A White Garden (aka Moon Garden) is a feature garden composed of plants that produce white flowers and spathes as well as plants with a white or silvery cast to their foliage. The white garden is a variant of the color garden. The most essential feature of the white garden is its unity of color.

The white garden is an informal gardening style that is similar in design to the English cottage garden. The open and informal design creates associations with romance, peace and elegance. The white flowers are not usually placed in clusters, but spread throughout the garden’s green areas, creating a natural look and feel. The mildly dense placement of white flowers creates a luminescent sight that is especially powerful in the twilight. Moon gardens should be placed where they can be viewed from your favorite evening relaxation spot.

The Craven County Master Gardener Volunteer Association is beginning their annual bulb sale. These bulbs are from Terra Ceia Farms in Beaufort County and are proven to be reliable in our area. This year’s sale features several bulbs suitable for use in a Moon or White garden. The Klein-Pringle White Garden at the JC Raulston Arboretum at NCSU in Raleigh is an excellent example of the sophistication and tranquility of a design that features a combination of white flowers set off by dark green shrubs so that the flowers ‘glow’ in the light of the moon.

There are 15 selections to choose from. The number of bulbs in each bag varies by selection and each bag goes for $5. You can go to the website MasterGardenerBulbSale.com for a printable brochure (which includes a sample printable moon garden design with ordering information), stop by the MG booth at the Farmers Market on Sept. 29, Oct. 6 and Oct. 13 or go to the Craven County Agricultural Building 300 Industrial Drive (Monday through Friday) to pick one up.

The online order form is the easiest or orders may be mailed in. The bulbs will be available for pickup on Oct. 20 at the Craven County Ag Center, on Oct. 27 at the Farmers Market and on Nov. 3 at Farm City Day on the Craven County Fairgrounds.

The Craven County Master Gardeners Volunteers are the volunteer staff of N.C. State University’s Cooperative Extension Service here in New Bern. They provide unbiased, research based educational assistance and programs in horticulture and environmental issues to the gardening public. In Craven County, Master Gardeners design and maintain a variety of demonstration gardens at the Agricultural Center located off Clarks Road in the Craven County Industrial Park. All of the gardens are open to the public.

On the third Saturday of every month, the Craven County Extension Service with the help of the Master Gardener Volunteers conducts a free public workshop at 10 a.m. The workshops focus on topics of interest to home gardeners.

This month’s topic is Shrub and Heritage Plants for an Eastern North Carolina Garden (at New Bern Library, 400 Johnson St.).  And, next month’s topic will be a bulb planting and perennial separation workshop at the Ag Center. Bulb sale proceeds support CCMGVA activities. The majority of funds are used to purchase new and replacement plants for the public demonstration gardens.

Bulbs are by far one of the easiest plants in the garden and require very little care. If you haven’t tried planting them yet or wish to add more, place an order and you will be helping our local Master Gardener organization at the same time.

Judi Lloyd lives in River Bend and can be contacted at judilloyd@yahoo.com

 

View full sizeSteven Litt, The Plain DealerThe Cleveland Botanical Garden.The Cleveland Botanical Garden in University Circle was a picture of pure, late-summer bliss Wednesday afternoon.

A couple walked hand-in-hand through the gathering shadows in the institution’s Rose Garden. An art student sketched a waterfall inside a simulated Costa Rican rain forest enclosed beneath a vast, crystalline glass enclosure. Butterflies fluttered, bees hummed and fountains burbled.

This did not look like a place that has survived a financial trauma caused by an ambitious expansion in 2003 designed by Boston architect and Cleveland native Graham Gund.

But it’s been touch and go, financially, ever since the institution finished the project. When attendance fell below predicted levels in the middle 2000s and the recession hit in 2008, it was especially vulnerable.

Allied Irish Bank, which had provided a $20 million letter of credit, suddenly asked for $10 million in two payments over 18 months to cut its exposure. To pony up, the botanical garden had to cut its relatively modest $20 million endowment in half, rendering it both less secure and more dependent on annual fundraising to balance its budget.

Since then, fortunately, the institution has come up with a solid business plan to regain its footing. It was developed by Natalie Ronayne, the institution’s director since 2007 and the wife of Chris Ronayne, director of University Circle Inc., the non-profit community development corporation for the cultural district four miles east of downtown.

The botanical garden’s plan calls for paying down the remaining $10 in debt through the annual operating budget while preserving endowment capital and raising another $20 million to pay for a new round of renovations. The goal is to boost revenue from admissions and special events, which in turn will relieve pressure on the diminished endowment.

View full sizeSteven Litt, The Plain DealerA reflecting pool on the terrace behind the Cleveland Botanical Garden’s 1966 building.

Meanwhile, the botanical garden aims to serve a more diverse audience by expanding its acclaimed Green Corps program, which trains and pays city high school students to care for half a dozen learning farms across Cleveland.

“We don’t call it a turnaround,” said Jeff Biggar, president of the botanical garden’s board of trustees. “It’s a business plan to move it forward — the Vision for Our Vibrant Future.”

The botanical garden appears to be on course to a happy resolution, but its experience should be a cautionary tale for other Cleveland institutions with big building projects under way or soon to be completed, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland.

It’s also far from unique. A boom in cultural construction projects has led to overbuilding that triggered layoffs and cutbacks at performing arts centers and museums across the country, according to “Set in Stone,” a report released in June by the University of Chicago. 

