Critically Acclaimed Gardening Greats: John Brookes (MBE), Noel Kingsbury, Michael King, Launch New Online Courses with MyGardenSchool to Propagate Gardening Excellence Globally.

Perhaps the most influential living landscape designer of our time, John Brookes MBE, is launching two new online garden design courses with the world’s first virtual gardening school – MyGardenSchool. The new gardening courses – ‘Design Your Own Small Garden’ and ‘Design Your Own Large Garden – are designed to enable enthusiasts across the globe create their own designer gardens under John Brookes’ careful guidance. . Both design courses start in May to coincide with the Chelsea Flower Show (and then run the first Saturday of every month). They are bookable now via the MyGardenSchool website. Brookes’ two new courses: enable students, wherever they live in the world, to produce their own garden designs, with the help of expert tuition, and a little of the John Brookes magic. Brookes’ existing MyGardenSchool garden design course has proven to be a great success over the last year with both aspiring garden designers and enthusiastic amateurs alike.

Brookes explained “The ‘virtual’ teaching method I use at MyGardenSchool simply works. I enjoy it because it gives me an exciting and eclectic classroom, with students from as far afield as the US, Japan, Croatia and Holland. Students love it because they can benefit from my personal tuition, and personalised garden plans, without the inconvenience, and cost (to both themselves and the planet) of having to travel to get them. MyGardenSchool enables me to teach, and for students to learn, from the comfort of our own homes. Of course this also enables us to keep costs down, which means the students get incredible value for money, and come away with a designer garden at the end of their courses, which will hopefully give them pleasure for years to come.’

Joining Brookes in launching new MyGardenSchool courses are Michael King and Noel Kingsbury. Both acclaimed gardening authors, they have collaborated with Dutch designer and plantsman Piet Oudolf, on seminal planting design books. Michael King has spent the last twenty years living in the Netherlands where he writes, designs and gardens. His new MyGardenSchool course on Designing with Grasses will be available in late Spring/Early summer.

Best known for his ecological or naturalistic approach to planting design, Noel Kingsbury has written some 20 books on various aspects of plants and will be launching a course on Perennial Planting in the Late Summer/Autumn. International writer, and acclaimed plantsman and lecturer, Noel Kingsbury has developed this online gardening course to teach you new ways of planting design with perennials. 
Noel takes you through a broad look at a variety of contemporary approaches to using perennials, with a particular focus on naturalistic approaches. The course provides a particularly strong theoretical basis, but with plenty of plant variety tables provided for helping you choose plants.

Noel is a great advocate of a new way of using perennials that works with – rather than against – nature. On the course, Noel explores how to make planting schemes designed to suit the existing condition of your own garden, covering a wide range of temperate zone climates; for example if your soil is poor and fast draining, he will guide you through the basic principles of choosing plants which not only survive but flourish in these conditions.

Noel has made a particular study of contemporary European planting styles, and has collaborated on several books with leading designer Piet Oudolf, so he is in the best position possible to outline how to make successful planting designs which combine structure, a long season of interest, support for bio-diversity and sustainability – reducing or eliminating irrigation and minimizing maintenance. Noel Kingsbury shows how it’s done from first principles. A one off opportunity to get personal tuition from a world expert in perennial planting.

This means your garden can now be touched by the design-hands of the greatest landscape designers or horticultural writers of our time – without the costs associated with meeting them in person.

Elspeth Briscoe, Founder of MyGardenSchool added: “We’re launching the new John Brookes design courses to co-incide with The Chelsea Flower Show. Chelsea inspires a global audience to turn its attention to its own outside space, but sometimes people need that extra guidance to see it through the design and implementation phase. We’re also very excited to have Noel Kingsbury and Michael King teaching with us – imagine having their advice on your own garden, without even having to leave home to get it. ”

She added: “MyGardenSchool aims to provide the best authors and designers in the gardening industry with a global stage on which to share their knowledge – and gardening enthusiasts, wherever they live, with a place to go to get first class teaching in their homes. We are the facilitators, fulfilling a hunger for high quality gardening expertise online in the global market”

—— Ends —–

About John Brookes, MBE.
John Brookes MBE FSGD has designed and built well over 1000 gardens during a career spanning 50 years. His extensive portfolio includes traditional English gardens both formal and informal, modern, minimalist, Islamic and wild gardens. He has won numerous awards throughout his career including 4 Gold medals at Chelsea, and recently the Garden Media Guild Lifetime Achievement Award. John is also a successful and prolific author, having written 24 best-selling books, and countless articles for newspapers and magazines. He lectures on garden design in UK and overseas and runs a design school in Argentina.

About Michael King
Michael’s passion for gardens and plants started in his teens and lead to a university degree in botany and microbiology in Great Britain. A career in finance, lead to the position of Secretary to the Board of Trustees of the world famous Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.. For the past twenty years Michael has lived in the Netherlands were he, writes, designs and gardens. His first two books, written jointly with Piet Oudolf, revealed how to use ornamental grasses and other perennials in the new naturalistic gardens. In all Michael’s books the emphasis is on how to use plants to best effect in a garden’s design.

About Noel Kingsbury
Noel is internationally known as a writer – about plants, gardens and the environment. He teaches and lectures, and is also a garden/planting designer and horticultural consultant. Best-known for his promotion of what is broadly called an ecological or naturalistic approach to planting design, Noel’s written some 20 books on various aspects of plants and gardens, two of them in collaboration with Dutch designer and plantsman Piet Oudolf. Over the years Noel has written for Gardens Illustrated, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Garden, Hortus and many other publications.

