public buildings, and private clients. Culp teaches at Longwood Gardens; travels and does research and development for Sunny Border Nurseries in Connecticut; hunts for plants in the Netherlands, England, and Japan; designs gardens; lectures around the country; writes for garden publications, and is a bit of a celeb, having hobnobbed on camera with Martha Stewart no fewer than six times.

Now, after two years of writing on airplanes and in hotel rooms, Culp has produced his first book – The Layered Garden: Design Lessons for Year-Round Beauty From Brandywine Cottage for Timber Press, with local author Adam Levine and photographer Rob Cardillo.

Brandywine Cottage is the circa 1790 stone farmhouse adjoining two acres in Downingtown that Culp bought in 1990 and restored to include a multilayered garden, which he shares with hundreds of visitors a year from March through July.

“This time is for me,” he says of fall and winter.

They, like spring and summer, are fully enjoyed in this special place, which had a spiritual resonance with Culp, a Quaker, from the moment he saw it. “I felt immediately at home,” he says.

That is no surprise. Though Culp grew up in Reading and Tennessee, and lived in Georgia and North Carolina, Pennsylvania is in his DNA. His Kolb (later anglicized to Culp) ancestors – five brothers, farmers all – came to Pennsylvania from Germany 300 years ago.

In 1992, while visiting the certified-historic homestead of Dielman Kolb, one of the five, in Lederach in Lower Salford Township, Montgomery County, Culp had an epiphany. He decided then and there that at his own farmhouse, he would create a vegetable garden like his ancestor’s.

It would become the heart of his Brandywine Cottage garden – utilitarian to feed the body, beautiful to feed the soul, surrounded by double borders on all sides. There would be layer upon layer of plants – not just any, but the best – that rise at different heights, pop through the year, and offer unusual forms, colors, and textures.

“More than just making sure one blooming plant follows another,” Culp writes in his book, “layering is the art of creating a series of peak garden moments, the anticipation of which gets me out of bed in the morning.”

He must leap out of bed these days. Fall’s asters are pinwheels of pink and purple. The roses are fading, but the hips are grand. And as the statuesque Angelica drops dry seed on the ground, Culp proclaims these self-sowers – many a gardener’s bane – “cheerleaders in the garden.

“I do a design and self-sowers lighten it up, making the garden not so studied,” he says.

Culp is famous for the hellebores and snowdrops he breeds, and though they’re sleeping now, thousands will fluff up the hillside and borders in late winter.

Then come the tulips, foxgloves, and alliums, forget-me-nots and salvias, and shrubs and trees galore – that he insists he can’t live without. This garden, you see, is a pull on the heart.

Its naturalistic feel mimics his grandparents’ small farm in Wears Valley, Tenn., in the Smokies, where he had his own pony, chickens, calf, and gardens, and sometimes the entire summer to wander the woods before returning home to Reading.

Later, while studying psychology at the University of Tennessee and working in the men’s clothing business, he would recall those carefree days and a love bordering on, sometimes crossing into, obsession for ferns, wildflowers, berries, and greens.

“The call of the soil,” Culp calls it, and he was always answering, visiting gardens, becoming a certified master gardener, working for a wholesale florist, doing freelance garden design.

In 1988, he moved back to Pennsylvania from North Carolina, officially career-changed. He began working at Waterloo Gardens in Devon, where he met Alderfer, taking horticulture classes at Temple University Ambler, and relishing a career that finds him answering “the call” even now.

No doubt Culp’s answer has been intensified by two near-death experiences in the last two decades. He does not share the details, but perhaps they speak for themselves in this moment:

It occurred at Brandywine Cottage after a conversation between two gardeners – one a renowned expert, the other, in comparison, a know-nothing – that meandered pleasantly, as these things do, from one to two to three hours.

Visitor, leaving: “Are you going to work in the garden now?”

Culp: “No, I’m going to do some other things first and save the garden work till the end of the day. It’s my reward.”

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Contact Virginia A. Smith at 215-854-5720 or vsmith@phillynews.com.

Sisters Maureen and Sue Walsh are owners of ARTEFACT Home|Garden, where they offer beautiful furniture, garden accessories, and decor for the home.

The theme of the evening was “First Impressions: Subtle or grand, make them memorable” and our diverse panel of design professionals had plenty of insight as to how to do just that. Andrew Sidford of Andrew M. Sidford Architects in Newburyport, Massachusetts, whose enthusiasm for the design process was apparent, said he looks to his clients for guidance first, then offers them some guidance of his own, respecting their vision but often expanding their horizons as to what is possible. In one case, he proposed a daringly placed glass-encased dining room in the front of the home, a plan the clients followed to great satisfaction.