Cultural institutions often find it easier to raise millions of dollars to put up a dramatic new buildings than to pay for operating costs after the ribbon-cutting. Tempted by the allure of leaving a legacy, well-intentioned boards of trustees sometimes lead their institutions off a cliff.

That’s what happened in 2006 to HealthSpace Cleveland, formerly the Cleveland Health Museum, which closed after 70 years in business, and three years after completing a beautiful new building on Euclid Avenue at E. 93rd Street, designed by Cleveland architect Steve Bucchieri.

HealthSpace sold the new building to the Cleveland Clinic to settle debts, and saw its mission, programs and remaining endowment absorbed by the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

The botanical garden never came that close to disaster, but it suffered a loss of confidence and momentum.

View full sizeMarvin Fong, The Plain DealerThe “Glass House” at the Cleveland Botanical Garden contains two biomes devoted to the cloud forests of Costa Rica and the spiny desert of Madagascar.

“Fear seeps into the morale of an organization,” Ronayne said. “You have a sword of Damocles overhead. The ability to think creatively in a prolonged state of crisis is very difficult. You’re quick to rule things out and dismiss ideas. You’re always coming from the point of view of deficits and audits.”

The difficulty was rooted in simple math: The institution raised $50 million for its big expansion project, but actually spent $70 million, Ronayne said. It financed the $20 million difference through a complex deal that included a bond issued by Cuyahoga County, backed up with the letter of credit from Allied Irish.

The expansion, carried out under former director Brian Holley — and the trustees who backed him — quadrupled the botanical garden’s building off East Boulevard to 160,000 square feet. It made the once sleepy and faintly snooty institution suddenly look like a welcoming, premier destination.

The project included a new main facade with a handsome, convex arc of limestone and glass, a sky-lighted lobby and shop, and two spacious glass-enclosed biomes containing exhibits on the cloud forests of Costa Rica and the spiny desert of Madagascar. They’re packed with living specimens including birds, reptiles and butterflies

Prior to the expansion, the garden had also erected a fence around its 10 acres of city-owned land in Wade Oval to control entry to all the attractions including a children’s garden, a collection of themed gardens and the Western Reserve Herb Garden.

Gund’s design was crisp, contemporary and appealing for the most part, although it didn’t mix entirely well with the institution’s original 40,000-square-foot pavilion in tan-colored stone, designed in the 1960s by New York architect Geoffrey Platt.

More to the financial point, attendance drooped below predicted levels to about 140,000 a year before Ronayne succeeded Holley.

Ronayne said her job “is to deal with the cards I’ve been dealt,” and that she doesn’t want to revisit the past. Her plan for the future, which aims at boosting attendance to 175,000 a year, makes sense, and donors are buying into it. The influential Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation signaled approval quietly in February with a $500,000 grant to help the institution refashion its image and website, and to punch up its holiday season Wintershow.

Ronayne has since raised $1.2 million to convert the garden’s inefficient library into a multi-purpose room for exhibits and special events, which will drive attendance and revenue. The renovation, due for completion in November, also includes installing a stunning collection of rare books in a new, glass-enclosed space, where volumes will be visible and more accessible. Already, attendance is up to 155,000 a year, the highest count since 2003.

“I’m not saying this was a cakewalk at all,” Ronayne says, “but I’m glad people stuck with me.”

Looking ahead, the botanical garden needs to make better use of its grounds, to gradually impose a clearer sense of its own style and to provide more educational materials, including labels, on a vast and fascinating array of plants.

Today, the campus feels like a bit of a hodgepodge. For example, gardens devoted to themes such as waterfalls, shade plants and small conifers, for example, were designed and installed, and are maintained, by local landscaping companies whose names are prominently announced on signs. These gardens clash in style with one another and look like exhibits from a trade show.

As Ronayne moves ahead with her plan, she also needs to avoid marring Gund’s addition with poorly designed changes. This is especially true of a proposed new production greenhouse that would jut from the main façade designed by Gund. This job ought to be handled with extreme care by Gund or someone else of his caliber. Once you’ve bought the Mercedes, you don’t let just any mechanic work on it.

The larger lesson is that trustees of all cultural institutions need to stay loyal, and continue writing checks, if things don’t work out as they planned after a big expansion project. At the Cleveland Botanical Garden, so far, this appears to be the case. 

THE many changes in garden design over the past 400 years is the theme of an illustrated talk taking place at the Devon Rural Archive.

The talk on Thursday, October 4, is to be given by garden historian and graduate of the Schumacher college, Letta Jones.

Entitled ‘Four Hundred Years of Garden History’, Letta’s lecture will explore how the 18th century garden landscape evolved from its more formal 17th century predecessor and how the more eclectic garden styles of the 19th and 20th century emerged.

Born in South Devon, Letta Jones is a freelance lecturer in Horticulture, Garden History and the History and Identification of Herbs.

A trained Landscape Horticulturist, she has a Master’s Degree in the History of Medicine and has lectured at Birkbeck College, University of London for 15 years.

The talk will take place at 7pm in the lecture room at the Devon Rural Archive, Shilstone, near Modbury.

Tickets are priced at £5 each and booking is advisable.

Call Abi on 01548 830832 to reserve your place.

Refreshments will be available from 6.30pm. For further information visit: www.devonruralarchive.com.

Photo by Brandon Dill

Judges complimented the Zaners on doing so much with a small space on their Countrywood property.

Photo by Brandon Dill

Ann Zaner has more than 100 varieties of hydrangeas growing in the rambling, shady gardens of her home. She recommends varieties that max out at 3 feet.