About MyGardenSchool
MyGardenSchool is the world’s first online gardening school where students can learn from gardening experts about how to do absolutely everything in the garden from keeping bees or hens, landscaping, design, growing vegetables and herbs, building treehouses or growing the perfect roses. And everything in between. All of our tutors are outstanding in their field (and gardens), being accomplished gardeners and acclaimed gardening writers. Gardening courses are four weeks long, and video tutorials are delivered weekly, together with course notes and assignments assessed by your tutor. You also get to chat to your tutor online, as well as your classmates, in the ‘virtual classroom’. MyGardenSchool will teach you everything about gardening – virtually. But don’t take our word for it – check out our course pages here: (http://www.my-garden-school.com/courses/)

Press contact: MyGardenSchool, Tel: 07884267306, info@my-garden-school.com

This press release was distributed by SourceWire News Distribution on behalf of MyGardenSchool.
For more information visit http://www.sourcewire.com

As hoped, the wheelchair-accessible garden built last spring at the Senior Gardens in Brighton Township will soon blossom.

On June 8, about 100 volunteers, all Home Depot employees, will build eight raised gardens at independent senior living centers and nursing homes in Allegheny, Butler and Washington counties.

The gardens will give residents in wheelchairs, those who use walkers and others an opportunity to plant flower and vegetable gardens as many did for decades at their homes.

“I guess the patients at the facilities wanted the gardens in yesterday,” said Brighton Township resident Mike Durham, who said he is thrilled that his idea has grown into a reality.

Last year, Durham, a Penn State master gardener who coordinates the plot layout for the Senior Gardens on county-owned land off Western Avenue in Brighton Township, wanted a specially designed raised garden built for a senior gardener who had become disabled.

Moreso, he hoped that it would become a model garden that area nursing and personal care homes and other agencies would want to build on their grounds.

That’s what’s happened on a wider scale.

When Durham pitched his idea last year, a bevy of helpers responded, and “It went really well,” said Pam Narvett, store manager at Home Depot in Chippewa. “It was the fact that someone was able to do something (garden again) that they’d enjoyed for so many years.”

It went so well that Narvett asked managers at eight other Home Depot stores in western Pennsylvania whether they’d like to do the project this year. In February, she asked John Seitz, project director for the Valley Care Association’s Home Safe Home program, whether he could find facilities in the geographic area of stores in Butler, Allison Park, Bridgeville, Washington, Pa., and Cranberry, North Fayette, Ohio and Ross townships.

Seitz matched the stores to the facilities, including the Passavant Retirement Community in Zelienople and Ohio Valley Hospital’s Willow Heights independent senior living homes in North Fayette Township.

His original design, which includes an arbor, will be adapted to accommodate each site, he said. And the cost will be much less than the $4,000 cost of the model garden in Beaver County because seven of the facilities already have concrete areas for the gardens.

A $7,000 grant from Home Depot’s Team Depot program — about $900 per raised garden — will cover the cost of materials such as wood, fencing, mulch and tools, Narvett said. Several companies will donate the soil and plants, she said.

Work will begin at 8 a.m. on June 8 at each site, rain or shine, and the gardens will be completed that afternoon, Narvett said.

As for the Brighton Township site this year, Durham hopes that several young people with disabilities might learn to garden there.

By
David Baker

PUBLISHED:

13:30 EST, 13 May 2012

|

UPDATED:

06:13 EST, 14 May 2012

The parents of murdered landscape architect Jo Yeates today planted wild flowers at a new memorial garden opened where she used to work.

David and Teresa Yeates helped put the finishing touches to the special garden, designed to reflect Jo’s love of butterflies and the outdoors.

The 25-year-old disappeared from her home in Clifton, Bristol, on December 17, 2010, after going for Christmas drinks with colleagues.

Memorial: The parents of murdered landscape architect Jo Yeates planted wild flowers at a new memorial garden opened where she used to work

Fitting tribute: Friends and colleagues of Jo Yeates visit Hillier Gardens and Arboretum, close to her family home in Ampfield, Hants to see the unveiling of a new memorial garden opened in her memory

Her body was found dumped on a verge in Failand, north Somerset, on Christmas Day.

Jo’s neighbour, Dutch engineer Vincent Tabak, was found guilty of her murder after a four-week trial at Bristol Crown Court.

Tragic: Jo Yeates disappeared from her home in Clifton, Bristol, on December 17, 2010 after going for Christmas drinks with colleagues. Her body was found dumped on a verge in north Somerset, on Christmas Day

He was sentenced to life imprisonment and will serve at least 20 years behind bars.

Friends and former colleagues of Jo came together to design the special memorial at the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens and Arboretum, close to her family home in Ampfield, Hants.

The garden has a butterfly-inspired wooden bench with a paved area in the shape of the insect’s wing.

It also contains a gingko tree, which Jo planted herself when she worked there, and a meadow of wild flowers, including salad burnet and wild carrot.

Around 50 landscape architects and their children joined Mr and Mrs Yeates to complete the planting of 300 wild flowers.

Mr Yeates said he and Teresa were touched by the tribute.

The IT worker said: ‘When we think of Jo we think of her being in the garden, being outside.

‘She was very happy and always saw the positive side of life.

Planting: Jo Yeates’ mother Teresa helps to put the finishing touches to the special garden, designed to reflect Jo’s love of the outdoors

Finishing touches: David Yeates makes his contribution to the memorial garden for his daughter

‘To have a memorial like this so close to home is very touching. It was very unexpected but we really like it.

‘I never realised Jo had such an impact on other people and that gives me an enormous amount of pride.

‘We think of Jo all the time, but this is somewhere we will come and think of her too.’

He added: ‘I don’t think we will ever come to terms with what happened.

‘The national outpouring of sympathy for Jo was a complete surprise. In the scheme of things she was just an ordinary girl.

‘But I suppose a lot of mothers and fathers have daughters who are similar
and they reacted to how they would feel if something happened to their child.

‘We will carry on. We just make the best of what we have and of course Jo is always in our thoughts – we want her to stay with us.’