For Rose Ann Humphrey of Home Life by Rose Ann Humphrey, an interior design firm with offices in Boston and Vermont, the focus is on the clients’ personal styles. Once she uncovers what they are, she brings them into her designs in interpretive ways. For one family who loves boating, she incorporated appliques of shells into the fireplace, for example. The result is a custom home that reflects the essences of its inhabitants at every turn.

The Belmont, Massachusetts, showroom held a captivated audience, as the topic of first impressions also included a discussion of how design professionals work together with clients and each other.

Stephen Payne, a partner in the esteemed fine building company, Payne|Bouchier of Boston, used a wonderful example of a dramatic first impression with a staircase that was a worthy centerpiece for an entryway. Stunning details also lasting first impressions as seen from the exquisite crown moldings and custom chevron wood floors that are part of the company’s portfolio.

Capping off the evening was Laura Kuhn of Laura Kuhn Design Consultation, an Arlington, Massachusetts, landscape designer. With fabulous red lipstick-colored tulips she made a bold statement in the front yard of the former home of notorious scam artist, Charles Ponzi. (Who knew he lived in Lexington, Massachusetts). Her scheme was no scam. The property’s grounds are now the real deal made possible by her pure artistry.

Please join us for our next salon on Thursday October 11 at Dover Rug Home in Natick. http://designnewengland.eventbrite.com/

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WASHINGTON — Innisfree Garden in Millbrook joins Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue, sometimes called “America’s Main Street,” on a list among the nation’s endangered landscapes because of neglect and deferred maintenance by the National Park Service.

Innisfree is a 150-acre public garden that was created as an American, Modernist twist on ancient Chinese landscape design. Funding shortfalls threaten its preservation.

The grand avenue connecting the Capitol and White House is slowly falling into disrepair, the nonprofit Cultural Landscape Foundation told The Associated Press on Wednesday. Water fountains rarely function, benches are broken and some trees have been removed.

In the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy called for a revitalization of Pennsylvania Avenue. Improvements included the creation of small parks designed by top landscape architects, including M. Paul Friedberg and Carol Johnson. But they haven’t been maintained.

“There really is this kind of very slow downward spiral that is happening,” said Charles Birnbaum, the group’s founding president.

Except for part of the road that was redesigned as a pedestrian plaza in 2004 for security in front of the White House, “the lion’s share of the 1.2-mile stretch hasn’t been renewed,” Birnbaum said.

National Mall Superintendent Robert Vogel said in an emailed statement that the park service is working on ways to preserve and restore Pennsylvania Avenue, though he did not elaborate.

“We welcome the interest and support of the Cultural Landscape Foundation and the attention they can bring to this effort,” he said.

The Washington-based foundation, created in 1998, aims to educate people about historic landscapes through training programs, partnering with local groups and publicity for at-risk spaces. It has a track record of saving threatened landscapes by raising awareness with its annual Landslide listing.

Eleven other sites being added to the group’s Landslide 2012 list, which will be announced Thursday at an event with New York’s Central Park Conservancy. They include Los Angeles’ Hannah Carter Japanese Garden, Nasher Sculpture Garden in Dallas and New York’s Jones Beach, a public beach and park designed by Robert Moses in the 1920s that continues to draw 6 million to 8 million visitors each year.

I’m not a fan of rules. Give me a rule, and my inner rebel asks why and looks for an exception. While I get that rules have their place in society — kids should stay in school; drivers going the same direction should drive on the same side of the road; everyone should turn off his cell phone in the theater — some rules are needlessly tyrannous.

The customer isn’t always right, for instance. Prepositions are perfectly fine words to end sentences with. And paying dozens of taxes — sales, state, federal, property, gas, sin, and so on — instead of one whopping mega tax is moronically inefficient. Wouldn’t you rather get fleeced once a year than get slowly pecked to death by ducks?

Similarly, while some decorating rules are useful — a few large accessories beat a bunch of small ones for sure — many, and I mean many, are just as unnecessary as hats and gloves on Sunday.

Don’t buy a patterned sofa. Only paint with soft neutrals. Always keep interior trim white. Never put an area rug on carpet. Dining tables and chairs should be matched sets. Blah, blah, blah.

The stream of so-called experts doling decorating do’s and don’ts is as endless as their poor advice, which is often conflicting: Real estate agents say keep your home neutral and impersonal. Designers say give your interiors punch and make your home about you.

