Tuesday February 19, 2013

JAMAICA — The winter is only about six weeks from being over, but Erica Bowman, a garden and landscape architect as well as owner of Andromeda Designs, is going to be holding her first free garden workshop on Feb. 25 at her home office and garden facility, which she named Evernest.

“Hopefully, I’ll get some people and start to get this thing rolling this year,” she said.

Bowman told the Reformer that Evernest is “a work in progress and always will be.” It functions as a garden collection that sits on about 50 acres of land. So far, about two acres of that land have been used to cultivate her gardens.

She said that it has been a dream of hers to teach programs on gardening. Having the land for it makes the dream achievable.

“It’s something I’m trying to make happen,” she said. “I’m trying to get more people involved in gardening.”

Andromeda Designs’ first free workshop will be on the mechanics of perennial garden design. It will start at 3:30 p.m. and run until 5 p.m. The workshop will go over how to construct a planting plan, based on site evaluation and measurement to spacing and species selection.

The second free workshop will be on May 11 from 10 a.m. to noon. It will go over perennial bed preparation and planting. Participants will learn to shape, cut, de-sod, amend and double dig a new garden.

Bowman will also be teaching about basic garden layouts and planting.

She believes that with

being a gardener there’s a lot to learn and know. It takes “a lifetime of knowledge,” she said.

Bowman works as a type of mentor to people interested in planting and maintaining gardens. She specializes in many things, especially with planting and caring for perennials.

“Each plant has a different tendency,” she said. “Some to fertilize, some for the shade and some for the sun. All these things matter and contribute to whether you have a successful garden.”

Bowman has done workshops and lectures in the past. Mostly she speaks to and works with garden clubs, but she also works as a garden coach.

Working one-on-one is something she enjoys doing. Working as a garden coach, Bowman teaches how to care for plants, which entails knowing what each plant’s specific needs are. She also helps design gardens.

“Often, we start from scratch,” she said. “We put in the garden together, then I may come every week and we work together. It’s fantastic. That person gets hands-on experience. There’s only so much you can learn from a book that you can’t learn from touching the plant.”

While growing up in New Jersey, Bowman’s mother had a gardening business. Every summer, she would work with her mother. She said that it was hard work and thought she wouldn’t ever be doing that type of work again.

After graduating from college, she went back to the business. Then she went to graduate school and received a degree in landscaping architecture.

“When I moved away, I learned that I really loved gardening and flowers,” Bowman said.

She has lived in Vermont since 1991. Most of her time running her own gardening business has been done in the state, she said. Some clients come to Bowman just for the fact that she knows how to harvest plants and flowers in Vermont.

“They move from places like California, where it’s warmer and they might have been a gardener in whatever region they were from, but they need to learn about the regional plants and regional techniques,” she said.

This may require learning how to deal with snow in the winter as well as the range of plants that can be grown in Vermont.

Other clients come to Bowman because they don’t feel confident enough to create their own garden without some assistance from an expert.

“Sometimes people want something specific,” she said. “They may want a native landscape. One guy hired me and we worked together to make a garden for birds bees and butterflies, a wildlife garden.”

Bowman’s work at Evernest gets people to practice their gardening techniques. She said that dead-heading and weeding is “a huge component people have trouble doing,” because it’s difficult “identifying weeds when they’re small.”

She also teaches edging, mulching and watering.

“Some people don’t understand that if you just spray water on plants during sunny day,” said Bowman. “It can reflect the sun and burn the leaf. All these details would be details I’m teaching.”

Bowman is concerned that there’s not enough places people can go to learn about gardening and landscaping. She thinks Evernest will be a great resource for those who want to learn.

She chose February for the first workshop because of the time sensitivity of planting perennials.

“Now is the time to do that,” Bowman said. “Once you get into spring, you want to be able to get the ground prepared and get the plants in the ground.”

She thinks that by March, there is the potential for bulbs to start coming out of the ground. Last year, she said that there were some blooming at that point, especially in Brattleboro.

The workshop in February will also be helpful for those who want to plant trees and shrubs.

“Having that workshop in February allows someone the time to plan on getting those plants and getting them in the ground,” she said.

Bowman told the Reformer that people in her business prefer to have the winter full of design work and spring full of installation work.

“No matter what we do, May is a really insanely busy time for all of us, she said. “I’d love to get people to start thinking about their summer garden for everybody’s sake.”

Bowman is also really interested in helping people grow their own vegetables. She said that it doesn’t take a large amount of space like some gardeners would think. It can be done in a small space and it can be started inside.

