Fairy gardening has taken the country by storm. These miniature gardens add charm to any home, both inside and out. What exactly is a fairy garden? A fairy garden is a miniature garden complete with fixtures and actual living plants. It is designed to lure fairies and their accompanying good luck to your home. It’s a tiny space created and tended with love. The design and components are limited only by your imagination and the fairies encourage you to be extra creative in crafting the perfect abode.

Fairy gardens can be made in any type of container. A simple wicker basket, a glass bowl, a terrarium or lantern or even an unused birdbath all make perfect fairy gardens. Once you decide on the container, it is time to select plants. The important thing to remember in choosing plants is to make sure they all need the same amount of sun and water. You do not want to mix a cactus, which does not want very much water, with a maidenhair fern that loves water. Your local independent garden center can help you with plant selection. It is recommended that you have at least three plants in your fairy garden; this is true for any type of container that you are planting. The three type of plants should represent the following:

A “thriller” — this is the focal piece of your fairy garden. Examples include mini-bloomer, colorful coleus or dwarf myrtle trees.

A “spiller” — this would include angle vine, ivy or creeping fig.

And, finally, a “filler” — baby tears and sedum are two common fillers.

The final step, before planting, is deciding on which accessories you are going to incorporate into your fairy garden. Popular accessories include arbors, chairs and benches, bridges and tools. You also will want to select a fairy, if you have not done so already. Your fairy selection will help you with an overall vision of their new home.

You now have the container and the plants; it is time to construct your fairy garden. Using a high-quality potting soil, gently place your plants where you want them, keeping in mind any accessories you are going to use and leaving enough space for a pathway. Fairies have places to go and things to do, and they need a way to get there. Once the plants and accessories are in place, add your pathway, which can be rocks, broken pottery or glass beads. It is now time to invite your fairy to move in.

Fairy gardens are easy and fun to make and are great gifts for family and friends. This is a great activity for kids to do with their mom or grandmother. Fairy gardening is fun for people of all ages.

Spring is a great time of year to plant a fairy garden while the weather outside is not quite ready for us to play in the dirt. The Wildflower Farm has a complete line of fairy-garden supplies, new for 2012. Stop by and check them out. Classes are also a great way to be inspired and have fun. If a fairy-garden class interests you, submit your request to Wildflower Farm.

The staff at the Wildflower Farm in Edwards writes this column together. The Wildflower Farm is located in Edwards on U.S. Highway 6. Reach them at 970-926-5504 or digit@thewildflowerfarm.com. For more gardening tips and education, sign up for Wildflower Farm’s educational newsletter.

Remediation of Westland’s Central City Park is nearly complete, so plans to make the park into a community attraction are moving forward.

A $15,480 contract for design services with city engineers Orchard, Hiltz and McCliment was recently approved by the council. OHM had already done some engineering work for the site which was cleared, regraded and seeded as part of the environmental remediation project.

The contract calls for OHM to develop conceptual site plans for the Farmers Market Plaza, concession stand, athletic fields and the Veterans Memorial Garden in Central City Park along with adjoining Tattan Park, where Play Planet and H2O Zone are located.

The planned project includes construction of six state-of-the-art soccer fields, a restroom facility, three picnic shelters and a plaza area for special events, including the Farmers Market. The concrete plaza area would consist of an amphitheater and a custom design shelter covering the majority of the plaza area.

“There is a lot of work, we need design work that includes the pavilions, the styles of the benches and picnic tables,” said Westland Parks and Recreation Director Robert Kosowski. “This time the work is nuts and bolts.”

The plans call for picnic structures to be added to Tattan Park, bleachers, benches and goals for the soccer field, pavers, benches, picnic tables and other amenities for the concession stand. Along with structures and what are called site furnishings, OHM would also prepare preliminary landscape plans for the park.

OHM is to work with the Westland Veterans Association, which already has a design for the Veterans Memorial Garden, and the city to reach a consensus for that part of the development.

This design work is being funded from proceeds from the Westland Wild Wings charity hockey game which earmarked money raised for improvements at Central City Park.

The council has also approved the city’s grant application to seek funding from the Department of Natural Resources for improvements to the park for a $500,000 project — $200,000 provided as a local match.