No wonder so many DIY home decorators stand stuck and stiff as stalagmites on their threshold. They’re afraid to make a decorating move. If they do conjure the courage, they make design choices so wimpy even their pets yawn.

I didn’t realize how strongly I felt about this until last week, when, buried among the high traffic flow of home improvement pitches that hit my inbox, came one refreshing missive from the folks at Lou Hammond Associates, a leading maker of window-coverings. A welcome departure from the heavy-handed rule list, this pitch featured design rules best ignored.

I read in full, liberated agreement.

Here are some rules the Lou Hammond folks say you can avoid, along with a few more I say to outright break:

• Never mix florals and plaids. Nonsense. Mixed patterns are fun to look at. They create a playground for your eyes. The trick to pulling off a good mix is to vary pattern scale, and mix straight with curved lines. For instance, combine a small floral with a large plaid, or a large floral with a small stripe, said designer Katie Leede, of Santa Monica, Calif. Mix chevrons with botanicals. The secret to success here is to have one pattern contain all the colors in the room.

• Don’t hang drapes around a picture window. You’ll detract from the view. Au contraire. Lovely drapes can enhance a picture window the way a frame sets off a painting, says New York designer James Rixner.

• Don’t paint a small room a bold color. Rubbish. Bold colors define spaces like an embrace. They feel cozy and sexy, says designer Amie Corley, of St. Louis. Strong colors also make artwork seem more dramatic than when art hangs on a wall of wimpy off-white. While homes should have a palette of unifying colors, you can still have flow and use bold colors in defined spaces.

• Keep your ceilings white. This homeowner trap is misguided, uninspired and lazy. In some rooms, a white ceiling makes the fifth wall seem lower. Especially if the room is painted in a rich tone, white ceilings can ruin the look. If you don’t want to paint the ceiling the same shade as the walls, soften the contrast by painting it a lighter shade by mixing a little wall color into white.

• Furniture should go against the wall to maximize floor space. No, no, no, no, no!! Gentle readers, the point of a room is not to maximize floor space, it is to maximize INTERACTION, as in conversation, as in fostering relationships. You can’t do that when the furniture is blasted against the wall as if a giant sea mammal breached the room and emptied its blow hole. Sofas, chairs, console tables, even beds, can float. Pull it together, people.

• Art should always be hung at eye level. So many people are slave to this rule that we may need to reinstate Abraham Lincoln to put an end to this. Repeat after me: Art should be hung in relation to that which it is hanging near. Sure, in a museum, where people are walking by, art should be hung at eye level, which, of course, varies. Otherwise, hang art where it looks good. In a sitting area, it’s nice to have the art at eye level when you’re sitting. Over a table or headboard, hang art so the bottom of the frame is about 8 inches above.

• Baseboards should always be white. Highlighting your baseboards by painting them white is a good idea if you have awesome baseboards. But if your baseboards are underwhelming, say under 4 inches, don’t call them out, paint them to blend. If the room has low ceilings, the racing stripe effect will make the room appear shorter.

But do, please, stay on the right side of the road. And kids, stay in school.

It’s that time of year again. The summer garden’s bright blooms and easy vibrancy are fading into fall. In many Northwest gardens, that means the beginning of a long season of brown, mushy twigs.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

“The fall component to a garden is just as important,” said landscape designer Heidi Skievaski and owner of Sublime Garden Design in Snohomish.

Too often landscapes are missing the structure — the paths, pergolas and the like — that gives the garden visual interest through the fall and winter, she said.

People often get seduced by a shrub’s blooms or that quick punch of color from a mass of annuals. They overlook the beauty inherent in leaves, bark, conifer needles, the graceful arms of a bare tree, a simple flagstone path or even a boulder. These are the gardener’s palette for creating more interest in the fall garden, she said.

Here are a few of her suggestions.

Assess the bones of the garden: Too often people think about the plants first when planning a garden. That’s a mistake, she said. The paths, patios, pergolas and other permanent elements to a garden provide structure.

Like a home, a garden needs a good foundation. The plants should come later, just as furniture comes after a home is complete.

Newer homes usually come with what she calls “a starter patio” that’s too small for even a small get-together. She suggested replacing it with a larger one, perhaps made of flagstone.

The type of material used for the patio should be dictated by the style of the garden and the house. If you choose flagstone, make sure the stones are at least 2 inches thick and large enough to set a nice chair on.

An arbor can provide an inviting entry to the garden and draw the eye. Consider a seating area, if the yard is large enough.

When it comes to paths, she often uses gravel or flagstone.

