By Matthew Appleby
20 June 2012
University of Greenwich landscape graduate exhibition supported by …
Slideshow: Compass big winner in Parade of Homes design …
Compass worked with landscape designers from Blendon Gardens to earn a gold award for its front entry.
Brian R. Ball
Staff reporter- Business First
Compass Homes
Inc. walked to the stage six times to pick up six gold design awards in the Building Industry Association’s 2012 Parade of Homes regional homebuilders showcase.
The builder’s 4,243-square-foot house earned gold awards – the top honor – in competition categories for floor plan design, dining room, lower level and exterior architecture. Its partnership with landscape designers from Blendon Gardens also received gold awards in the landscaping, front-entry garden and outdoor living area categories.
The house, priced at nearly $520,000, also picked up three silver awards in judging of owners suites, great rooms and family rooms, and first impressions delivered to those seeing its interior.
The parade runs through July 1 at the Meadows at Lewis Center off Lewis Center Road in Delaware County. The show offers tours of 12 newly constructed houses.
The builders showcase annually honors features of participating houses and this year was no different, with awards in 14 categories. Weaver Custom Homes
did well in the design competition, with three gold awards and a silver award. The builder took gold awards in the first interior impressions, great room/family room, and kitchen categories.
Miller Troyer Custom Homes won gold awards in the library/study and owners suite competitions. Other first-place honors went to Maronda Homes
, landscaping rear garden with Blendon Gardens; 3 Pillar Homes, best special feature; and Fischer Homes, interior design and decor with Touch of Class furniture outlet of Florence, Ky.
Brian R. Ball covers real estate, allied construction industries, development and the hospitality and hotel sectors for Business First.
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Rain garden design workshop – University of Wisconsin
Learn how beautify property and help the environment at a Rain Garden Design Workshop from 10 a.m. to noon Sunday, July 15, at the Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve office on Barkers Island in Superior.
A rain garden is a planted depression that collects and absorbs rainwater runoff from roofs, driveways, walkways and compacted lawn areas. Rain gardens are an increasingly popular tool for reducing water pollution in urban areas.
Workshop participants will receive expert guidance on designing a rain garden. They also will be able to examine the Lake Superior NERR rain garden now under construction.
The Rain Garden Design Workshop is free and open to the public. Advance registration is required by calling the Lake Superior NERR office at 715-392-3141.
In the Garden Again: At Chelsea With the Roses
We are certainly the lucky ones. A few weeks ago I took my Trustees and horticultural colleagues from NYBG to the opening night of the famous, over-the-top Chelsea Flower Show in London. This is the annual floral and garden design extravaganza presented by the venerable Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) and dating back to 1862. It is the absolute queen of flower shows internationally — setting standards for all other such expositions, and it’s a marvelous experience. Envision a great white tented pavilion surrounded by nearly ten acres of garden design installations and temporary restaurants and stands displaying every manner of garden tool, lawn mower, rabbit fence, and chaise lounge. Its permanent home is a premiere London location on the Chelsea Embankment of the Thames in the grounds of the magnificent Royal Hospital designed 300 years ago by the baroque architect Sir Christopher Wren. It’s a high-end address.
The fun lasts five days, and garden lovers line-up and struggle through the throngs — if they are fortunate enough to come by a ticket. This year’s show was sold out way in advance.
The Royal Horticultural Society, chartered in 1803, is a quintessentially British organization, like no other such outfit in the world, with 392,228 members; a distinguished string of specialist flower shows throughout the year in their central London exhibition hall a few blocks from the Chelsea site; and four fine public gardens, one of which, RHS Garden Wisley, attracts a million visitors a year. The power and energy behind this organization is the envy of all other similar enterprises, including our NYBG and many other major botanical gardens here and abroad.
The Chelsea Show and its parent RHS are old and great because the English are the world’s most passionate gardeners and have been for hundreds of years. Although it is a bit messed up at the moment because of the global warming affecting all of us, their maritime climate, along with mild winters and summers, their love of their beautiful land and their passion and special talent for domestic arrangements (not only gardens, but farms, villages, houses and interiors) have conspired since at least the time of Elizabeth I to create the ideal conditions for really great horticulture. The English know how to garden, they have designed important gardens since the Renaissance, and they have the world’s greatest set of gardens open to the public — thousands of them. They have also influenced international garden design theory and style for centuries — cottage gardens, flower gardens, and the jardin ang lais are all their creations. Nothing is better than the Englischer Garten in Munich.