“It’s an up-and-coming trend in Vermont,” she said. “People want to have more control over the production of their own food.”

Bowman is currently working on starting to cultivate peppers and artichokes, which she said have a really long growing season. She will start the process inside her home, then move it outdoors when the time is right.

“People who really know about gardens make it their life study. You have to, in a way, learn all the intricacies of the plants, soil and in addition to that, I continue to learn every day. It is an evolving body of knowledge.”

The spots for the workshops are limited. To register, contact Bowman at 802-688-5008 or enroll at andromedadesigns.com.

McCollum Architects is a Union Pier-based, full-service architecture firm that has designed everything from urban to country homes, condominiums to second home communities, low income to upscale housing, single family to multi-family homes, tiny boutique restaurants to large eateries.

The firm is involved with renovating and creating new housing, amphitheaters, band shells, pavilions, daycare centers, senior housing, and special community development projects designed to create flexible environments; providing dignified alternatives to those often neglected members of society.

McCollum Architects also makes a point of leaving a footprint – in a good way – to his client’s projects and neighborhoods. “Architects have a responsibility to design ‘in scale’ with the surrounding areas,” says Bill McCollum, owner of McCollum Architects. For example, McCollum designed the award winning New Buffalo Township Pavilion to blend in with its setting. “A new design should look like it has always been a part of its neighborhood.” “I am thrilled that the Pavilion structure has been used so actively as an entertainment and meeting place.”

Two recent, very exciting Southwest Michigan projects include the The Stray Dog and Camp Buffalo Cottages, each demonstrating the unique twists in McCollum’s architecture.

Throughout the projects, McCollum is fully dedicated to sustainable energy, environmentally friendly buildings, universal design, and low maintenance costs. Although he has done plenty of elaborate “green” mechanical systems, he mainly focuses on a well-sealed envelope with sensitive placement of high performance windows as well as careful positioning of the home to reduce the solar gain in the summer and provide supplemental heat in the winter. “Simple and practical green solutions can give you more bang for the buck,” McCollum says.

McCollum is licensed in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan and, in addition to designing whole structures also provides zoning variances, feasibility studies, additions, and new porches. In fact, Bill McCollum is also a dealer for Sunspace porch enclosures – the porch windows that slide up and down to keep the weather out.

There is always an element of surprise in McCollum’s designs—unexpected old parts given a new life, hidden vistas, bridges to entryways, and customized spaces for personal collections. A sense of arrival is key to any project. McCollum reflects, “With respect for the past and a vision of the future, this office designs and builds community-based projects and homes that enrich the lives of our clients.”

When it came time to design the house replacing the 3,000-square-foot summer home they’d enjoyed for 15 years, Mary and Kevin Beyer knew they wanted to take full advantage of their waterfront property on scenic Gull Lake in Hickory Corners, Michigan. But Mary Beyer wanted a home with a street presence while her husband opted for a home with a definitive lake presence.

“They talked to different designers before working with us,” says Andrea Muldar, director of sales and marketing for Visbeen Associates Inc., a Grand Rapids and Chicago based architectural firm which won 12 American Residential Design Awards (ARDA) last year.  “They weren’t happy with their ideas.”

Wayne Visbeen, the AIA and IIDA certified president and founder of Visbeen Associates, was able to combine both visions to design Highfield, a $1 million 5,297-square-foot summer home built by Falcon Custom Homes and featured in the2012 Home Builders Association of Greater Kalamazoo’s 22nd Annual Parade of Homes.

“The home was created for entertaining and to maximize the view of the lakes,” says Muldar about the five bedroom and four and a half bath house. “The couple have adult children so to give them privacy there’s a two bedroom   apartment over the garage.  Outdoor living is enhanced with screened in porches and Wayne designed a boat bar that literally looks like the rear of a boat complete with a fog machine where smoke comes out of a pipe. There’s also another boat bar outside.”

The boat bar, with its rich mahogany features, is a homage to the vintage watercraft of yesteryear before the advent of fiberglass. Other special touches include five stall and three stall garages as well as one with space enough to accommodate the necessary toys of lake living such as boats, fishing gear and watercrafts such as jet-skis. Two of three bedrooms have walk-outs and the master bedroom features a private deck overlooking the landscaped garden fronting the water. A screened in porch connects the dining room to the lakefront without impeding the view.  The kitchen, with its two level island, is great for entertaining and a walk-in pantry with its sliding door can hold all the viands necessary for feeding large crowds.