Add more evergreens: Trees and large shrubs also contribute to structure in the garden. Many gardens lack enough plants that keep their leaves all year, other than rhodies and azaleas, Skievaski said.

Successful gardens have a balance of both deciduous and evergreen plants. Gardens also should have plants with a variety of attributes: some that offer interesting foliage, some with bold blossoms and a few with intriguing bark.

Evergreen doesn’t mean just green: Evergreen plants can be yellow or orange or even bluish. Interesting evergreen shrubs and trees are available to augment or replace those ubiquitous rhodies.

Many won’t grow to be towering green monsters. Better check the label to be sure. Dwarf conifers are a solution for small yards.

Select plants with multiseasonal interest. Plants should do their part in the garden through the seasons, particularly in smaller gardens, Skievaski said.

Fall is the best time of the year to plant because roots have a chance to establish in the cool, wet months.

Just for starters, consider the Japanese stewartiatree, which offers the triple combo of amazing bark, flowers and leaves.

If gardeners knew more about the plants available, they’d make other choices, she said.

Great Plant Picks at www.greatplantpicks.org is a good noncommercial resource for researching plants that perform well in the Northwest.

Enhance interest with pots and art: The No. 1 mistake Skievaski sees people make with both pots and garden art is selecting pieces that are too small. Be fearless. Go big.

Selecting garden art is a bit like accessorizing the top of the living room mantel. It’s better to invest in fewer larger pieces than many smaller ones, she said. Just one good piece of garden art can serve as an eye-catching focal point.

Same with containers. They look big in the store, but they often get dwarfed in the landscape. She prefers groups of three. Her rule of thumb is the grouping must have something in common: either the trio is the same color or style or shape. For instance, three red pots in different shapes, or three tall, columnar containers in contrasting colors.

Remove annuals from containers in the fall and spruce up with evergreen and foliage plants. Using one-gallon shrubs is an inexpensive way to add structure. They can be removed and planted in the garden later.

Also think about adding boulders. Never do less than three. Large yards will need groupings of more. The boulders should look natural in the landscape, as if they have emerged out of the ground, she said.

A hunk of stone acts can function as a piece of sculpture in the landscape. And a boulder can double as seating.

If you’ve got a pickup truck and a few muscled friends, boulders are available for about $50 each.

Fall favorites
A few of Heidi Skievaski’s favorite fall-interest plants:

1. Heuchera: a semi-evergreen perennial with bell-shaped flowers. She particularly likes Berry Smoothie, Miracle, Ginger Ale, Peach Flambe.

2. Scarlet leucothoe: a low-growing evergreen shrub that turns burgundy in fall and winter, and has white bell-shaped flowers in spring.

3. Conifers with fall color: She suggested golden pine and Eastern white pine (actually blue in color).

4. Nandina Gulf Stream: an evergreen shrub with red, orange, purple and green fall color and red fruit.

5. Abelia kaleidoscope: a semi-evergreen shrub with variegated gold foliage, white flowers in summer, orange-tinged in fall.

6. Sunshine Blue blueberry: a shrub with bluish foliage that turns red-orange in fall, and offers fruit in August and September.

7. Japanese stewartia: a tree with patchy camouflage-looking bark, red fall color and white summer flowers.

8. Oak leaf hydrangea: a shrub with footlong, cone-shaped, creamy white flowers in summer that fade to pink. Also offers cinnamon-colored peeling bark, and its leaves turn deep red to orange and purple.

9. Coppertina ninebark: a shrub with coppery-colored foliage in spring turning to rich red. Light pink flowers emerge in summer. It also offers red seed capsules and peeling bark.

10. Shasta viburnum: a shrub covered in flat-topped white flowers in late spring. It turns red to purple in the fall, and its berries turn from red to black.

Learn more
Heidi Skievaski, Sublime Garden Design of Snohomish; 206-818-6065; sublimegardendesign.com

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General News: Cornwall Garden Club Presentation

Landscape designer Jan Johnsen

Garden by Jan Johnsen

October 02, 2012

GARDEN DESIGN PRESENTATION

In today’s busy world a place of peace and tranquility is most welcome. And such a haven can be as close as one’s backyard garden. Noted landscape designer Jan Johnsen will speak on the secrets of making these places of serenity on Thurs., Oct. 11, at 1 p.m. at the St. John’s Episcopal Church, 58 Clinton Street, Cornwall.

Johnsen’s presentation, “Romancing the Garden: How to Create Sanctuary and Delight in the Garden,” is sponsored by the Cornwall Garden Club with support from District X, Federated Garden Clubs of New York State.
The event is open to the public, and there is no charge to attend. Light refreshments will follow the presentation, and those interested are invited to stay for the Cornwall Garden Club’s October business meeting. Questions regarding the program may be directed to Cornwall Garden Club member Eileen Tulloch at 534- 8014.