Mrs Yeates said: ‘When I go to Jo’s grave and walk about in the garden I do see butterflies, and I think of her. They are like her flitting about.’

Jo’s former lecturer Brodie McAllister, who helped organise the plant, said: ‘The garden makes a physical contribution to Jo’s spirit.

‘She was fun-loving and full of joy. It’s a very special garden for a very special person.’

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Jo is the reason I began reading the DM. I found an article about her disappearance on my local internet news and when they didn’t print any follow-up articles I went looking for some in British on-line papers. It was a tragedy that truly touched my heart. I felt so terribly grief-stricken for her parents, boyfriend and brother. They seemed like truly lovely people who didn’t deserve this to happen to their lovely Jo. It tore me up reading the daily news reports, until they finally found her killer and put him away. I can only offer my sincerest condolences and wish them freedom from their grief and let them know how much their daughter meant to people like me who never even met her but feel like they knew Jo through her family’s memories. It is truly wonderful to see her parents laughing and hopefully enjoying their lives again which is what I am sure Jo would have wanted. If ever I am able to go to England again I will visit Jo’s garden. May Jo rest in peace, always with love.

– Angie C., Toronto, Ontario, 14/5/2012 09:49

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A beautiful idea and we can only trust that it will bring some comfort to her family. What a loss to society was the death of such a lovely and talented girl.

– Anna, Wrexham N Wales, 14/5/2012 09:13

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what a lovely sentiment for their daughter. rest in peace, jo. you will never be forgotten

– karen, toronto, canada, 14/5/2012 04:50

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Bless them. At least they will achieve some kind of peace.

– somewheresunny, onacloud, 14/5/2012 03:25

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How lovely. RIP Jo xxx

– Kate, Australia, 14/5/2012 01:50

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A lovely idea, and I find the last picture of David Yeates smiling deeply moving, because until now, those of us who know the family only in the context of this terrible tragedy had only seen them with sadness and grief on their faces. Joanna seemed like a lovely person, full of life and joy, and this seems like a fitting tribute to her.

– JB, Somewhere, 13/5/2012 21:54

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We will never forget your beautiful daughter Jo. Thank you for creating something special in her memory that will bring enjoyment to so many people.

– maura, london uk, 13/5/2012 21:19

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BEREA —
It’s not everyday you can wander around in somebody’s backyard without looking suspicious.

Hundreds of locals bought tickets to explore six featured gardens in Berea Saturday during the 4th annual Garden Tour, to benefit the Berea Arts Council.

Each unique garden exhibited the creator’s vision for functionality, but with special attention paid to aesthetic details.

A projection as to just how many species of plants could be found in their gardens was an inestimable number.

We began the garden tour with “Flowers, Food and Foliage,” tended at the home of Gwen Childs and David Saladino on Harrison Road.

Childs, who is BAC’s executive director, greeted visitors with cookies, but the sloping property featured the work of Saladino, a garden designer.

Visitors could follow the stone path to the back porch overlooking rows of beets, mustard greens, lettuce, arugula and broccoli.

Wisteria clung to a triangular pergola constructed with 16-foot beams cut from nearby Black Locust trees.

By first glance, a visitor would see a 15 by 15-foot area scattered with approximately 20 species of perennials and ground covering. But after taking a few steps back, the shape of a heart becomes apparent.

“It’s a heart for Gwen,” Saladino said.

Down the road to Fairway Drive is Mary Startzman’s “Mystical, Magical Secret Garden.”

This garden was so mystical and magical, a gnome or fairy would not have been out of place.

Startzman’s creation is sectioned off in several striking highlights.

A 15-foot tall tree house provides a view of the entire garden. A large bell hangs there, which Startzman rings to communicate with a resident one street over, said her daughter JoJo Wray, who grew up here.

There is a hidden path disguised by thick foliage where Wray and her siblings “played sword-fighting,” she said.

Different trellis-covered paths twisted and turned around a stacked stone fireplace, fountains, statues and a large concrete aboveground Koi tank with fish the length of an adult arm.

A large tree looms over and in the back porch — its roof was built to accommodate the natural growth of the tree.

Startzman’s creation started 38 years ago with a lone garden “gate to nowhere” and a handful of trees.

The tug to “create something” inspired her to keep planting, even though she hates to plant things, she said.    

“I don’t have time to weed,” said Startzman, “its ‘survival of the fittest’ in this garden.

When Startzman looks out the windows from her home, she envisions the view she would like to have from that window, and then recreates it in her garden.  

Just a short stroll down the street is Gin Petty’s garden called “A Perennial Affair.”

A gently sloping hill in her yard is lined with tiers of lettuce, chives, parsley, garlic, dill, basil, strawberries, sweet potatoes, rosemary, cantaloupe, turnip greens, radishes, zucchini, onions, beets, tomatoes, peppers and cabbage.

A long row of spinach, a cold-weather plant that Petty starts in February, provides ground cover, prevents weed growth and keeps the soil loose. Surplus spinach is harvested for the Berea Food Bank.

Petty was a farmer for 25 years. It was only during the past 12 years that she began adding flowers and design to her work.

“I know about growing stuff, but back then, we didn’t have time to make it pretty,” she said, “now I’m trying to do this artfully.”

Close by was Marjorie Acevedo’s “Victorian Tranquility” on Prospect Street.

Spatters of roses, peonies, geraniums, water lilies and countless other species could be found through a trellis and past a tranquil waterfall.

Acevedo’s 20-year garden project blooms behind a house built in 1903, still featuring its original filigree, she said.

Around 22 years ago, behind a turn of the century farmhouse on Barberry Lane, Adriel Woodman’s backyard had four trees.

Now, it is home to a dozen varieties of roses, hydrangeas and hundreds of other species after 22 years of loving cultivation.