Construction at Central City Park had included clearing the 12-acre eastern part of the site along the east side of Carlson. The park was regraded, then covered with a geotextile membrane and 10-15 inches of top soil. Along with passive measures dealing with methane gas, the work is part of efforts to remediate long-standing lead and other contamination in the eastern portion of park.

Wayne County is funding the $2.5 million project for the 12 acres on the east side of the park, but remediation for the other approximately 21 acres was cost-prohibitive. As a result, that area will be restricted for the foreseeable future.

A new sidewalk has been installed along the east side of the park on Carlson along with a 200-space parking lot, new curbs and two entrances and exits which don’t cross the park walking path.

Exactly when the park, closed since 2006, will reopen hasn’t been determined.

lrogers@hometownlife.com (313) 222-5428

BY ADRIENNE GAFFNEY

The New York Botanical Garden’s annual Antique Garden Furniture Show and Plant Sale took place over weekend, but was unveiled on Thursday at a party for benefactors and denizens of the design world.

A frenzied rush occurred at 5:30 p.m. that evening, with the excitement and vigor rivaling that of a Christian Louboutin sample sale or a Justin Bieber autograph signing.

The show, which is in its 20th year, was sponsored by 1stdibs, the online marketplace for antique …

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Outdoors, gardens and waterways abound, including Garden In The “Glyn” by Ron Cording of Cording Landscape Design. Using what originally was a castle moat, Cording created a grotto-like garden featuring a long pool with a waterfall on either end.

Perched above the pool is a circular picnic area with a picnic table of stone mounted on stone. Around it are bright green/yellow chairs that blend perfectly with the Golden Japanese forest grass, hydrangea, and pansies planted around the eating area.

Adding to the natural beauty of the scene are colorful trees, including an old beech, Coral Bark Maple, and a Blue Atlas Cedar.

Some of the gardens, the front façade of the castle, and the regal driveway, lined with Linden trees, are all lighted by NatureScape Lighting, which specializes in cutting-edge, sustainable green lighting technology.

Karla Tricanello of Interior Decisions bridged outside and inside with her Winter Porch, a room with three open walls designed to be a way to get away from the bustle of the house and enjoy the purple and white petunias, and trickling fountain, in the surrounding Garden of Seasons for all the Senses.

Sheer motorized shades and canvas drapes protect the room from the elements, as does the fiber sealing on the carpet and oversized furniture, which include a so-called “cuddle chaise” for two people. A couple enjoying the room, Tricanello said, could take a nap or watch the flat-screen television over the fireplace.

“I wanted the room to look as though you could kick off your shoes and lay down and, if you spilled your wine, it was OK,” she added.

Her eclectic touches include a crystal chandelier in the shape of grape clusters and pillows on which are sewn fluttering butterflies.

It’s the kind of eclecticism she hopes Allen would like. He had, after all, an eclectic life. A book publisher, he also made his fortune running an electric company in Bermuda as well as a distillery.

After the death of Allen’s widow, Grace Fanshawe Allen, the estate was sold in 1951 to General Drafting Co., a map-making company that did business there until 1992.

A couple bought the estate in 1996 and raised their family there until leaving last year, before the transformation began.

By Carol Stocker
This is my favorite annual weekend at the Museum of Fine Arts, whose galleries are transformed through Monday by almost 70 extraordinary arrangements inspired by specific works of art in the museum collection. Volunteer arrangers in many local garden clubs have been assigned wildly differing works of art works to interpret, ranging from mid-century jewelry to early American furniture and ancient Egyptian tombs. The fun of Art in Bloom is to judge for yourself how cleverly or deftly each flower arrangement echoes the art it is paired with. The floral festival is free with regular Museum admission – which itself is free on Monday night from 5-9 p.m. at the end of the show.

One of the best arrangements ever devised for Art in Bloom must be the Boston Junior League Garden Club’s large two dimensional installation by Jane Carr and Lucinda Larson, which interprets an entire special exhibit room of fashion illustrations. Their mammoth piece is comprised of five assorted flower arrangements linked together by the classic fashion motif of sinuous curving palm fronds. The witty result is a floral art special exhibit in its own right that mirrors the spacial relationships of the larger display around it.