Johnsen has been a landscape design professional for more than 40 years. Her firm, Johnsen Landscapes and Pools, is located in Westchester County. Many of her firm’s projects have been featured in books and magazines. Johnsen also is an adjunct professor at Columbia University, and she teaches at the New York Botanical Garden.

Johnsen’s talk will inspire attendees to create their own special places of relaxation and rejuvenation and to turn basic backyards into gardens that enrich and enhance health and well being.

Eileen Tulloch

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When Judy Hagen’s late husband, Gary, fought leukemia a few years ago, the couple spent more time at Harrison Medical Center for six months than they did at their own home. Hagen recalls how difficult it was for him to find a place around the hospital where he wouldn’t be reminded of his fight.

“If only there had been a place for my husband to step outside and sort of feel normal for a little bit,” she says.

When she received a call from Harrison to be on a committee planning a healing garden for the Bremerton campus, Hagen says she was overjoyed. The garden would have been exactly the kind of place where Gary could have found temporary refuge.

“The smell of fresh air, hearing the sounds we take for granted — even 10 minutes would have been healing for him,” says Hagen, who lives in Port Ludlow.

After 10 years of dreaming, and more than two years of planning and designing, the Less and Betty Krueger Family Healing Garden opened in September. The 3,100-square-foot rooftop garden is adjacent to the inpatient oncology unit and the radiation oncology department — which has a direct view from inside. But it’s designed not only for patients but also caregivers, visitors and hospital staff.

“It’s really about being a sanctuary, for renewal and rest, giving people a reprieve from something quite stressful, which is hospitalization. Part of it is due to being in nature — it has an effect on people,” says Stephanie Cline, executive director for Harrison Medical Foundation, which raised funds for the garden through private donors and events. “It gives families an alternative destination to relieve stress when they’re here. There are also known benefits for staff — even a few minutes outside has been shown to improve safety … and they go back to their units clearheaded and refreshed.”

The garden includes a covered area with furnishings, a wheelchair and ramp to a raised area — for physical therapy purposes — and space for creative programming such as art therapy. The focal point is a 9-foot-tall Tree of Hope sculpture, created by renowned Silverdale artist Lisa Stirrett.

“We wanted a central story for the garden. The Tree of Hope became the focal point of shared experience,” Cline says.

The steel tree will change through the seasons with magnetic decorations created by Stirrett. The first set is pink blossoms, in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October.

The garden will be interactive, mostly through a kiosk that will have both information about the garden and personal stories and encouraging words from community members.

“I’m so excited for people to experience this garden,” Stirrett says. “I think the tree will mean something different for everybody. I want people to find some hope, healing, joy and inspiration out of it.”

Stirrett also created another major garden feature, a cascading fountain made of sections of glass — each measuring 7.5 feet long and comprised of hundreds of strips of fused glass — flanked by slate stone columns on both sides. The final piece of the water feature, which Stirrett expected to add this fall, will be three glass salmon, red and orange in color.

The healing garden was supported entirely through charitable giving, including more than 100 donors. The Harrison Foundation began raising funds about five years ago, Cline says, and dedicated all money raised from one of the Festival of Trees events to the project.

“We consider it the very best in health care design and a great example how charitable giving makes this hospital a special place,” she says.

Bremerton’s Rice Fergus Miller Architecture provided the design in collaboration with Seattle landscape design firm Hafs Epstein, which specializes in therapeutic gardens. Cline says the design was guided by input from a variety of stakeholders and professionals, including master gardeners.

The plants were selected based on ease of maintenance, year-round interest and characteristics such as lack of strong fragrance (which can adversely impact chemotherapy patients). A group of volunteers has been recruited to maintain the garden, and Cline says there will be ongoing charitable giving opportunities to pay for new plants and other maintenance and enhancements.

Growing trend

Healing gardens date back more than 1,000 years but are going through a resurgence. Various studies have shown clinical benefits such as reducing blood pressure, pain, anxiety and depression; decrease in length of hospitalization; improved satisfaction with the facility and improved staff performance, among other things.

Hagen says she is pleased with the outcome of the steering committee’s work and feels the healing garden “will be a place of hope for years to come.”

“Just to get out with a loved one — I love the concept where you can sit and it’s kind of like your home,” she says. “For the people that find themselves there, it will give them a little normalcy, hope and a sense of healing.”