“My design theory is: Go to the nursery. Spot something that looks pretty. Put it in the ground – it’s addicting,” said Woodman, who aptly named his garden “American Gothic Spacious Splendor.”

The final stop on the tour was a short trip down South Dogwood Drive to Lakeview Drive.

Throughout the day, the question on everyone’s lips was: “Did you see the Miller place yet?”

Tom Miller’s “Cascading Waterfall Magnificence” is, in his words, “A majestic limestone landscape with cascading waterfalls, framed by evergreens and punctuated with whimsical use of stone.”

Around 11,000 gallons of water is recycled through the many pools and the three streams that spill into, what Miller calls, “Dow Falls” – a satirical poke at the recent years’ economic downturn.

The woods behind Miller’s house provided the perfect material and angle to build Miller’s waterfall wonderland, along with local river limestone that was brought in to line the waterways.

“If you don’t have a hill like this, you can’t do something like this,” he said.

Surrounding the streams, visitors can find a variety of tree species such as: Redwood, Japanese maple, juniper, cypress and cedar.

Placed among the foliage are four Buddha statues, large glass stones, benches and a fire pit where Miller and his guests can sit around, sing songs and pretend like they’re country-folk singer, John Prine.

Crystal Wylie can be reached at cwylie@richmondregister.com or

623-1669, Ext. 6696.

I attended my first Clayton Gardens tour in 1998. I can remember the year; I was pregnant at the time with my son. It was exciting for me to tour the landscapes of five neighborhood gardens. You see, just a couple of years before I began working at my soon to be in-laws nursery in Clayton. Touring these gardens was going to be an excellent opportunity to see what types of plants Clayton gardeners were planting and how and where they were growing.

This month the Clayton Historical Society will be celebrating their 20th Anniversary of the Clayton Gardens Tour, which is being held May 19th and 20th from 10-4 pm. Unlike other years, this year the Clayton Gardens Tour is taking a look back, and revisiting 17 landscapes and gardens from the past 20 years, as well as a peak at the historical garden at the Clayton Museum. This tour’s size makes it a huge undertaking for the volunteers of the Clayton Historical Society, who work so hard to make every tour a smooth-run success. We need to commend the homeowners who have been feverously working to beautify their landscapes and gardens to once again, open their gates and invite visitors into their spaces and share.

During this year’s tour, attendees will have the opportunity to immerse themselves in gardens filled with blooming perennials, ornamental grasses and succulents. They will gaze at sparking poolscapes, and meander pathways through tree canopies and flowering shrubs. Inspiring garden design ideas, sitting situations and planter combinations will be enjoyed. Outdoor fireplaces and kitchens are displayed to be admired. Fountains, waterfalls and sculptures add personal touches to several of the landscapes. You will see both dry, and running streambeds, as well as a working miniature train garden. Attendees will pass through arbors, decorative gates and rest in the shade beneath pergolas. Vegetable and herb gardens are growing at many of this year’s Clayton Garden Tour homes, so are citrus and fruiting trees. Water-wise, hillside and shade gardens will also be featured. Historic replicas, farm equipment, and other antiques have been incorporated into some of the gardens. There is something for everyone.

The Clayton Valley Gardens Tour is the largest fund raiser for the Clayton Historical Museum. The Clayton Historical Museum opens its doors to the public twice weekly for general visitors, and when scheduled, for free fieldtrips given to preschool, elementary school students and brownie and scout troops. During these fieldtrips, the typewriter, rotary telephone and jail are among the most popular touchable displays.

If you are considering attending the Clayton Historical Society’s 20th Anniversary Gardens Tour, tickets are still available. You can visit www.claytonhistor.org and order your tickets with your PayPal account, or you can stop in to RM Pool, Patio, Gifts and Gardens at 6780 Marsh Creek Road in Clayton, where tickets must be purchased with a check or cash. Tickets are just $20 in celebration of the 20th Anniversary. If you are undecided, tickets will be sold at the door of the Clayton Museum May 19th and 20th. Many local merchants and individuals have donated items to a raffle that will also benefit the museum.

The Clayton Valley Garden Club will be holding their annual plant sale this same weekend. The sale on Saturday runs from 8-1 and it will be located at the parking lot at Endeavor Hall, just across from the Clayton Farmer’s Market. This plant sale is the CVGC only fund raiser. This year they are offering over 1000 plants, consisting of 240 different varieties. The club will be selling left-over plants on Sunday at the Clayton Historical Museum from 10-1. The proceeds from the Sunday sale are split 50-50 between the two organizations.

If you are considering touring the 20th Anniversary Clayton Gardens Tour, or just visiting the CVGC plant sale, stop by the store afterward and let me know how you liked them.

Happy Gardening.

Nicole Hackett is the Garden Girl at RM Pool, Patio and Gardens, located at 6780 Marsh Creek Road in Clayton, 925-672-0207.

Nicole writes for the Clayton Pioneer Newspaper, and Claycord.com. She is also the Clayton Valley Garden Club 2012 President.

Email your questions to thegardengirl@claycord.com

THE VIEW right out of the car is straight through the house, past the intersection of a 100-year-old barn and Corten steel. Vacation-of-a-lifetime vistas. Views more soothing than a week at a spa; encompassing the islands of two nations, serious deep-blue waters, trees old, old, old hosting eagles, owls and other bits of nature.

To properly describe the ridge’s-edge home of Marie Gladwish, remote on the eastern lobe of Orcas Island, is to say there is practically no house there at all.

“I told Gary, ‘Just make me a shelter, like a pavilion, but with just a roof. I get claustrophobic,” says Marie of her instructions to her architect — her son, Gary Gladwish.

Apparently Gary got it. He really got it. And this, the first house he has designed from the ground up, was one of five projects honored last fall with a 2011 AIA Seattle Merit Award.