There is a lot of mirroring. For instance the very effective arrangement that is Dana Roberts’ and Jean Ridge’s interpretation of a nautical American painting, for the Hull Garden Club, seems to float in its boat-like ceramic vessel. Having the right container can make (or break) a floral arrangement, of course. Stephanie Hartwell and Joan Gallery of the Amateur Gardeners of Milton reflect a cache of Joan Crawford’s aquamarine and diamond jewelry with camera ready flowers in a glittering mirror vase gaudy as the trophy ball on TV’s “Dancing With The Stars.”

The second floor of the Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art is a jewel box itself, and is the must-see gallery of this 36th edition of Art in Bloom. Begin with Jessica Pohl and Barbie Cobb’s interpretation of “Sinuous,” a writhing white sculpture which they deftly recreate with fiddle heads and calla lilies for the Weston Garden Club. The free-wheeling fun continues throughout this wing as flower arranging goes modern.
Maureen Marshall and Catherine Healy do a vibrant interpretation of red toile wallpaper for the Holliston Garden Club.

The Art of Europe Wing is another fun spot. The warm golden heart of Ann Millington’s and Cat Malone’s outwardly pale roses captures the changing light in the architectural landscape they have interpreted for the Milton Garden Club.

Many of the Professional Designers’ arrangements are also worthy of accolades, including Sue Kaplan Flower melting red and black installation and Jolie Lapham Design’s playful red and green dragon. New Leaf flores also prompts second looks.

Members’ Night is Sunday, April 29, 6–9 pm with members-only viewings with tours, shopping, and dining. Tours continue until 8 pm; galleries are open until 9 pm. The New American Cafe’s last seating is at 8 pm; Taste opens until 8:30 pm. The Paula Pryke Book Signing is Monday, April 30, 12:30–1:30 pm

Have you ever wondered how all of the elements of water saving landscapes—such as water smart plantings, efficient irrigation, and rainwater harvesting—come together to make beautiful home gardens? Join award-winning garden designer and author Scott Calhoun for a hands-on class that will help you develop a conceptual xeric garden design. Participants should plan on bringing a basic site map (a drawning of their lot with their house on it) of their garden drawn on graph paper.

Seating is limited so registration is required. Please contact the SmartScape Program via email or phone at 520.626.5161.

Persons with a disability may request a reasonable accommodation, such as a sign language interpreter, by contacting the SmartScape Program Office 520-626-5161. Requests should be made as early as possible to allow time to arrange the accommodation.

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www.ag.arizona.edu/pima/smartscape/workshop_water.html

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SOME of the most thought-provoking ideas at the International Furniture Fair in Milan, which ended on Sunday, issued not from the thousands of exhibition booths and off-site venues or even from the lips of the designers, pundits and producers who bring this stalwart city to life every April. They were written on the walls.

“Thanks Starck,” read one such message, scrawled in the neighborhood of Ventura Lambrate, where for the third consecutive year emerging designers have shown work and staged Oedipal battles with the masters. The words accompanied a drawing of Philippe Starck’s Juicy Salif lemon squeezer from 1990, an aluminum teardrop on spidery legs with a knob intended for mauling citrus — but the artist had substituted a toilet paper roll for the lemon.

Such an irreverent treatment of a classic object suggests that Mr. Starck may have lost his mojo in today’s design world, but he shows no sign of receding from the scene. On the contrary, his notoriously paradoxical nature defined this year’s fair, which was marked by the contradictory pursuits of social consciousness and unrestrained luxury.

Mr. Starck may be best known for a whimsical $100 sculpture that does nothing more than extract juice. But he also is — or claims to be — as idealistic as any young designer.

He alternately caters to lovers of luxury and slaps them on the wrist. This year, he collaborated with Lenny Kravitz on upholstered versions of his Mademoiselle chair for the high-end Italian company Kartell, but he also touted his Broom chair for the American company Emeco, made of 90 percent recycled post-industrial factory waste and 10 percent glass. “With this new chair, I start to feel happy,” he said in a promotional film for the product, “because it is made of nothing.”