Photo by Brandon Dill

This cottage, with a cozy front porch providing a view of Ann and Jim Zaner’s huge backyard garden, doubles as a storage shed.

Photo by Brandon Dill

The Zaners pose on one of the winding walkways that pass through the many hydrangeas in their backyard garden.

Ann and Jim Zaner, both master gardeners, have built a series of garden rooms throughout their Countrywood property, truly maximizing every bit of their space.

Their garden was selected as a runner-up in the ornamental garden category for The Commercial Appeal’s 2012 Garden of the Year contest.

“I liked the fact that it was a very small space, but they had done so much with it,” says contest judge Kim Rucker, greenhouse manager for the Dixon Gallery and Gardens. “You went around the corner, and you were in a totally different room. It was like a house the way they had it laid out.”

The Zaners work together in the garden with Jim concentrating on hardscaping and Ann handling design and art. The garden includes a raised deck area, a garden shared with neighbors, a pond with waterfall, a fountain and a brick fireplace, as well as a bathroom and shower. The property holds a hydrangea collection of about 100 different varieties, as well as extensive hosta varieties.

Ann selects her favorite hydrangeas based on length of bloom time and how attractive the blooms remain after being on the plant for a while. She used peat moss when building the hydrangea beds, and she amends the beds with lime and azalea fertilizer. “A perfect pH balance makes purple,” Ann says.

Some of her favorite hydrangeas are Incrediball, Forever Pink, Limelight and Nikko Blue.

“Forever Pink is stunning throughout the fall, and it only gets 3 feet tall,” Ann says. “You really have to appreciate those. If you are planting close to the house, you want hydrangeas that max out at 3 feet tall. You don’t want the 6-footers.”

Ann likes to paint dried hydrangea blooms and use them for holiday decorating. “Incrediball is beautiful, and it stays beautiful through the fall,” she says. “It would look like that through winter, other than it will lose its leaves. I tend to cut them off about November and make my Christmas wreathes. Incrediball is the perfect one to do that with. If you spray a little spray glue on it and put on some glitter, it’s even prettier.

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Wilmington, DE, September 13, 2012 (Brandywine Museums and Gardens Alliance) – Foliage, art exhibits, family activities, and unique events create an awesome autumn in the Brandywine Valley. Highlights are below; visit BMGA member institutions’ websites for more details. 

The Brandywine River Museum presents Picturing Poe: Illustrations for Edgar Allan Poe’s Stories and Poems, September 8–November 15.

This exhibition presents works from more than two dozen artists who have interpreted Poe’s stories and poems, including Poe’s earliest illustrator, F.O.C. Darley, who was chosen for the task by the author himself. After Poe’s 1849 death, an international cast including Édouard Manet, Gustave Doré, Paul Gauguin, James Ensor, Aubrey Beardsley, and others were inspired by Poe’s macabre writings. Original paintings, drawings, prints, and first-edition books are on display. Associated events include a wine-tasting, a performance by Hedgerow Theatre, and more; complete list here. 

A new program for the Museum, Music on the Brandywine, has its inaugural concert September 20, 7:30 p.m. The evening features soprano Kathryn Guthrie-Demos and pianist Andrew Hauze from Astral Artists, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to discover exceptionally talented emerging classically trained performers. Light refreshments provided; cash bar. Galleries open at 7 p.m. Tickets $15, members and students; $25, non-members. Click  here to purchase tickets.

The Festival of Goblins creeps into the Delaware Art Museum on Saturday, October 27, 4:30–7 p.m. Kids and their families will enjoy a trick-or-treat scavenger hunt, making boo-tiful art, spooky stories performed by interactive storyteller and illustrator Jeff Hopkins, dancing to thrilling and chilling music, a costume parade, and much more! Children are invited to come in their most creative costume. Complimentary snacks and drinks included; additional food available for purchase. Ticket prices and additional information here. 

The Museum is celebrating 100 years of supporting the visual arts in its community. To commemorate past annual exhibitions of painting and crafts, Centennial Juried Exhibition will be on view October 20, 2012–January 13, 2013, featuring drawings, paintings, sculpture, photography, video, and installation art from artists living in Delaware or within 100 miles of the Museum.  

Guest-juried by John B. Ravenal, the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the show celebrates the tradition of juried exhibitions and identifies artistic trends that will characterize the region’s future. 

 Delaware Yesterday, DelawareToday, 1962-2012 celebrates the 50th anniversary of DelawareToday magazine with an exhibit from the Delaware Historical Society at the Delaware History Museum, open through March 30, 2013. Examine the past 50 years through Delaware Today’s coverage and the Delaware Historical Society’s collections. Whether your family has been here 200 years or you moved here recently, you’re sure to learn something that will help you understand how Delaware’s yesterdays shape the Delaware we know today.

On Thursday, September 27, mix a little history with the opportunity to visit Wilmington’s newest taproom, Ernest Scott, at Think Drink: Food Beer Pairing. The evening, which starts at 6 p.m., includes a talk about the history of beer-making, a short walking tour along Market Street, five beer samples and five food samples. Must be 21. Reservations required; tickets $20. Register here or call 302-295-2382.

Join the DHS for a fascinating Wilmington Brandywine Cemetery Tour, 701 Delaware Avenue in Wilmington, to learn about Civil War soldiers and notable civilians buried here. Saturday, October 13 and Saturday, October 27, 10 a.m.–12 p.m. Reservations required; call 302-295-3284 or emailamaccari@dehistory.org. $5.00/member, $10/non-member.

The Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts—where admission is always free!—has a wide variety of exhibits and events this fall. Don’t miss“The Real Woman of Philadelphia Cream Cheese Contest” through November 1. The mockumentary follows Philadelphia artist Jenny Drumgoole’s quest to meet Southern culinary star Paula Deen by participating in Kraft Foods’ 2010 online cooking contest and female-oriented marketing campaign, Real Women of Philadelphia. Drumgoole submitted videos about her unique dishes, including “Cognitive Developmental Special Cheese Macaroni,” and she randomly contacted other contestants to send footage of themselves flipping their hair while brandishing packages of cream cheese to hilarious effect. The resulting film is hilarious, but also has a serious side as it questions our cultural obsession with celebrity.  

Go on a Rainforest Adventure at the Delaware Museum of Natural History, October 6, 2012–January 6, 2013. This multisensory experience with more than 40 interactive components introduces visitors to tropical rainforests, their unique ecology, and their challenges. Discover plant and animal life, become a scientist, climb through the canopy, and explore a gorilla nest.

Slither into the ooey, gooey world of bats, bugs, and other creepy crawlies at the Halloween event, Bug-a-Boo Goo, Saturday, October 20, 2012. Specimen displays, games, crafts, activities, a pumpkin judging contest, and live animals from the Philadelphia Zoo highlight this hands-on event for the whole family.  

Rev it up at the Hagley Car Show on the grounds of Hagley Museum and Library, Sunday, September 16, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Check out more than 500 antique and restored cars that date from the early 1900s-1980s. The show features vehicle parades, motoring music, video and go-kart racing, and a festival food court. Click here to purchase tickets.

Every Saturday in October from 11 a.m.–4 p.m., Brandywine Hayrides take visitors through the beautiful fall foliage in the Powder Yard. See a gunpowder explosion, the roll mill in action, and working 19th-century machines. Live music, local cider, and seasonal craft-making.  Included with admission.

The Museum has many other events this autumn, including a top-notchCraft Fair, the Golden Pheasants Seagram’s Tasting, and All-American Daywith a 19th-century baseball game. Click here for details. 

Get to Longwood Gardens to catch a last glimpse Light: Installations by Bruce Munro, closing September 29. Explore Munro’s installations set throughout the Conservatory and Gardens: a field of light reminiscent of flowers, a meadow of glowing towers, a shower of cascading raindrops fashioned from delicate bulbs. 

From October 27–November 18, the Chrysanthemum Festival will wow visitors with more than 20,000 plants grown in extraordinary ways, preserving an ancient art form while innovating technique and display. See tall cloud forms, 13-foot arches, ball standards, shields, and the largest Thousand Bloom Mum in North America with over 1,000 white flowers on one stem!

Longwood’s Garden Railway opens October 1, a whimsical display set into motion with G-scale model trains. The railway will delight all ages with custom trains chugging along 450 feet of charmingly landscaped track in and out of tunnels, past water features, and over bridges—including one that’s 17 feet long and 12 feet high. The littlest conductors will enjoy a special section installed at their eye level.

The gates of Mt. Cuba Center are opening wide! For four days this fall, visitors may wander the grounds of the region’s finest wildflower gardens on their own. No reservations are necessary for Visitor Days, September 28 and 29, October 26 and 27, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Enjoy Discovery Stations; visit the Piedmont Rock Outcrop on a guided excursion at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.; and help evaluate Heucheras and Coreopsis in our Trial Garden.

At the Main House, view “The Spirit of Art at Mt. Cuba Center,” an exhibition of paintings featuring scenic views of Mt. Cuba Center. Tickets are $3 for adults, $2 for children 6-16, and free for children under 6 years old. Details available here or at 302-239-4244. Not wheelchair or stroller accessible.  

Tours are available at Nemours Mansion and Gardens in September and October. The mansion, built by Alfred I. duPont for his second wife, Alicia, was designed in the late-18th-century style she adored, while incorporating the latest technology and many of Alfred’s own inventions. The surrounding 222-acre gardens are the finest example of formal French gardens in North America.

Marvels of symmetry, they closely follow the mode of the Petit Trianon at Versailles. Reservations are highly recommended for individuals and required for groups. Tours last two and a half to three hours. Admission $15.00. For hours and reservations, call 302-651-6912 or toll-free, 1-800-651-6912, or reserve online here.

Go on an entertaining search for things that go bump in the night atRockwood Park and Museum on Ghost Tours I, every Saturday in October, 7-8:30 p.m. Tour the mansion, seeking your own paranormal experience, while guides relate tales documented by those who have lived and worked at Rockwood. Must be age 12 or older.

Ghost Tours II, for adults only, are held every Saturday in October from 9 p.m.-midnight. Session include instruction and hands-on use of paranormal investigative equipment as participants explore the mansion.
Register for all Ghost Tours I or II online here. Participants must be in good health and able to go up and down steps comfortably.

Interior design, history, and Winterthur come together at the 6th Annual Chic It Up! Design Conference, “It’s a Party!” at Winterthur Museum, Garden Library on Saturday, September 15. Get inspired by presentations on great parties of the 20th century, Southern style entertaining, the high life on ocean liners, and more. Call 800-448-3883 to register.