The Seattle architect designed for his mother an island home of glass walls that recalls Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan, Conn. Unlike Johnson’s showpiece of minimalism, this house is truly livable. That is thanks to what lies beyond a door hidden in the kitchen cabinetry; 800 square feet of storage (half of which Marie uses as an art studio).

“I’ve always been a woodsy, ferny, mossy person,” says Marie, a retired graphic designer, now artist, birder, environmentalist, traveler. “Most people get excited about the beach, but . . .” She trails off so we can hear the silence. Marie first visited Orcas Island 54 years ago. Right then she decided that one day she would live here. That day has come; on land filled with madrone trees, firs, beech, thistle, moss and rocks. “When we get off the ferry I see a physical change in her,” Gary says of the client he has known all his life.

Gary’s got degrees in fine art and architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design, and experience in construction, real-estate development and architecture. It all comes together here.

While utterly contemporary, this is also a low-maintenance, budget-minded home that allows aging in place. There is an open kitchen-dining-living area, study and master suite fronting the art studio/storage area. The building materials utilize Marie’s favorites: old barn wood, rusty steel, moss and rocks. Window walls slide away, and the house is open to the world beyond, a living room in the woods. (It’s not all a slice of heaven. Open walls invite mice.) The entry garden bisects the house into two zones. The storage space has been left raw and could become bedrooms or an apartment for a caregiver.

Cabinetry is Ikea. “I wanted to spend the money on the things that were structural,” Gary says. “A big part of it was glass.”

The home was built by Schuchart Dow, after Gary ran into Jim Dow on a dog walk in the park near his home. “I met a guy with a Schuchart Dow jacket on named Jim and I said, ‘How’d you like to build my house?’ “

They liked it just fine and worked to keep costs down. Schuchart Dow put its efforts constructing the precision envelope. Gary finished the project himself.

There’s ingenuity in the details. Not so you’d notice, what with the view demanding all the attention, but the sliding door to the master bedroom glides on inline-skate wheels. The bathroom counter is repurposed bulletproof bank glass.

“There’s always another way,” Marie says.

“That’s how we grew up,” Gary says. “Dad was always tearing up the house and rebuilding it.”

He gets it honest. And he has built an honest house.

Rebecca Teagarden writes about architecture and design for Pacific Northwest magazine. Benjamin Benschneider is a Pacific Northwest magazine staff photographer.

Click photo to enlarge

Those who think making gardens in the classical tradition is a lost art should meet landscape architect Charles Stick. Better yet, they should take in his work at Mount Sharon, a private estate in Orange, Va., that this weekend will offer a rare glimpse into the rarified world of high design in the Colonial Revival style.

Stick is one of the few authentic classicists designing gardens today; in that regard he follows a lonely path made by his 20th-century predecessors in Virginia, Arthur Shurcliff in Colonial Williamsburg and Charles Gillette working in Richmond. “I design gardens for individuals across the country,” he said. “No one ever sees them.”

Fortunately, Mount Sharon is owned by civic-minded preservationists Charlie and Mary Lou Seilheimer, who are opening the garden Sunday, Mother’s Day, to raise money for two charities.

“If people want to see it,” said Mary Lou Seilheimer, leading me through the rose garden, “here’s your big chance.”

Stick and the Seilheimers worked collaboratively to create the 10-acre garden. Even by Stick’s standards, it is a formal garden of rare scale, high design and wonderful vernacular craftsmanship.

You will find such elements as an octagonal terrace with a view northward to the Blue Ridge Mountains and a long and alluring central tunnel of boxwood that will take you to places that are cozy or grand and wholly unexpected.

In one garden room, the space is cozy and grand at the same time, with busts of Jefferson and

Washington in vegetative niches, a central lead statue of Eros, and a paving of brick and flagstone of uncommon design and craft. The place is called the exedra, after gardens where the ancients positioned statues of their worthies for contemplation and discussion. At Mount Sharon, the pedestals for the other two local boys made good, Madison and Monroe, are still in need of busts. (Harder to find than their presidential predecessors, says Mary Lou Seilheimer.)

Before reaching the exedra, though, the visitor finds an intimate knot garden, where a double parterre features patterns of clipped and intertwined ribbons of barberry (Crimson Pygmy) and box (Green Gem). A nearby flower garden features hydrangeas, camellias and a central bed of forget-me-knots now in full bloom.

Elsewhere, a long terrace contains a double border that peaks in summer but for now is just stirring and offers a balcony with a thrilling view of Mount Sharon’s large and majestic rose garden.

Many of the 100 or so roses will be coming into flower this weekend, including the climbers that drape a pair of pergolas of white cedar. The roses include the dependable soft pink New Dawn but also lovely heirloom varieties such as the creamy Mme. Alfred Carriere and the blush pink Zephirine Drouhin.

The pergolas, of white cedar stained a gray-green, are separated by the main path through the rose garden (classical gardens are all about axes and cross-axes). This is the spot, I think, to get a sense of the high design and craftsmanship, with the series of sinuous, molded-brick walls and the exquisite lead statue of Mercury.

Mary Lou Seilheimer and her husband, a founder of Sotheby’s International Realty, have an abiding interest in historic properties and preservation.

They moved to Mount Sharon in 1997 from Warrenton, Va., and set about designing and building the garden with Stick in an active collaboration. Though a historic site, the house at Mount Sharon is a Georgian Revival built in the 1930s to replace a Second Empire house, and the garden consisted of some old trees, the central boxwood walk, a small amount of terracing and not much else. The new garden took three years to construct and was ready for the Seilheimers’ daughter’s wedding there in September 2003.

The garden is reminiscent of the Colonial Revival gardens developed in Virginia between the 1920s and 1950s but is large and complex by even those standards. “I walk through this garden and I feel I am in a different time and age,” said Stick, who last month visited Mount Sharon for the first time in two years.