In a revered annual ritual, the Chelsea Flower Show is where the flowery set gathers — where the aristocracy and their gardeners, garden writers and designers, and the garden press corps (because they really have one, unlike the situation in the U.S.) and growers and plantsmen all reconnoiter. The Chelsea show supports the industry, and the industry supports Chelsea.
Once, a long time ago, when Mrs. Thatcher was PM, she was the featured speaker at an official luncheon given on the opening day of the show for the horticultural establishment and their friends from all over the world (including me). She was in her glory, and although the Queen came to the ceremony later in the day as she usually does, it was Mrs. Thatcher who starred at lunch. She spoke about her own garden of rhododendrons at Chequers, and then turned to the “trade deficit.” She excoriated this rather stuffy, elderly audience of mostly gentlemen-growers of dahlias, etc. (who seemed to this American observer, aghast) to stop importing their tulips and daffodils from the Netherlands and start growing their own at home. I thought to myself, horticulture is at the heart of British life and economic policy.
After that lunch, we were ushered into the mammoth pavilion, and I was transported, as I have been every year since, by the beauty of the spectacle. The fabulous displays by Britain’s top growers and plant dealers are stunning. It’s horticultural theatre. This year there were two entire rose gardens with hundreds of luxuriant plants all forced into flower ahead of nature’s schedule. All in full flower you understand. And perfectly arranged ranks ten feet high of delphiniums, dozens of them, all of them of equal height and matching form, forced to flower in unison. And perfect tulips, thousands, not forced to flower, but held back from their normal schedule. And immaculate primroses standing up with erect posture, all matching one another except for their rainbow colors. Perfect peonies, lupins, begonias, agapanthus, narcissus, all in carefully arranged, matched sets. There were early spring bulbs “retarded” to flower at Chelsea time. There were the best hostas, heucheras, alliums, tropicals, carnivorous plants, ferns, irises, alpine plants you’ve ever seen. Never was there such an embarrassment of riches.
Outside the big pavilion are many temporary, custom-designed display gardens, sponsored by major banks and corporations and media empires, all created by the celebrity designers of the moment. They are lovely, although this year they were a bit too much alike perhaps, but why be churlish — they were all gorgeous.
The whole marvelous presentation, from roses to lawn mowers to fountains you too can snap up for your patio, is magical. It is a powerful reminder of the economic and spiritual value of our gardens, our plants, and our landscapes, because all of nature is a garden. The English know how to take care of theirs. We should wake up and learn how to take care of ours.
Garden Gait welcomes visitors to seven lush Lisle yards
Every June, the Lisle Woman’s Club swings open local garden gates for its annual Garden Gait walk. To celebrate its 10th anniversary, the philanthropic group has an unprecedented seven guest gardens this year.
Visitors will tour beautiful gardens on Sunday, June 24, while supporting the club’s worthy causes. Addresses and directions come with the Garden Gait 2012 ticket, but here is a sneak preview.
If you go
What: Lisle Woman’s Club’s Garden Gait, featuring seven gardens
When: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, June 24
Where: Maps are available during the event at the Museums at Lisle Station Park, 921 School St., Lisle
Cost: $15 through Friday, June 22; $17 after
Info: lislewomansclub.org
The self-guided walk begins on the grounds of the Museums at Lisle Station Park in downtown Lisle. A large white tent will feature garden art and vendors. On the grounds, the Three Sisters Garden showcases a Native American garden design that uses companion planting.
Ken and Deanna Daly
Discover summer’s splendor at the garden of Ken and Deanna Daly. A pair of large oaks frame the front yard with scalloped stone flower boxes. All the evergreens on the original ¾-acre lot started as seedlings more than 40 years ago. With the purchase of an additional lot in back, the couple now maintains 1½ acres framed with pin oak, red maple, linden and silver maple trees.
An addition to the rear of the house prompted Ken to design a two-tier stone patio with decorative stone pillars. A restful pond surrounded with rocks the couple brought back from their travels borders the upper patio.
The yard reflects Deanna’s horticultural certificate from the Morton Arboretum. There are ferns, hostas, daylilies, knock-out roses, heuchera and a Japanese oak bush. The extensive vegetable garden, hen house and clothes line reflects the couple’s self-sufficiency.
“Don’t be afraid to move a plant that is not happy,” Deanna encourages new gardeners. “Do not give up on a plant until you’ve tried it in a couple spots.”
Gary and Kathy Lenke
The lovely garden at the family home of Gary and Kathy Lenke evolved over the years as both trees and children grew. A twig in a paper cup that was a Father’s Day gift is now a full-size tree next to the driveway. A sapling pine from a school Arbor Day outing now flourishes in the front yard.