A decade ago, socially conscious design was a sideshow at the fair, but now it’s in the center ring. A number of companies boasted of earth-friendly materials and showed off efficient packing methods that reduced their carbon footprints. The Swedish company Offecct went so far as to display Luca Nichetto’s Robo chair from 2010 along with its box to show how compactly it can be taken apart and shipped.

Food was a popular medium for commentary. In Lambrate, Rui Pereira and Ryosuke Fukusada baked tiny cakes shaped like chairs, lamps and vases to protest the hyperabundance of new furniture and the inability of consumers to “digest” it. And in the Tortona district, Marleen Jansen presented her Seesaw Table, which requires two diners to sit down to meals and depart from the table at precisely the same time — or else risk sending one of the pair flying.

“It’s a courtesy table,” Ms. Jansen said. “I want to manipulate behavior, and it’s rude to leave the table while eating.”

On the frontiers of experimentation, the “Open Design Archipelago” exhibition organized by Domus magazine and Audi demonstrated methods for harnessing the desert sun to melt sand and produce glass objects; for manufacturing inexpensive chairs with a robotic arm (no human hands needed); and for training crows to pick up bottle caps littering the landscape.

And yet, while there were plenty of designers trying to redirect human habits and prepare for a world with scarce resources, many conventional products seemed to have gotten bigger and softer, assuming a standard of padded comfort one might even call American.

Furniture came with names like Soft Box, the Swiss designer Alfred Häberli’s cushy sofa for Moroso. And the body-cradling Bunny armchair by Iskos-Berlin, for the Danish company Normann Copenhagen, was all but infantilizing.

But nothing conveyed the sensuality of textiles (or their facsimile) this year so much as the flowing tablecloth carved into the wood of Ferruccio Laviani’s Twaya table for Emmemobili. A representative of the Italian company Emmemobili noted that, by the end of the fair, the number of hands rubbing the table’s surface had left “the left side smoother than the right.”

ACTS of aesthetic indulgence seemed to compensate for the fact that Southern Europe’s economy was in tatters. Several onlookers suggested that Italy’s recent austerity measures had whetted the appetite for comfort. Others attributed bigger furniture to an obesity epidemic. Beyond dispute is that European producers are catering to the tastes of prosperous foreigners in South America, Russia, India and East Asia, many of whom value the look and feel of luxury.

FederlegnoArredo, an Italian furniture industry association that is a sponsor of the Milan Furniture Fair, reported a decrease of 9.7 percent in local purchases between 2010 and 2011, but an increase of 4.3 percent in exports. And Claudio Luti, president of Kartell, noted that “last year was the worst for the industry, but we profited,” citing the company’s 127 stores throughout the world, including seven in China.

“Business is very difficult, very bumpy,” said Rossana Orlandi, whose sprawling Milanese design gallery was filled with such marvels as the Surface Tension Lamp, a continually inflating and popping soap bubble surrounding an LED designed by Front for Booo Studio in the Netherlands. “We are lucky because we have plenty of foreign customers, but the mood is very depressing.”

Still, given the crowds stuffed into booths and the lavish displays by international furniture producers and materials suppliers, it took a discerning eye to detect adversity.

Superstudio Più, an exhibition space in Tortona, for instance, presented nine massive sculptures created by prominent designers at the invitation of the Turkish stone industry. Mr. Häberli, who was a participant, said he was given few constraints in fashioning a pavilion built from several varieties of marble and that the cost was about $100,000 for materials and construction alone, forget shipping.

Far from wearing its charms openly, Milan usually hides its treasures behind blistered, mustard-colored walls. But this fair was notable for penetrating a number of eye-popping sites that would have been off-limits or simply invisible to the casual visitor.

The clothing labels Blumarine and Roberto Cavalli both introduced home collections, and Cavalli’s was displayed in an ornate old home on Corso Venezia. (No photographs, visitors were warned, lest the flash bulbs disturb the Canaletto paintings.) Intricate parquet floors and coffered ceilings set off a bed upholstered in buttery leather and covered with a velvet-lined fur throw. Glittering Murano glass balls lacked any discernible function other than to look impressive heaped on a dining table.

And Meissen furnished the 16th-century Casa Carcola-Grandi on Via Montenapelone with a sumptuous assortment of furniture, lighting, textiles and jewelry — brave new territory for the 300-year-old German porcelain company. There, a proffered bed was displayed under a fresco painted by Raphael’s students. Meissen even produced the mattress.