There is a thriving interest and industry in restoring both Colonial and Colonial Revival gardens, but the creation of whole new American classical gardens is rare, not least because they take deep pockets to build and maintain.

The danger, of course, is that you may create an enormously expensive artifice — a garden as ersatz as its McMansion.

To create an architectural garden that works takes a great deal more than structure and pretty statuary.

“I had a professor, I remember him saying, ‘Everything that’s beautiful has been done before,'” said Stick, who studied landscape architecture at the University of Virginia. “It resonated with me. If things are true, they respond to the context that surrounds them.”

The proportions of the terraces are linked to those of the house, he said. The resulting garden rooms become “an exercise in establishing harmonies, through geometry, through the linkage of one space to another.”

More fundamentally, there is an awareness of the spirit of the place — designers call it the genius loci — that guides the elements of the garden. At Mount Sharon, this is tied up with the surrounding terrain, climate and history of the region.

This is perhaps why the most “magical” space for Stick is on the octagonal terrace with a clear view across two large ponds to the Blue Ridge. Both Mary Lou and Charlie Seilheimer like to look across parts of the garden and to lower terraces — she from the pergola looking down into the rose garden, he from the urn terrace enjoying its prospect.

I, too, like the urn terrace, whose floor of turf and walls of hedge bring the eye to the plump and ornate stone urn held like a Faberge egg in its space. But the power here is in the crafting of the void, the negative space around the urn. It brings home the idea that Mount Sharon is, at heart, about sculpting the air.

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The San Joaquin County Home and Garden Show opens today, but for one group of designers, the best day of the event might have been Thursday.

That’s when the artists, students in Delta College’s interior design program, rubbed elbows with professionals as they set up the living room they designed for the show that runs through Sunday at the Janssen-Lagoria Pavilion, near Spanos Center, on the University of the Pacific campus.

“Thursday is a great day, when designers have more time to talk to the students,” said their teacher, Carie Lokers. “Once the show begins, that’s their time to sell their services, to make connections with potential customers. Last year we had plenty of students setting up our room, and one of them didn’t have anything to do. She started helping a designer as she laid out her room. She was able to ask why she’d done what she’d done, how she’d done it, what her mindset was, her thought pattern. It was an invaluable lesson. And, she’d made a possible connection with someone who may be able to help her in the future.”

Home and Garden Show

What: San Joaquin County Home Garden Show, featuring vendors and decorators with suggestions for home improvements, renovations and redecorating.

When: noon-6 p.m. today, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday

Where: Janssen-Lagoria Pavilion on University of the Pacific’s campus

Admission: $3 at the door; free with tickets available for those liking the show’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/StocktonHomeShow

Showing what they’ve learned, working together to create a room – thanks to the generous loan of furniture from Lodi’s Thornton House Furnishings – and meeting professionals who hold jobs they aspire to have makes the home and garden show an invaluable teaching tool for the Delta students.

“It was difficult at first for students not used to working in a team environment,” Lokers said. “Some of them have stronger personalities. It made for interesting conversations at times, but they did a good job.”

The result of their collaboration is a living room in yellow, one of the current hot colors, grays and slate blue. The furniture is contemporary, but other elements are not.

“What stands out is the fact the students focused on creating items,” Lokers said. “They have some artwork on the wall that was painted by a student. They have furniture they refurbished, items they found at second-hand stores. It’s something you could show a client how to use what’s already in the home.”

The student entry, which will compete with the professionals in the best room completion – both the judges’ and people’s choice – shows how pieces of furniture in one room can be reborn if moved to another part of the home. A bureau, for example, can become a credenza in the living room or a buffet in the dining room.

Other designers will show rooms with brand new elements. Vendors will demonstrate simple and not-so-simple remodeling ideas.

The San Joaquin Home and Garden Show, in its 27th year, offers a wide spectrum of tips and ideas to improve homes and yards.

There’s a growing number of professionals to help with home projects, said Lokers, who was laid off her own job as a designer, which led her to Delta as an instructor in 2010.

“It is growing as a career field,” she said. “It’s projected to increase 19 percent (in the jobs market). It’s a great time to be in school in this field. It’s going to be coming back and growing.”

Delta administrators weren’t so sure. They threatened to follow Modesto Junior College’s lead and eliminate the program. Instead, the program has survived and continues to award certificates for completion of classes that not only build toward an associate of arts degree, but make students employable in home improvement/design positions.

The spectrum of career opportunities – beyond a show on the Home and Garden Television Network, which some students admit is their dream – will be unveiled at the Home and Garden Show.

“It opens their eyes to potential areas where they can work, specialty areas: kitchen, bath, lighting flooring,” Lokers said.

Additionally, she said, it shows students and visitors alike what an interior designer can do, not only for a home, but for a business or hotel.

Contact reporter Lori Gilbert at (209) 546-8284 or lgilbert@recordnet.com.

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Fashion jewelry design is in the midst of a renaissance the likes of which we haven’t seen since the 1980s. And Alexis Bittar blazed the trail. In the last two decades, the New York-based jewelry designer has gone from selling his signature colorful, hand-carved Lucite pieces on the streets of SoHo to bejeweling leading ladies in Hollywood and beyond, including Lady Gaga, First Lady Michelle Obama, Madonna, Cameron Diaz, Meryl Streep and Rihanna. At the same time, he’s managed to keep the core of his collection in an accessible $225-to-$645 price range.

Bittar has also challenged the definition of fashion muse by eschewing prepubescent models in his ad campaigns in favor of women, such as eccentric octogenarian Iris Apfel, “Dynasty”diva Joan Collins and, most recently, “Ab Fab” stars Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley.