A path of Chilton steppers trimmed in pachysandra and hostas leads visitors to the rear yard where a multilevel patio has stone columns to accommodate flower boxes and the fire pit is a popular place to entertain. The first small vegetable gardens Kathy planted branched out to include herbs; sunny flower beds now in the dappled shade of tall trees sustain hostas, coreopsis, succulents and decorative grasses.
“I like the nurturing part of growing things,” said Kathy, who harvests seeds from many of her plants and starts them indoors under grow-lights in early spring.
When the house was rebuilt in 1995, the need to address the yard’s water issues led to a charming pond and trailing creek. An area where the children once played now accommodates a cozy screened gazebo accented with a pair of metal herons. The cute playhouse Gary built when the children were small is now an attractive garden shed.
“You have to keep adjusting to the maturity of the garden,” Kathy said.
Craig and Barbara Briel
Within the 24 years Craig and Barbara Briel have owned their home, the couple redesigned their entire garden and remolded a major portion of their home. Only the nine towering maple trees and a stone bird bath survived intact.
“Nothing ever happens overnight,” Craig Briel said. “Things are always changing in the garden.”
The Briels select plants for color and scent and then position them for visual pleasure. They built a natural dry creek bed to help direct water away from the house’s foundation. Where once a shed and garage stood, there is now a cascading fountain and koi pond with sweet woodruff to soften the rock edges. A tadpole introduced to the pond last year grew into a croaking frog.
The variety of plants is amazing including variegated dogwood, lungwort, azaleas, rhododendron, honeysuckle, star magnolia, tree peonies and Juddii viburnums.
The folks at the Morton Arboretum should be happy to know that a couple of tiny pines given to Girl Scouts a number of years ago are now 3 to 5 feet tall in the Briel garden.
Randy Schieb and Pat Bush
The garden of Randy Schieb and Pat Bush is as much a classroom as it is a garden. Schieb says he is a gardener and a plant collector.
Where once his vegetable garden flourished, now it shares the space as a propagation garden as tiny rose cuttings, boxwood snippets and miniature Japanese maples take root under glass jar terrariums.
“My yard is always in transition,” said Schieb, who works part time at The Growing Place in Naperville. “Everything changes and I modify as I go.”
Among the plants Schieb is most proud of are some variegated green hostas and coral bells that he received when he was 10 years old from his grandmother’s friend. Schieb also delights in pointing out the oak tree a squirrel planted.
Among the more unique plants in the garden is the dark green leaf Oregon-grapeholly, the cross-shaped flower of the Hills of Snow hydrangeas, a rounded prickly pear cactus, a pair of Montgomery blue spruces, an American holly tree and a Ginkgo tree.
Laura O’Dell
As a child, Laura O’Dell did not like to pull weeds so it may surprise those who knew her then that now she loves to “play” in her garden’s dirt and has a sizable collection of gardening books.
O’Dell uses an artistic approach to her gardening. Her yard is filled with perennials and beautiful views. She selected a Green Mountain Linden tree in the front yard because of its unique silver color underside leaf.
In an effort to recycle and reuse, O’Dell uses scrap wood to make miniature bird houses as garden accents. Wrought iron trellises that were once decorative railings inside her home now support climbing vines.
In the backyard, a miniature garden is housed in a metal fire pit that was trashed by someone with less imagination. Tiny hostas with names such as Pandora’s Box, Feather Boa and Baby Bunting flourish nearby.
O’Dell’s favorite plant is the hosta because of its visual impact. It is also easy to grow, move and share with others.
Vicky and Bernard Krawulski
When Vicky and Bernard Krawulski moved in next door to the O’Dell family 17 years ago, their garden was lined with endless rows of railroad ties and too many trees.
Today, only a few ties remain in a side yard and the lot has roughly five fewer trees.
The backyard has a few lattice wood fence sections to define the corners of the garden. The sound of a water fountain gurgling adds an element of peacefulness both inside the attached screened porch and outside on a nearby patio.
Vicky, who grew up on a small farm, readily admits that like her neighbor she also likes to “play” in the dirt of her garden. Among the noteworthy plants in Vicky’s garden is a bottlebrush buckeye, Joe-eye weed and balloon flowers.
In Vicky’s single sunny spot, she has a rose and lavender garden with angelic garden art tucked in here and there.
The borrowed view across the two adjoining backyards flows together as the neighbors share plants, seeds and inspiration.