Most likely, fairgoers would not have set foot in the National Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo da Vinci either, were it not for the British designer Tom Dixon. Mr. Dixon organized several exhibitions in the museum complex — which is housed in a former monastery and a train station — with displays placed around an immense courtyard and among antique locomotives and planes. Another path led to “The Secret Garden,” an installation designed by Paola Navone and Zaha Hadid that featured Barovier Toso glass chandeliers suspended in twiggy blue yurts in the botanical gardens of the Brera neighborhood.

But even attendees who chose not to seek out obscure corners of Milan could walk down a corridor and see the world. The fair has never stretched so far internationally or represented so many transcontinental partnerships. A few examples: INCH, a furniture company that showed refined wood shelving and tables, works in close collaboration with Indonesian designers, although its founders are based in Switzerland. Paola C. presented wood tabletop objects designed by Aldo Cibic, of Italy, and Bijoy Jain, of India, carved in Mr. Jain’s workshop near Mumbai.

And at the Salone Satellite, an exhibition of young designers’ work now in its 15th year, Francesca Lanzavecchia and Hunn Wai, a former couple — she from Milan, he from Singapore — showed products to assist the elderly: canes attached to rolling carts, chairs that help propel sitters into a standing position.

“People appreciate beautiful things,” Ms. Lanzavecchia said. “Why should they be degraded by old age?”

Ms. Orlandi, the Milanese gallery owner, offered a final word on this year’s offerings. Surrounded by mobs of fairgoers in her gallery’s garden one afternoon, she peered through her signature owl-like glasses and announced, “Particularly now, a product has to be honest, concrete, beautiful.”

She paused to puff on a cigarette. “I should say only one word: honest,” she amended. “We don’t need other words.”

 

Nendo, Nendo Everywhere

THE scale of the Milan Furniture Fair — 5.7 million square feet of exhibition space in the main fairgrounds alone — would seem to ensure that no single design studio could stand out in the crowd. But this year, the Tokyo-based Nendo, which was founded in 2002 by Oki Sato, now 34, seemed to be everywhere.

On Via della Spiga, the Nilufar gallery showed tiny bowls made of glued sheets of paper lacquered and sanded to resemble wood. At Spazio Rossana Orlandi, LED-illuminated glass bulbs to which the blowers’ pipes remained attached dangled from a chandelier produced by Lasvit. At Moroso’s booth in Rho, thick white canvas looked tossed over the backs of metal-frame sofas and chairs: meet the upholstery. And at Established Sons’ display on Via Savona, a desk lamp called Hood tilted forward like a hawk. Nearby, bath fixtures for Bisazza in pale larch and gleaming white serenely dotted the space.

Nendo, all Nendo.

The bath collection was typically restrained. Bisazza produces glass tiles in flamboyant hues, but Mr. Sato chose transparent tiles for his mosaics, which he combined with Carrera marble to create a pattern of Japanese and European flowers. (He was raised in Canada until the age of 10 and routinely mixes East and West.)

“Transparency is not only making things disappear,” he said. “When things disappear, you notice light and texture.”

Nasir Kassamali, the chief executive of Luminaire, a furniture store in Coral Gables, Fla., praised Mr. Sato’s precise eyes for proportions. “There’s minimalism,” he said. “And then there’s intelligent minimalism.”

 

A New Source of Lighting Catches On

THE pioneering German designer Ingo Maurer has worked with the thin, flexible lighting elements known as OLEDs — or organic light-emitting diodes, which use organic compounds that produce light in response to electrical current — since 2005. But only in 2008 did he introduce a lighting product that used the technology: a limited-edition table lamp called Early Future, which had five OLED panels extending like wings from either side of an angled stem. The cost of the lamp: $10,000.

Four years later, OLEDs are cheaper, longer-lasting and gaining visibility. In Milan, the Japanese company Lumiotec presented a dramatic installation designed by Naohiko Mitsu, which mixed OLEDs and LEDs. And in celebration of its 50th anniversary, Flos presented the limited-edition Light Photon lamp, a table lamp designed by Philippe Starck that consists of a giant OLED backed by a mirrored surface, on a stainless steel base. OLEDs were also spotted at the Salone Satellite show for emerging designers.