And now, with a recent influx of cash from private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners, Bittar is ready to expand his vision globally and to introduce a new, higher-priced line of jewelry in sterling silver and gold that will debut next year.

He’s already one of the most prolific jewelry designers in the business, turning out hundreds of pieces each season that incorporate innovative materials such as molten metals, reconstituted coal and Lucite, which was big in the 1950s and is currently having another moment in fashion but which Bittar has built his brand on since the beginning.

For spring’s O’Keeffe collection of bold, Southwestern-looking Lucite cuff bracelets and collars, he took cues from the artist’s skulls and Native American textiles, then layered on Art Deco-ish crystals. Another spring group, Dark Garden, features Lucite beaded necklaces and carved floral brooches with crystal-encrusted thorns, movable blooms and pollen pods. The younger sister collection of the family, named Miss Havisham, includes “man-made druzy quartz” cocktail rings carved from crushed glass embedded in resin.

It’s no wonder that art museum shops caught onto his talents first, followed soon after by high-end boutiques and department stores, including Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale’s.

“[Alexis] is responsible for elevating the status of costume jewelry and making it a category that is taken much more seriously in fashion,” says Brooke Jaffe, fashion accessories director of Bloomingdale’s. “He draws in a broad range of customers.”

He understands the need for one-of-a-kind fantasy pieces for photo shoots, as well as commercial pieces for women’s everyday lives. “Most designers get one or the other but not both,” she adds.

Along the way, Bittar has created spikey Lucite masks, floor-length necklaces and oversized cross earrings, for the likes of Lady Gaga, Rihanna and Madonna. His work has been shown on the covers of countless magazines, including Vogue, V and W. He’s also collaborated on jewelry design with other brands, including Burberry, Michael Kors and Jeremy Scott.

Bittar “has a design intelligence,” says stylist and costume designer Arianne Phillips, who has known him for eight years. “No matter what he chose to do, whether it was design a car or clothes, he’d be capable of it.”

Phillips relies on Bittar to create custom pieces for magazine spreads, music videos and films (he made several pieces for “W.E.”). The more classic pieces she wears herself, including crystal-studded Lucite bracelets and pyramid studs.

“He created a niche that opened the door for so many other people,” she says, pointing to the new class of cool, young jewelry designers that has emerged in recent years, including Pamela Love, Eddie Borgo and Justin Giunta of Subversive.

Michelle Obama has worn several Lucite brooches by Bittar as well as statement pieces by other brands in his league, including Erickson Beamon and Tom Binns. She has undoubtedly helped put the spotlight on fashion jewelry (and taught women to take risks when wearing it). But Bittar says business has really been on the upswing for the last 12 years.

“When I started in the early 1990s, jewelry was at a real low point,” Bittar, 43, said recently over coffee at his showroom in Soho, which is a wonderland of glass cases full of jewelry, a rustic wood table, antique mirror, bird cage and taxidermy ferret — and not far from where he used to work as a street vendor when he was in his 20s. “It was the age of Jil Sander minimalism. People didn’t know how to wear jewelry, or they were brainwashed that it wasn’t cool. Now, that’s completely changed. What is selling are the most artistic pieces, the more interesting the better.”

Bittar has been nurturing a love of jewelry since he was a child growing up in Brooklyn. On his 13th birthday, his parents, who bought and sold antiques, gave him a tangled mess of jewelry as a gift. He started playing with it, and he was hooked.

When he was in his late teens, he bought a box of vintage chandelier parts from the 1920s, all made of Depression-era glass with handmade brass and wire tassels. He started making and selling his own pieces from a table he set up on the corner of Prince and Greene streets.

What hit it big were colorful Lucite button earrings. “I was looking at a lot of Lalique and Bakelite,” Bittar explained. “I was obsessed with clear plastic sheets of acrylic and saw a way of manipulating them, carving them and hand-painting them.”

Today, Lucite is 60% of his business. Everything is still handmade, only at his factory in Brooklyn, which employs some 250 artisans, instead of on his kitchen table.

“When jewelry first started trending in 1999, there was such a naivete in terms of what was tasteful,” Bittar said. “You could just put a big pendant with a string on it and people would buy it. But now, the sophistication and expectation is higher. People are increasingly wanting to be more individual, and part of that has been driven by the celebration of individual style on blogs.”

Individual style is something that Bittar has a particular appreciation for, as seen in the subjects of his recent ad campaigns, Joan Collins and Joanna Lumley among them.

“When you look at the models in fashion magazines, it’s one young girl after another,” Bittar said. “I find it disturbing. That’s not who is buying [fashion]. And I feel like there’s a message that if you are not young, you’re not beautiful.

“I don’t want to get typecast for doing this,” he said. “But I’m like a kid in a candy store. And I think it’s a cool political message.”

Bittar opened his first namesake boutique in 2004. Now he has seven, including three in New York and two in the Los Angeles area. He’s looking forward to two more by the end of 2012, now that he has a new business partner to help.

And he’s not ruling out launching a few new product categories either. (Home furnishings, perhaps?) But first up next year, he’ll debut a still-unnamed, higher-priced jewelry line. “I already design three collections, but I live and breathe jewelry, and I have forever.”

Indeed, Bittar has amassed such a large personal collection of antique jewelry (which he lovingly discusses on his blog at AlexisBittar.com) that he’s started selling it in his boutiques. “I used to hoard it and keep it rolled up in an old quilt. But now I buy and sell it. On my birthday, on my day off, I go buy antique jewelry. There’s nothing I would rather do.”

booth.moore@latimes.com

The Irish Times – Saturday, May 12, 2012CREATIVE TALENT: Landscape architect Jane McCorkell, above, and her plans for this year’s Bloom garden, below. PHOTOGRAPH: RICHARD JOHNSTON

FIONNUALA FALLON

GROW: Jane McCorkell’s show gardens have won a gold medal at Bloom for the past four years and she is busy working on her fifth exhibit

MANY YEARS AGO, I happened to be part of a small group of National Botanic Gardens students that designed and built a show garden for the RDS garden festival – a humble, more modestly-sized precursor to the modern-day Bloom in the Park (
bloominthepark.com).