Bring the family for some “wheel” fun at Truck Tractor Day, Saturday, October 6, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Celebrate the history of farming at Winterthurand the completion of the new state-of-the-art Brown Horticulture Learning Center, where guests and Garden experts can explore horticultural topics in depth. Explore tractors, farm vehicles, and fire trucks, do arts and crafts, take a hayride, and milk a mechanical cow! Food and drink available for purchase.
Get a glimpse into the world of Jane Austen, as seen through the eyes of Sandy Lerner, Austen expert and author of Second Impressions, the widely anticipated sequel to Pride and Prejudice. Information about book-signings and the Jane Austen Gift Show here.
Reaching and Teaching Through Material Culture:  A Winterthur Graduate Program 60th Anniversary Symposium September 28–29, 2012, is a symposium on material culture and art conservation, featuring experts from around the country. Includes tours of A Lasting Legacy, which highlights the accomplishments of six decades of graduate programming by Winterthur and the University of Delaware. Call 800-448-3883 to register. 

For more information, visit our website, and join us on on Facebook and Twitter. For high-resolution images, visit brandywinetreasures.picturepush.com.

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The above information provided by the Brandywine Museums and Gardens Alliance and is deemed reliable.  Please confirm all information before traveling. 

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Part interior illusionist and part aesthetic anorexic, Mr. McInerney is a practicing member of the cult of disappearing design, the now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t ethos that aims to secrete away anything that needs a button, a cord or a subwoofer to work. It’s a passion that Mr. McInerney, a 44-year-old architect from San Diego, takes seriously, comparing his drive to streamline with the process of writing a novel.

“Each word is considered and refined, not only for the word’s meaning but also its relationship to other words,” he wrote in an e-mail. “And the landscape in which the words are brought together.”

Indeed, more than simply stashing your stereo in a closet or throwing a shawl over your ottoman, the all-invisible aesthetic aims for a higher-minded goal: creating unified spaces that flow from room to room and place to place.

“We’re interested in having our work reflect and melt into the environment,” said Rene Gonzalez, a Miami architect who reflected and melted his vision into a client’s $47 million home in Dade County, Fla. “We think about enclosures that can dissipate and disappear, so that the outside and inside bleed into each other.”

Driven by technology and old-fashioned ingenuity, such design pursues goals like “zero sightlines” (fixtures that can’t be seen in profile) as well as creating seamless — and shadowless — surfaces. Tricks are plentiful and often James Bond-ian: light switches are camouflaged to appear to be part of the wall, for example, while lighting fixtures lurk behind small apertures.

Handle-less drawers open with a touch of a finger, while dining room tables collapse to less than an inch wide. (Note: remove plates before folding.)

One major proponent of the unseen look is the Trufig brand, which offers all manner of disguised designs, like power outlets and data jacks that blend into the background, and tablets and touch panels installed into walls. Trufig advertises itself as “a revolutionary design solution” that abides by a strict rule: “Be completely flush-mounted.” All of which, the brand promises, will alleviate deeply annoying eyesores, including devices that “protrude out of the wall or ceiling creating distracting shadow lines.”

“Unfortunately, code, safety and convenience dictate they be there,” reads a section of the company’s brochure, which features a photograph of a chameleon in front of a marble wall. “Do they have to be such a visual intrusion?”

On a more practical, less superficial level, disappearing design is meant to both maximize one’s ground plan (particularly in small urban apartments) and minimize the “visual noise” created by things like bulky knobs, dust-prone vents and the ancient albatross of many decorators: the wide-screen TV.

“People like, more and more, a clean look,” said Alexandra Mathews, the vice president for international sales and marketing at Lucifer Lighting, which is based in San Antonio. “It’s nice to be in a place where you’re not forced to look at a bunch of things.”

And while Ms. Mathews and other acolytes concede that such a look isn’t for everyone — “Some people like hardware and clutter,” she said — they note that there is plenty of proof that such a modernist-tinged look is in vogue, offering as evidence the popularity of both Ikea furniture and iPads. (The former being mass-market minimal, the latter being basically buttonless.)

B. Alex Miller, a partner in Taylor Miller Architecture in Brooklyn, concurred, adding that the debate between showing things and stowing things is a long-running one. “You go to any architecture office on the face of the planet,” he said, “and it’s a battle that goes on every day.”

Joesph Tanney, at Resolution: 4 Architecture, said that reflected light is also a useful tool, something he employed with a 30-foot wall of cabinetry with hidden hardware that he recently designed for a Fifth Avenue apartment. Made of medium-density fiberboard, wrapped in glossy thermofoil, it created a smooth, airy effect. “The place feels like you’re in a cloud!” Mr. Tanney wrote in an e-mail.

Much of the current deceptive design originated decades ago with tinkerers who took apart factory-built goods (stereo speakers and tuners, ceiling fans and cooktops) to find ways of making them more appealing. And while professional work of this variety used to be the exclusive domain of custom designers — very expensive custom designers — today’s disappearing acts are more likely to be mass-produced and considerably cheaper to pull off.

“It’s something that architects and designers have been wanting to do for years, but it’s always been ultraluxury, one-off custom stuff,” said Rob Roland, the executive vice president of Dana Innovations in San Clemente, Calif., the parent company of Trufig. “What’s starting to happen now is that it’s moving down the pyramid.” And all over the house, apparently. C. C. Sullivan, a spokesman for Lucifer (the company of lighting, not the Prince of Darkness), outlined all kinds of spots where traditional elements are disappearing or becoming less obtrusive, including cooktops, kitchen appliances, bath accessories, drawer fronts, baseboards, medicine cabinets and window frames.

Many of the fixes, while technological in nature, are meant to hide other unsightly technological gadgets. For example, a decade ago, flat-screen TVs seemed to be the answer to the giant consoles of the “Ozzie and Harriet” era. But the growing size of the screens has proved to be a new challenge.