Asked about the technology today, Mr. Maurer is reserved. “Everyone thought this was going to be a gold mine, but it has a long way to go,” he said. “It makes a monotonous light, with no depth, no dimension. I hope we don’t have a future only with OLEDs but with other light sources.”

Such as? “Incandescent light,” he said with a twinkle. “Fire.”

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Newtown certainly has no shortage of great landscaping companies, but only one could emerge the winner of this week’s Readers’ Choice contest. And that winner is Holmes Fine Gardens.

Founded by Dan Holmes, the firm offers a variety of landscape design, construction and maintenance services including, patio, stair and walkway construction, floral arrangements, gardening, irrigation system design, garden design and care, tree services, lawn maintenance and more.

While Holmes’ scored the most support (36% of the vote), you also had praise for other Newtown-based landscaping companies, including Top Notch Landscaping, Landscaping Unlimited, Valley View Landscaping. Here’s what you had to say:

“Newtown Arbor Services is the best for tree removal. Did an awesome job, and they cleaned up everything for me for a reasonable price!” Richard Mann

 

“Please add another name. We have a lovely garden courtesy of John Holden of Land Designs Unlimited. We too had a really disappointing garden until this company was recommended to us following extensive tree removal. This spring our back garden was done, and for the first time in thirty-plus years our little borough property looks like something out of a magazine.” Mary Thomas

 

“Casting my write in vote for Quinn Fontaine and QJF Services – nice guy, good services, dependable.” Jennifer

You can rate and review any local business at any time in our directory. And don’t forget to check out the Newtown Readers’ Choice 2012 Topic Page to see who else you have selected as the best of the best.

The Allentown Art Museum’s Society of the Arts is providing the perfect excuse to take a leisurely ride down a country road — the 2012 SOTA Designer Showhouse Gardens.

The three-week event, “Spend a Day in the Country,” kicks off 10 a.m. April 28 and continues through May 20 at Three Chimneys Farm in Springfield Township, Bucks County.

This year’s home is an 1870 Victorian farmhouse situated on 75 scenic acres near Coopersburg.

SOTA has a knack for finding some of the most incredible homes for its major fundraiser, which is held every other year.

Its members search the Lehigh Valley for a home with beautiful features and great potential that can be vacant for about six weeks. Then they invite more than two dozen area interior and landscape designers to transform one room or area. Finally, they open the home to the public — for a fee, of course — to raise funds for the Allentown Art Museum

This year’s showhouse was a sight to behold before designers took over. The three-story stone home features impressive period details, including original wood molding and a fireplace in the kitchen. These are blended with the newly renovated kitchen and baths.

The exterior boasts broad porches set off with ornate gingerbread detailing, a slate roof and large windows with arched cornices and decorative carvings.

The historic home sits on rolling hills overlooking two ponds, a large red bank barn and a gazebo.

The private property, once a working farm, is owned by Bruce and Anne Lawrence of Bethlehem. It has been in Bruce’s family since his parents purchased it in 1965. His mother lived there until she died in 2003.

Now the Lawrences hope to turn it into a country retreat. They love their home in historic Bethlehem, but they look forward to having Three Chimneys Farm for large family gatherings and for a quiet escape — especially when Bethlehem is busy during Musikfest, says Bruce Lawrence, with a smile.

The property had been owned and farmed by several generations of the Weierbach family, beginning in the 1750s. Believed to be among the oldest settlers of Springfield Township, the Weierbachs purchased the land from Conrad Reizley, who purchased it from the family of Pennsylvania’s founder, William Penn.

The current house was built on the property in 1876 by Zeno W. Weierbach. Built of stone quarried from the farm, it has many architectural features superior to those usually found in farm houses in the day, including many large, deep-silled windows on all sides. Windows in those days were thought to be a high-end feature, says SOTA Showhouse Co-chairman Nancy Ordoski. So many people who built in those days cut costs by putting windows only on the front side, she says.

Zeno Weierbach was a teacher and a farmer. Along with general farming, he raised cattle and hogs, keeping from 70 to 100 dairy cows and beef cattle on the property. He built the largest stone barn in the township. It is the only of several outbuildings that remains.