The garden turned out to be a gold-medal winning success (our heady claim to fame being that we beat Diarmuid Gavin to first place) but that isn’t my only enduring memory of the event. Truth be told, I’ll never forget what brutally hard work it was; a physically punishing, mentally exhausting, vastly complicated juggling act that our small group carried out with increasing weariness to the ticking clock of an immovable deadline.

Ever since, I’ve had a deep respect for the designers who expertly rise to the challenge year after year – a fine example being the Meath-based landscape architect Jane McCorkell, who is now overseeing the construction of her fifth consecutive show garden for Bloom.

A member of the GLDA (
glda.ie), a judge on the RTÉ Super Garden 2012 series and a graduate of both Writtle College (where she studied Landscape Horticulture) and UCD (she holds a Masters in Landscape Architecture), every one of her previous Bloom show gardens has been a gold medal winner, with McCorkell also taking home the Best in Show Award in 2010. The RHS recently issued an open-ended invitation to McCorkell to exhibit at the Chelsea Flower Show – a badge of success for any designer.

McCorkell is both informative and refreshingly candid when discussing what it takes to build a successful show garden, from the importance of securing a sympathetic client and adequate sponsorship to the potential pitfalls of unreliable suppliers, fickle contractors and freakishly bad weather. She mentions her Bloom 2008 garden, when torrential downpours temporarily flooded the Phoenix Park site. “The rain was so heavy and I got so soaked that I had to drive home in my knickers, with my coat over my legs, praying that my car wouldn’t break down on the M50,” she says.

On a more serious note, McCorkell stresses the crucial importance of long-term planning in the design process. “Visitors to Bloom are often very surprised to discover how much time goes into creating a show garden. On average, I’d say that the entire process takes between six to eight months, although we had slightly less time this year. But in an ideal world, it would be great to see designers being given a full 12 months to complete a project.”

Her 2012 sponsor, Bord na Móna, invited McCorkell to come on board in January this year, with work on the initial design beginning almost immediately. McCorkell believes “a designer shouldn’t attempt to build a large show garden for anything under €50,000”. That may sound like a crazy amount of money, but labour costs (carpenters, electricians, contractors; six to eight men sometimes working 16-hour days) can quickly eat up close to a third of that budget, as do hard landscape materials (paving, walls, water features and so on) and planting costs (often 3,000-4,000 plants will be used). There are also many other miscellaneous items to consider (sculpture hire, fittings, furniture, lighting, leaflets, plumbing). She also stresses the importance of listening to the client. “As a landscape architect, it’s vital. In the case of Bord na Móna, the brief was to design a gardener’s garden; an engaging, inviting space that will interest horticulturists of all levels.”

The resulting design is elegantly but unabashedly retro, and quite a departure from most of McCorkell’s previous show gardens. The finished garden will include a glasshouse, a potting area and compost bins, while less functional design elements include a graceful bronze sculpture by the Dublin-based artist, Bob Quinn. Similarly, the planting will be quite cottage garden in style, or what McCorkell describes as “a jumble of colour”, with most of the plants being sourced from three Irish nurseries, Woodstock, Rentes (
rentes.ie) and Kilmurry (
kilmurrynursery.com).

“Nothing pretentious, but lovely specimen plants like Cornus, ‘Milky Way’, yew cones, the weeping pear, Pyrus pendula, as well as masses of beautiful perennials like lupins, primulas, astrantias, foxgloves, agapanthus and knautias.

Construction is expected to take almost three weeks to complete (her diary contains a spreadsheet which plots the build on a day-by-day basis), and is being carried out by a team of contractors that includes Saxa Landscapes (
saxalandscapes.ie) and project manager, Alan Smith.

McCorkell will do the planting herself. “It can get very pressurised on-site so I like to give myself seven to eight days to comfortably complete it.”

And then? “And then, fingers crossed, a gold medal. Otherwise”, she grins, “ I’ll be completely gutted.”

Jane McCorkell’s Bloom garden 

Some of the plants that will feature in Jane McCorkell’s  Bloom 2012 show garden include: Cirsium rivulare atropurpureum, Stipa gigantea, Salvia, ‘Purple Rain’, Campanula punctata, ‘Beetroot’; Agapanthus, ’Dr Brouwer’, Digitalis, ’Primrose Yellow’, Nepeta, ‘Walker’s Low’, Primula beesiana, Lychnis, ’White Robin’, Knautia macedonica, Lupin, ’Chandelier’, Verbena bonariensis, Delphinium, ‘Independence’, Astilbe, ’Diamant’, Alstromeria, ’Andez Vanilla’

DIARY DATES 

The Garden and Landscape Designers’ Association (GLDA) Bloom Fringe event continues nationwide throughout May, featuring design clinics with Ireland’s leading garden designers. See
glda.ie.

* The award-winning Cork garden centre, The Secret Garden (
thesecretgardener.com) is holding its Sustainable Garden attraction today from 1pm-5pm. This is a free event offering information and practical demonstrations on making your garden greener and more efficient.

* Also taking place this weekend is Castleknock Community College’s annual plant sale (today and tomorrow, 10am-5pm), at Carpenterstown Road, Dublin 15.

* The Rare Special Plant Fair will take place tomorrow in Beaulieu House in Drogheda, Co Louth. (See
rareandspecialplantsfair.com)

* The Wicklow-based botanical artist Holly Somerville is opening her newly-refurbished studio for a series of courses on botanical illustration, beginning May 19th. See
hollysomerville.com

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