The yard fronting the water has a stone pathway leading to the docks and almost every room in the home’s upstairs has a view of the lake. High ceilings, large windows, granite counters, white trim and warm toned colors accented with nautical themes which tie into the owners’ love of water make the home inviting rather than baronial. Heated hickory wood floors are a stylish way to keep feet from getting cold.

Though the original property was a heritage home, it also was definitely just for warm weather having no central heating and, awkwardly because of the way the ground slopes down to the water, access to the front meant walking down steps. The new home instead is multi-leveled with an indoor bridge providing easy access from the guest quarters and main street entrance to the lakeside living and entertainment areas.

“It’s a unique design even for us in the custom home business,” says Muldar. “It certainly is perfect for what the couple wanted.”

An African garden titled Embedded In Mother Earth, and designed by Ann� Cilliers, David Dorgan and Byron Leppan, is this year’s winner of the Lifestyle Garden Design Show, which is now on in Randburg.

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• Bringing romance to the garden

Johannesburg – The 17th annual Lifestyle Garden Design Show opened recently at Lifestyle Home Garden in Randpark Ridge.

Eleven large show gardens are on display.

Eight were designed and built by landscape design students at the Lifestyle College, under the direction of landscaper Richard Gibb.

Three were built by professional landscape designers Sonita Coetzee, Bruce Stead, Debbie Smit and Mike Rickhoff.

“Our show takes place in peak growing season and not only showcases the hottest trends in garden design, but also highlights the latest ‘must-have’ plants, gardening products and accessories,” says Lifestyle Home Garden’s Mike Gibbons.

“With more and more people living in less and less space, there is a greater need to make smart decisions about what to grow and how to grow it. Our designer gardens are the ideal way to get ideas necessary to create the perfect small space haven,” he adds.

An Italian garden, titled Antico Argilla, was designed by Karl Sutcliffe and Joanne van der Westhuizen. It’s a herbal orchard patio design set in a 15th century Roman villa.

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This year’s theme is Gardening Through the Ages and takes visitors on a journey through the history of garden design. The gardens reflect the evolving art of gardening by combining colour, composition, texture and creativity and have provided beauty and pleasure for centuries.

“Today’s gardeners create everything from traditional English gardens to practical vegetable gardens to colourful and geometrical Islamic gardens,” says Gibb. The show reflects the widest variety of gardens since at the show in years.

The building of the gardens involves a team of nearly 60 people and most of the build-up took place in January’s sweltering heat. “Last year we built through weeks of rain,” says Gibb. “This year we had extreme heat.”

After four weeks of construction, the student gardens were judged earlier this week by top landscapers Aileen Joubert, Trish Manicom and Debbie Smit. All the judges remarked on the students’ creativity and the use in every garden of at least one unique design idea, not seen in previous shows.

Breadth of vision is the key to this year’s gardens. “There is a huge variety of gardens this year. There is something for everyone’s taste or design style,” says Gibb.

“In particular, there is an enormously creative use of everyday garden products. For example, window boxes are turned into water features, retaining blocks are turned into pillars, and vertical walls are created with wooden trellises,” he adds.

Although a wide range of plants were used in this year’s show, every garden contained herbs and edible plants, many of which were incorporated into ornamental gardens. Another aspect was that the gardens could be duplicated quite easily in local gardens and were filled with interesting ideas.

The 2013 Best on Show Trophy and a Platinum Award at the show went to an indigenous African garden titled Embedded in Mother Earth. The garden was created by a close-knit team of designers, including Anné Cilliers, David Dorgan and Byron Leppan.

With an indigenous planting scheme, the team created a forest garden using thorn trees, colourful crocosmias, ericas and anthuriums. A living green wall was made up of drought-hardy plants and a bug hotel made from recycled material to attract all the bugs in the garden.

Two additional platinum awards went to an Aztec garden and a 15th century Roman garden.

An excellent garden with a difficult brief, the Aztec garden, titled Moctezuma’s Garden, needed to include all the terraces, colour and grandeur of an Aztec mountain. A vertical garden planted up with asparagus ferns and a water feature, created using a variety of water features, was eye-catching.

Third place at the show went to the Roman garden, titled Antico Argilla. With a simple design, beautiful shades of colour and an innovative vertical garden, this garden had a unique design as visitors view it from the back of the garden. Its positioning creates a secret garden which includes a water feature and fragrant plants. – Saturday Star

* The show runs until June.

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EVEN THE most experienced gardeners make mistakes. The most they can hope is that when they move on to a new garden, they don’t repeat them. After 40 years in the design/build landscaping business, Terry Welch must have kept this maxim firmly in mind when he began creating a new garden on Vashon Island.