Mike and Rita Jackson
When Mike and Rita Jackson purchased their house in 2006, the backyard landscaping was important to them. The Jacksons’ plan was to tear-down and rebuild a house to accommodate their family and leave the backyard as natural as possible. The secluded yard offers most of the original trees, shrubs and lawn.
A large vegetable garden commands the sunny west side of the yard. Pots varying in size and design contain herbs close to the double patios, while hanging pots of flowers bring color to the area.
For the front landscaping, the couple tried to keep in a French Provence theme to compliment the new home’s front elevation. Patches of colorful plants line the front cobblestone-style walk. Amid lines of large variegated hostas and Geranium Rozanne with its purple flower, a cluster of carpet rose Amber and Yellow Submarine rose bushes add contrast and interest.
To the right of the front door, three tiers of stonework bring the landscaping closer to the entrance. At the bottom, a row of maroon-leaf weiglia and a line of green weiglia stretch along the side of the house.
Garden Gait details
In time to inspire summer gardens, tickets for the self-guided walk are available for $15 in Lisle at The Nook, Wild Birds Unlimited and Safari Café, as well as at Anderson’s Bookshops in Downers Grove and Naperville until Friday, June 22.
On Sunday, June 24, tickets for the Lisle Woman’s Club Garden Gait are available at the Museums at Lisle Station Park, 921 School St. in downtown Lisle, and cost $17. The garden walk begins at 11 a.m. and continues until 4 p.m. rain or shine. Details are at lislewomansclub.org.
A step-by-step guide for the green gardener
You have butterflies here, native flowers there, water-conserving plants in the front yard, a compost pile in the back. But do all your eco-gardening projects work together?
For those longing for more coherence and, well, style, “The Naturescaping Workbook” (Timber Press) offers an intriguing alternative to the usual scattershot approach: one comprehensive plan that takes aesthetics, water, soil, wildlife and chemical runoff into account.
“When all the plans and changes are made at once, you’re not just filling in the blanks, you’re creating spaces,” says author Beth O’Donnell Young. “There’s a chapter on design skills: proportion and scale and balance. And to design with those ideas in your head will make a much better outdoor environment where you really want to hang out.”
-
Corvallis, OR, USA
We talked to her about her approach; following is an edited transcript.
Q: I loved that you take views into account when designing a landscape: the mountain or field that can be seen from your garden.
A: It’s the Japanese feeling of “borrowed landscape.” If you don’t take into consideration the properties beyond your own, you’re losing out on a lot of beauty. Also, reversely, to forget that there’s an ugly wall that’s reflecting too much sunlight — to not take into consideration something like that … is a serious mistake.
Q: Naturescaping as you describe it is a big project. How do I start?
A: Just like anything good it’s done organically: slowly and at your own pace and at your own capability. So the first step is just going out and observing nearby nature. These are just walks to take. Just see what’s going on out there.
Q: Is putting together a detailed design plan a realistic goal?
A: These are things that people can do. I created and taught the class that the book is based on, and my students are able to do this. They’re not artists and designers, but they can do this. By Chapter 6, they want to do this. They’re ready to take what they’ve learned to a big sheet of paper. Measuring their site — that’s not difficult. Putting it into a plan — that’s not difficult. It’s just one step after another, and eventually you go, “Wow! I actually designed this.”
Q: Do you have a favorite recent project?
A: The one in the (book’s) introduction was my favorite because it’s my good friend. When she moved into a new house, she got the backyard down to the soil, and she took it from there, and it is gorgeous. The plants play off each other seasonally and texturally, and the different colors — she just kind of limited it to purples and pinks and whites. The plants she chose were based on low-water needs because it’s in Corvalis, Ore., where there is a three-month drought every summer.
Nurturing nature
Some plants that feed butterflies, moths, caterpillars and beneficial insects, from “The Naturescaping Workbook:”
Milkweed, butterfly weed (Asclepias)
Coneflowers (Echinacea)
Bee balm (Monarda)
Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia)
Joe-Pye weed (Eupatorium)
Sage (Salvia)
Violet (Viola)
The Crown Sky Garden: Real healing or eye candy?
Blair Kamin’s article, “Comfort From Within” (Chicago Tribune 6/10/12), describes the Crown Sky Garden at the new Children’s Hospital of Chicago as a “healing garden”. Having gained certification from the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Healthcare Garden Design program, I can tell you that this garden is woefully short of what is required to this to be an effective healing garden for a children’s hospital. Unfortunately, the designer, Mikyoung Kim, seems to care more about how the garden will look in her portfolio rather than how it serves the user.