In response, the Séura company in Green Bay, Wis., sells a line of “vanishing” TVs that look like large mirrors when they are not being used. The company offers more than 100 frames for the sets, from “sleek accent” styles to a “collection of candy-colored frames” that would seemingly defeat the purpose of de-emphasizing the TV.

But even before you hit the media room, design is disappearing, with companies like Modern Doors Direct in Miami offering frame-free entryways that promise clean lines, a European look and, it almost seems, a better sex life.

“Clean lines and rumpled sheets,” a video on the site announces, depicting two very good-looking people in love. “Sleek, seamless doors lead to a life beyond this room.” (O.K., just make sure you close the seamless door before you rumple those sheets.)

And speaking of sleeping arrangements, one of the earliest proponents of disappearing design was William L. Murphy, who invented his pivoting bed in the early 1900s. Since then, many have attempted improvements on the Murphy bed, with varying degrees of success.

Take the Bed Up Down system, which allows a mattress to seemingly materialize from the heavens, dropping into any space available (it’s actually lowered from a compartment in the ceiling). The company’s Italian language Web site is positively bubbly about the levitating berth. “Up down bed is the bed that space does not care,” the site reads. “But it creates!”

The French designer René Bouchara also has a take on the Murphy bed, with a sleek white-on-white retractable that would not look out of place in “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Likewise, Mr. Bouchara designed a nifty, and nearly invisible, console table, sold at Roche Bobois, that is made almost entirely of clear glass, which must be great fun with clumsy children or easily confused pets.

Transparency and simplicity can be effective tactics, but Mr. Miller, the Brooklyn architect, noted that sometimes complexity worked just as well. For a hair salon his firm recently designed, he employed a “relentless ubiquity,” he said. “We had to fight fire with fire.”

The approach involved covering every surface in the salon with wood shelving (even the ceiling), creating what he called a “complex kind of waffle space.” The result, he said, was a monochromatic environment that made the salon seem warmer.

That said, while waffles are fine, thin planar surfaces appear to be more common in disappearing design. Fisher Paykel makes sleek flat-topped stoves with controls that sit on the same plane as the ceramic glass cooktop. No messy back panel, no greasy front knobs, and the entire stove is less than four inches tall.

But that’s almost bulky compared with the table and chairs designed by Alexander Gendell’s Folditure, whose futuristic, collapsible pieces continue a tradition of folding furniture that it says dates to ancient Egypt. (The Pyramids were famously tough to decorate.) Both the table and chair, known as the Cricket and the Leaf, fold to less than an inch thick, which means you could hang the seating for your dinner party in the same closet where you stow your guests’ coats.

Folding is also the idea behind a shower concept from Duravit, a German company that claims to specialize in “living bathrooms for living people.” Its OpenSpace shower enclosure comes with two locking doors that collapse against the wall after you’re done scrubbing. The doors can be clad in a reflective surface as well, providing a full-length mirror.

Can’t see yourself through all that steam? Well, that’s when you need the wall-mounted exhaust fan by the Ukrainian designer Michael Samoriz, which pops out from the wall, then retracts when its work is done. The fan’s exterior is meant to blend in with tile surfaces, and the only indication that the device is not another tile is a thin strip of LEDs around its perimeter.

AND while we’re on the subject of folding and collapse, why not add some decay to the mix? Giovanni Tomasini, an Italian designer with a soft spot for small things, designed a garden gnome that dissolves in front of your eyes. Created with composted materials, Mr. Tomasini’s sculptures slowly fall apart as they sit on your lawn, leaving behind a deposit of plant food and hard-to-forget images of melting elves.

Architects like Mr. McInerney, of course, hope that visitors will take away more-pleasing images from their work. And at his home in San Diego, that effort is everywhere (and nowhere) all at once: the oh-so-subtle stereo speakers on the ceiling, for example, are perfectly integrated into the texture and color of the plaster. Likewise, light streams out of slots and punctures rather than visible fixtures. And the lamps that are in view plug into outlets that are also integrated into the plaster finish.

All of which seems to be both a confirmation of one of Mr. McInerney’s long-held beliefs about design (“Architecture consists of many single parts which must be joined together”) and something he thought was long overdue.

“It’s so simple,” he said. “It’s sort of like, ‘Why has it taken so long to get here?’ ”

More than a clustering of eye-catching events, the 2012 Detroit Design Festival is a chance for designers, artists and the people who love them to come together.

The second year for the fest kicks off Wednesday, Sept. 19 and runs through Sunday, Sept. 23 at locations all over the city. 66 events ranging from gallery shows to a pop-up playground seek to attract design students, professionals, the simply curious and even the next generation.

“We really want to make kids feel a part of it,” said Melinda Anderson, events director for the Detroit Creative Corridor Center (DC3), which puts on the event. “These are our future designers and it’s great to get them exposed to design now.”

No kids, but love “Blade Runner”? There’s a talk for that. Could care less about graphic design, but into fashion? You have a couple choices. Don’t know where to start? Take an art bike tour with Wheelhouse Detroit or visit the DDF Hub at Woodward Avenue and Erskine Street. DC3 will be in a transformed Michigan State University parking garage to answer questions and help people navigate the events.

A quick glance at the festival’s website shows an almost overwhelming number of activities, but this year’s fest is actually more streamlined. In 2011, 10,000 attended more than 80 events in eight days.

“After last year’s festival we did a survey and some of the feedback said it was too spread out [and that] there were too many events, so we scaled it down,” Anderson explained. “This year we’ve done a better job, I think, of clustering these experiences together to make them more accessible to people. It makes sense to really focus on the quality.”