The barn, which has a long, covered porch with a view of the ponds, will house the SOTA cafe, where you can get sandwiches, salads, wraps and desserts. Also inside will be the SOTA Boutique, filled with items from jewelry and giftware to photography and wreaths. Behind it is SOTA’s Attic, where you can purchase donated, second-hand treasures.

As you enter the home through its large, double-door entry, you walk into a central hallway flanked by a living room and a library. A dramatic staircase features hardwood floors, crafted balusters and a curved handrail.

The focal point in the living room, decorated by Donna Wood of Stonewood Interiors in Emmaus, is a faux fireplace trimmed with an 1860 surround, which Wood found at an antiques store. The fireplace is inviting, framed with carefully selected art and two Victorian-style leather loveseats.

The library, transformed by designer Quentin Eshleman of Beautiful Home in Emmaus, has a global feel, with interesting animal accent pieces.

The Lawrences got a jump on the kitchen transformation before the designer Milou Mackenzie moved in to give it decorative touches. Old cabinets that partially covered two large windows were removed, as was a wall that divided the kitchen from its eat-in area, creating one big room with a full-wall, stone fireplace. Mackenzie’s design details set off the room’s architectural assets and the handsome new cabinetry, granite counters and upscale appliances.

Designers who decorated the upstairs bedrooms took advantage of the home’s abundant large windows, creating bedrooms that were bright and inviting even on a recent misty day.

With his clever use of white, blues and greens, Scott Rothenberger of Scott Rothenberger’s Place in Barto created a master bedroom you’d love to wake up in. Pay close attention to the artwork gracing its walls that are made from his own nature photography. A small Hess’s chandelier adds another touch of elegance.

By EDWARD HELMORE

Photograph by Sean Donnola

GREAT ESCAPE Von Gal returns from the beach to one of the simple cabins on her property

Looking out on a 180-degree view of Bahia Achotines from the deck of her home on the Pacific Coast of Panama, Edwina von Gal, an East Hampton–based garden designer with a clientele that includes Larry Gagosian, Richard Serra and Calvin Klein, tries to explain how she found herself running the Azuero Earth Project—an organization dedicated to preserving the dry forest.  

She first came to Panama 10 years ago with artist Maya Lin and Johnny Pigozzi, the multimillionaire Italian investor and playboy, to scout real estate on the Pacific side. In 2002, after the death of her husband, advertising legend Jay Chiat, Frank Gehry asked her to design the garden for a museum he was building in Panama City dedicated to the region’s history as a land bridge between continents. As von Gal began to learn about tropical vegetation, she found herself drawn to the area’s unusual topography and its distinctive, ocean-cooled climate. “It wasn’t my choice—the landscape chose me,” says von Gal. “I didn’t have any reason to complicate my life, but I did it anyway. I tend to jump off cliffs, then worry about it later.”

Photos: Natural Landscapes

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LOVELY BONES Von Gal’s upscale American projects include a fern landscape around a pond and pavilion

Von Gal initially thought she might buy a home in Gamboa, a town originally built by the U.S. military in the Canal Zone, but the Azuero is where she found her place and her mission. Dry forest used to cover nearly half the land area between the tropics but what little remains is in isolated pockets. Not only is it poorly understood, von Gal explains, but “it is also the most habitable, has the best climate and is the easiest to burn—so it’s the most endangered, too. There’s almost none left anywhere.”

Her team at the Azuero Earth Project, headquartered in nearby surfer town Pedasí, includes three full-time staff members and visiting field-study groups from universities including Princeton, McGill and Boston, and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Their goal is mapping and finding new ways to protect plant and animal species in the dry forest. Some programs use satellite imaging to compare tracts of forest and detect changes in soil and vegetation; some involve fieldwork (her team recently traveled deep into the Cerro Hoya, setting cameras to monitor the movement of ocelots and puma); some are educational, such as creating a local network to test new seed varieties and organic-farming methods. 

Another goal is to create vegetal corridors to encourage species to move between pockets of existing forest. So when von Gal spots a playful, acrobatic troupe of Azuero spider monkeys on the undulating land that was degraded dairy pasture when she purchased it seven years ago, she gets excited. “We weren’t thinking about monkeys, and I didn’t know they were critically endangered, and then they just turned up on our land! They’re a good measure of forest health, very charismatic and a great symbol for us.”