The primary focus of a healing garden is providing interaction with nature, i.e., seeing, touching, smelling, hearing. There may be bamboo trees but they are walled off. There are stones which can be touched. However, I would be more concerned about an injury lawsuit from someone slipping on an errant stone on the floor rather than a child throwing a stone. It’s a shame there couldn’t have been a more creative approach — perhaps a seasonal rotation of colorful plants to smell and touch, and a water feature to run your hand under.
Demonstration-garden open house June 21, hosted by Jefferson …
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Sustainable Landscape Design: Making your Garden Green
Is your garden “green”? According to TheFragrantGarden.com, a sustainable (or green) garden is one that conserves resources. Gardening and landscaping often carelessly use up precious resources, such as water. If the landscape is not planned out properly, even time, labour and energy can be wasted. A well-planned sustainable landscape should ideally co-exist with the surrounding environment and not be an isolated oasis (GreenGardener.org). A green garden shouldn’t use any non-renewable resources and it should have a minimal environmental impact (Wikipedia). Here are three tips to help you make your landscaping more eco-friendly.
1. Choose plants well
One of the most important aspects of a green garden is that water consumption is kept to an absolute minimum. TheFragrantGarden.com suggests that you group your plants together according to how much water they use. For example, a vegetable garden will need much more water than a patch of shrubs. According to TheFragrantGarden.com, you should also group your plants together according to their microclimate needs; which are based on sun, wind, shade and soil.
When planting, try to space the seedlings out well, and bear in mind that they will grow into much larger plants. If plants have more space, they thrive better and there is less water absorption. Try to also use organic pest control and plant a variety of non-invasive, indigenous plants that will attract various birds and beneficial insects. According to GreenGardener.org, plant diversity will help with pollination and pest control.
2. Go easy on the water
According to TheFragrantGarden.com, drip irrigation is the only way to go, as there is minimal water wastage with this system. Ideally, you should have separate irrigation valves for each type of plant, which allows for individual scheduling. TheFragrantGarden.com suggests that you should check the system regularly, so that there are no leaks. You should also try to collect natural rainfall, as this is an excellent way to use recycled water. GreenGardener.org suggests that you can even safely retain landscaping water to recharge ground water, which you can use for future watering!
3. Use compost
An alarming fact is that 30-50% of US landfill is filled with green waste (GreenGardener.org). This waste could be put to much better use in your landscaping as compost, as it eliminates the need for fertilizer, and it also results in healthier, organic and disease-free plants. TheFragrantGarden.com suggests that you add mulching into the mix, as this slows evaporation and erosion, and adds valuable nutrients to the soil. Be warned though: it can take up to ten years for your soil to reach its peak organic quality! (Colorado State University)
It’s relatively easy to have an eco-friendly landscape design. All it takes is some planning, good plant selection, an effective water system and building up composting. A sustainable landscape is filled with plant diversity and lacks artificial chemicals. By implementing these three steps, you’ll be reducing your environmental impact and your garden will truly be “green”.
Ang Lloyd is a freelance writer based in Cape Town, South Africa. She writes on a variety of topics ranging from education to environmental issues, such as online sustainable design courses in Australia. Photo by National Garden Clubs
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South Pole garden achieves gold
Published on Saturday 16 June 2012 12:30
BARRY couple Nicky and Steven Burke were awarded a gold medal at the recent annual Gardening Scotland show at the Royal Highland Centre, Edinburgh.
They took on the twin themes of global warming and the centenary of Captain Scott’s race to the South Pole and combined them in an award-winning garden.
The couple who run garden design company, Rococo Plants and Gardens, Dunvegan, Main Street, Barry, celebrated the 100th anniversary of Scott’s famous journey and raised awareness of the threat to the global ice cap from rising world temperatures.
Steven commented: “Half of the garden represented Antarctica and the other half was a warm and exotic planting scheme to illustrate the current problem of global warming and the associated melting of Antartica’s ice. We created this effect using plants and various artifacts to represent the different landscapes and an archway made to look like ice dividing the two areas.
“We borrowed ‘Captain Scott’ from Discovery Point, Dundee, to take his place in the garden and also created an atmospheric central water feature.”
Nicky told the Guide Gazette: “We were delighted to be awarded a gold medal and received lots of positive feedback. Last year’s show garden was completed while I was pregnant and this year we had our little gardening apprentice – our daughter Lauren – helping us.
“She even managed to get on BBC’s Beechgrove Garden show with her dad. The penguins in the garden were a big hit and were carved for us by wood carver Richard Douglas from Wildwood Crafts.”
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