Eastern Market After Dark is one of the large-scale “experiences,” with more than 15 shops, artist studios, galleries and hackerspaces open to the public in a concentrated area Thursday evening. The number of total events has gone down, but there are many more creatives involved on the back end, — 300 people total organizing the happenings. Part of the goal of the fest, both as it occurs and in the planning stages, is to spur collaboration between individuals in the design world.

“One of the needs we heard come up over and over again is a need for physical and virtual platforms where practitioners can share their work beyond Detroit city limits,” said DC3 Director Matt Clayson. “How do we create intentional collisions between designers and creatives in Detroit and those who value and support that work as a vehicle for social and economic change?”

Clayson pointed to the area’s high number of designers — the state has the most industrial and commercial designers in the country, and the creative sector is one of the largest employers in the Detroit area, behind healthcare and business service — but acknowledged that the connectedness still isn’t there, with many creatives spread out, tucked away in places like GM’s Tech Center.

“We have all the natural assets and the human assets. How do you begin to concentrate those assets … to really show Detroit as a creative force to be reckoned with?” Clayson asked.

Along with the Drinks x Design events and a forthcoming online network, DDF is one of the major ways Clayson and DC3 attempt to do exactly that.

“Design means transformation to me,” Anderson said. “We hope these connections made by designers and community groups continues to move Detroit forward.”

Below, see some of the most exciting, free events happening for the 2012 Detroit Design Festival, and find the rest at their website.

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• Creating Play, Pop-Up Playground, Saturday / Sunday

  Bring the kids! DDF says the a href=”http://detroitdesignfestival.com/pages/creating-play”Creating Play area/a will have a playground, art installation designed by children, tire garden and painting station.

• ‘Syd Mead: Progressions,’ Wednesday – Saturday

  Visual futurist Syd Mead has a resume that spans decades: you’ve seen his work in films like Blade Runner, Aliens and Tron. On Friday, he’ll a href=”http://www.detroitdesignfestival.com/pages/toyota-lecture-series-visual-artist-syd-mead”give a talk/a at College for Creative Studies’ Taubman Center. If you miss it, there will also be a show of his paintings, “a href=”http://www.detroitdesignfestival.com/pages/syd-mead-progressions”Syd Mead: Progressions/a,” running through Saturday.
  emFlickr photo a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/centralasian/5426408034/”by Cea/a./em

• Blacksmithing Demos At Fortress Studios, Saturday / Sunday

  Wood firing, wheel throwing, blacksmithing hand forging, blacksmithing power hammer and many other things you wish you knew how to do a href=”http://www.detroitdesignfestival.com/pages/fortress-studios-open-studio”will be demonstrated/a at Fortress Studios Saturday and Sunday.

• ‘archiCULTURAL SHIFT’ Exhibition, Panel Discussion , Friday – Sunday

  A Friday panel and exhibition open through Sunday at the MIES Storefront will critically examine the role of architecture in culture and how the medium may need to evolve in the future. While that may sound a little academic for non-architecture nerds, anyone can certainly enjoy the SPACEBUSTER structure that will briefly live in the parking lot, pictured, designed by Berlin’s Raumlabor.
  emFlickr photo a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/23912576@N05/3451958461/”by laverrue/a/em.

• ‘#awakening: A Dance+Film+Music Festival,’ Thursday – Sunday

  From ballet to hip hop, Tangent Gallery and Lafayette Greens will be the site of a full schedule of music, art and dance. The event, which will also have a panel discussion about digital media, youth culture and community arts in Detroit, is organized by blackhackerspace art + design collective and Detroit Dance Project.

• Ziggy Johnson Tribute, Saturday

  A free a href=”http://detroitdesignfestival.com/pages/ziggy-johnson-tribute”bus tour of Detroit’s jazz history/a (a href=”http://ziggyjohnson.eventbrite.com/”register at Eventbrite/a) is part of the longer event hosted by Glenna Johnson, celebrating her father, producer, choreographer and dancer Ziggy Johnson.

• Lafayette Park Guided Walking Tours, Sunday

  a href=”http://detroitdesignfestival.com/pages/lafayette-park-guided-walking-tours”Take a stroll Sunday/a through Detroit’s architectural history. The Lafayette Park neighborhood was designed collaboratively between architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and urban planner Ludwig Hilberseimer.

• ‘Getting There; Personal Cartography Of Detroit’, Thursday

  The a href=”http://www.detroitdesignfestival.com/pages/getting-there-personal-cartography-of-detroit”show at the DC3 accelerator gallery/a asked artists and makers to map their city.

• ‘Cosmo(s)politan – An Evening of Film And Video’, S

  ‘Cosmo(s)politan’ offers music, refreshments in a social lounge, letterpress services and of course, experimental film from a diverse group of filmmakers. According to the organizers, the films “explore the mysticism and absurdity of urban dwelling.”

  It all takes place at the Jam Handy, which used to be a film production studio and has been converted into a venue and performance space.

• ‘Surveying Greatness: The Work Of Corrado Parducci,’ Wednesday – Saturday

  Architectural sculptor Corrado Parducci was extremely talented — and prolific. You cana href=”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/12/corrado-parducci-architect-detroit-film-_n_1670411.html”see his masterful touch on buildings all over Detroit/a. The Parducci Society has organized an a href=”http://detroitdesignfestival.com/pages/surveying-greatness-the-work-of-corrado-parducci”exhibition of his work/a documented by photographer Jack P. Johnson, which can be seen at the main branch of the Detroit Public Library through Saturday.