A life among spider monkeys is an agile leap from the Hamptons, where clients like Calvin Klein depend on von Gal’s spatial refinement and planting expertise. While her gardens are artful and modern, they are also highly naturalistic. Von Gal favors English-style meadows and swaths of ornamental grasses that mimic patterns in nature. Klein says he first admired her work when he saw a wall of bamboo she’d planted for the previous owners of a house he bought in Miami. Since then she has worked on several of his projects, including the garden at his new modernist Southampton home and its sculptural swimming pool. “She’s a minimalist, and there’s serenity about what she does. She doesn’t mix a lot of things—maybe a stand of willow or sea grape,” Klein explains. “Her look is architectural, but it’s soft and has movement at the same time.” 

“I always had this environmental side to me but couldn’t exercise it. Being a tree hugger wasn’t very posh.”

This affection for natural landscapes is an extension of her hippie past. In the early ’70s, von Gal was a young mother in Tivoli, New York. “I made my own tofu and sewed my daughter’s clothes and everything. Then I decided it was time to get out in the world.” She moved to Manhattan to work on design projects for Peter Sharp, who owned the Carlyle Hotel, and ultimately, with the boom in interest in English garden design, established her own business. “I always had this environmental side to me but couldn’t exercise it—being a tree hugger wasn’t very posh,” she says. Her latest project links her passion for landscape restoration and the principles of sustainability she learned in the ’70s. It has allowed, she says, “my life and my work to become completely intertwined.” 

Von Gal’s 12-acre property sits on the southern tip of the Azuero peninsula, about 150 miles west of Panama City. Owing to plate tectonics, the land was originally part of the Galapagos Islands, 1,100 miles southwest of here. For a plant lover, Panama is a kind of paradise, reputed to have nine times the number of native species as North America. In addition, there’s no dividing line between winter and summer, and no hurricane season, so the big hardwood trees become astonishing giants. 

In the winter, while her U.S. clients’ gardens are frozen, von Gal spends several weeks at a time in Panama, living off the grid; electricity and hot water come from solar panels on the roof, and the Internet from a satellite positioned over Guatemala. Most of the structures on the property have no walls, and the roof panels are separated at their apex, allowing ocean breezes to keep the living areas cool, even in the heat of the day.

Almost everything about von Gal’s Panamanian home is considered through the prism of design simplicity and sustainability. “I’m not inclined toward political activism, and whining about chemicals in the landscape wasn’t doing it,” she says. “A door opened up for me. From how to run a project to my love of plants, everything I’ve learned is applicable here.”

““She’s a minimalist,” says Calvin Klein. “There’s a serenity about what she does. Her look is architectural but soft.””

In collaboration with the graduate program at the Columbia School of Architecture, von Gal has researched ideas for passively cooled buildings. On her own land she has made widespread use of poured concrete—which she considers an environmentally friendly alternative to brick. A stand of lemongrass planted around the house mitigates reflected light and heat, part of a wider effort to reduce dependence on inefficient air conditioning. Another idea is to promote “living fences”—balo trees that produce shoots that can be planted to make new fencing. “It’s a sustainable system,” she explains. “They’re constantly renewable, they don’t rot, and we use trees that produce fruit and flowers so they give habitat to other plants and animals.”

What is so striking, she says, is that her ’70s dreams are coming to life. “I meet all these young people who want to go into farming; we’re deluged with people who want to come work with us,” she says. “My clients used to worry about the cost of chemical-free gardening. Now they absolutely want it.” And some of the lessons she’s acquired can be fed back to her projects in the States.

On a hike along steep-sided gullies, past stands of corotu, caracucha or frangipani, and pink-blossomed roble trees, von Gal says, “It was time for me to do something with all of what I’d learned. My clients have all been like patrons, each one wanting you to do something different. But I’d sort of run out of new things to do. This was the new thing—the ultimate project, on landscape scale. My aunt Diana Vreeland once said to me, ‘I don’t care what you do, darling, so long as you do it with gusto!’ ”