• Eastern Market After Dark, Thursday

  Thursday evening, the a href=”http://www.facebook.com/events/184701198328035/”creative side of Eastern Market will come out to play/a, with galleries like Red Bull House of Art, pictured, open late. Letterpress studios Signal Return and Salt and Cedar, the Workroom boutique, the OmniCorpDetroit makerspace and many other destinations will open their doors for art shows and events.

• ‘Storied’ At Lincoln Street Art Park, Friday – Sunday

  a href=”http://detroitdesignfestival.com/pages/storied”The “Storied” exhibition/a at the Lincoln Street Art Park features mixed media work exploring the genre of storytelling. In addition, they’ll have a small lending library. We’re pretty sure an art park (weather permitting) is a perfect place to relax with a book on your Detroit Design Fest downtime.

• ‘Imaging Detroit,’ Friday – Saturday

  Imaging Detroit promises a “a href=”http://www.detroitdesignfestival.com/pages/imaging-detroit”pop-up agora/a” at Perrien Park at Chene Street and East Warren, opening Friday evening and continuing through Saturay, with installations, screenings and discussions about the city. a href=”http://www.modcar.org/ImagingDetroit_new.html”See their website/a for more details.

• Hopscotch Detroit, Saturday

  Hopscotch Detroit made themselves an honorable mission — to a href=”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/22/hopscotch-detroit_n_1822306.html”make the longest hopscotch course/a … ever. Kids and grown-up kids can come out Saturday to watch the spectacle, hop in the squares, and maybe chalk in a few themselves. The course is set to stretch more than 4 miles from Midtown to downtown. As a bonus, a href=”http://hopscotchdetroit.com/#map”their route will take you past many of the DDF events/a.

• Yamasaki Building Tour, Thursday – Saturday

  a href=”http://detroitdesignfestival.com/pages/yamasaki-building-tours”Take a tour/a of Wayne State University’s four buildings designed by Minoru Yamasaki, the architect behind the World Trade Center.

• Better Block Detroit, Saturday / Sunday

  On Saturday and Sunday at E Grand Boulevard and St Antoine Street, a href=”http://detroitdesignfestival.com/pages/better-block-detroit”you’ll find Better Block/a, a project of the U.S. Green Building Council and Wayne State University. With food, drink, entertainment and art, they’ll demonstrate the positive effects of placemaking and complete streets, aiming to make the block “a model of what can happen when sustainable design is applied to an underserved urban area.”

• ‘Working Title (An Exhibition On How We Work),’ Wednesday – Friday

  “Michigan has been at the forefront of developing the look and feel of our work environment ,” say the “Working Title” organizers. The show at a href=”http://detroitdesignfestival.com/pages/working-title-an-exhibition-on-how-we-work”a pop-up gallery/a sponsored by Compuware will be open during DDF, with work from local artists, a Michigan furniture manufacturer and interactive elements.

• Also On The Huffington Post..

  “Welcome” by Choi Jeonghwa is an installation art project, which uses sound and picture manipulation.

 

 

Brampton and Fordham are celebrating after winning top awards in the Anglia in Bloom contest.

Communities across the region have been commended for the quality of their floral displays, but local towns and villages seem to have done less well than in recent years.

The awards were presented in a ceremony at the Burgess Hall in St Ives.

Bob Ollier, Anglia in Bloom chairman, said: “After one of the wettest and most difficult summers, including a hosepipe ban, it is astonishing that the Anglia communities have achieved some of the best blooming displays across the six counties of the Anglia region.”

Brampton came out top in the small town category, in which a gold award also went to Godmanchester and a silver gilt to Sawtry.

An award for the best new entry went to Fordham, which also won a silver gilt in the small village section.

Local communities did better in the large town category, with Huntingdon and St Neots both winning gold and a silver gilt going to St Ives.

In the urban awards, Moor in Huntingdon scored a silver.

Dennis Smith, from Huntingdon Town Council, won the Roy Lacey Award

Both Holt Island, St Ives, and Portholme Meadow, Brampton, were nominated for biodiversity awards, but missed out on the prize, as did Action for Swifts, St Neots, in the best conservation project awards and Jubilee Gardens, St Neots, in best drought-sustainable garden.

Fordham and Sawtry were nominated for an environmental award, but lost out and Hartford Road, Huntingdon, also missed out after being nominated in the best local authority floral display category.

The Manor Cheshire Home at Brampton was nominated for best garden for special needs, Brampton Youth Forum for the best young persons’ project aged 12-18 and Brampton Primary School and Fordham Village School in the best young people’s project aged under 12, but all missed out.

The overall winner was Halstead, near Braintree.

julian.makey@cambridge-news.co.uk

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Casual Living Staff — Casual Living, 9/12/2012 9:46:01 AM

BALDWIN PARK, Calif. — Shade products manufacturer Treasure Garden is expanding its online presence with a new design program.

The company introduced the Design Studio, a new online sales tool aimed at promoting custom Designer Cover Collection style umbrellas. The program allows users to select an umbrella, designer cover style, fabric(s), frame finish, base and accessories for a custom shade product that suits their personality.

Consumers can see their umbrella prior to making a purchase, download a PDF, take it to a local authorized dealer and place their personalized order.

Treasure Garden offers more than 25,000 variations of shade products. For more information, visit treasuregarden.com, email info@treasuregarden.com or stop by showroom 1655 at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago.

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