Welch’s old garden was a multiacre magical mystery tour, with a Zen garden, large pond, beaver dam and woodland trails. A wildlife sanctuary in rapidly developing Woodinville, the garden was a mecca for school tours and a pilgrimage for gardeners visiting the Northwest.

But when Welch decided to sell his famous garden, he discovered it wasn’t so easy to find a buyer. Seduced by the charms of Vashon, he was ready to move on after 28 years of creating and tending the Woodinville garden.

“It was an eight-year odyssey to sell the sanctuary, with a cast of characters including artists, healers and Zen centers,” says Welch of the array of potential buyers he dealt with over the years. “I realized that in my naiveté I’d created a hugely idiosyncratic property.”

Finally, in 2009, a serious buyer turned up, and Welch could at last join his partner, Steve Shanaman, on Vashon and take up the opportunity to begin again.

Downscaling started with the house. After an architect’s plans proved too pricey, Welch and Shanaman went online and ordered a metal building they called “the gas station.” They bought an upgraded window and door package to take advantage of the view, and built a partial second floor in the voluminous interior. They ended up with a 2,700-square-foot home that, from its metal roof to integral metal gutters, requires no exterior maintenance.

The new property is two acres, but most of it is in wooded ravines. Majestic madrona trees and ancient firs frame the view and set the scale of the garden. Welch kept the plantings simple, avoiding the siren song of what he calls “perennial terrorists.” He grows 15 cultivars of Japanese maples, as well as pines, witch hazel and stewartias.

The centerpiece of the garden is a boulder-framed plunge pool that looks like a hiking destination. The water is the clear aqua blue of fresh glacier melt, kept clean and swimmable by a nonchlorinated salt system. Heated by the sun, the water gets up to 76 degrees in the height of summer. “It’s bracing in April,” says Welch, who swims when the water temperature nudges up toward 50 degrees in the spring.

A moon gate forms the symbolic as well as the literal portal between the ornamental garden and the naturalistic hillside below. Where lawn meets ravine, a wide buffer of native plants protects the slope.

Welch’s expertise at building gardens for clients shows not only in the plunge pool (he’s built five on Vashon) but also in the way the garden quietly radiates from it. A flagstone patio set into the lawn holds a pair of Adirondacks. A broad terrace runs along the back of the house, tying the metal building to the landscape. Benches at one end of the terrace hold the collection of bonsai Welch brought from his Woodinville garden.

The bonsai aren’t all that Welch transplanted from his old property. While very different in size and site, the new Vashon garden is imbued with the same atmosphere of serenity as the Woodinville sanctuary. Welch has again reinterpreted Japanese aesthetics for a Northwest setting. And even in this new and less wild garden, his deep reverence for nature permeates the design and spirit of the place.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer. Check out her blog at www.valeaston.com. Benjamin Benschneider is a Pacific NW magazine staff photographer.

The Chattanooga Arboretum and Nature Center (CANC) at Reflection Riding announces that nationally-renowned garden designer Jon Carloftis will appear in Chattanooga in April. Mr. Carloftis will present a talk at Chattanooga State in the Humanities Auditorium on April 3, at 7 p.m. 

“Putting Style into Your Garden,” will outline steps to create gardens with various theme and intentions.  Hardscape materials, plant material, furniture, lighting, decorations, water features, outbuildings, garden decorations – all must complement – not overpower, to achieve a unique style that evokes the personality of the garden and the gardener. Mr. Carloftis will suggest sustainable, earth-friendly garden products dedicated to beautiful and functional outdoor living.

The Arboretum and Nature Center board has selected Mr. Carloftis – a Kentucky native with strong ties to the land and the dedication to protect it – to design the first Grandmothers Garden in the Southeastern United States to be constructed at Reflection Riding. 

“I believe that by assisting the Arboretum to highlight the extraordinary beauty of Reflection Riding, I will advance the establishment of educational venues of lasting importance to Chattanooga, and the greater horticultural community at large,” Mr. Carloftis said. “I want the Arboretum to succeed in its mission because it coincides with my own.”

Mr. Carloftis is a regular contributor to national garden and lifestyle publications, with more than 200 feature stories to his credit. His garden designs and editorials have been featured repeatedly in Architectural Digest, Better Homes Gardens, Country Home, Country Living, Garden Gun, Garden Rooms, House Beautiful, Martha Stewart Living, Metropolitan Home, Oprah at Home, Outdoor Rooms, Renovation Style, Rodale Organic Gardening, Southern Living and Town Country.  

His career includes appearances on The Style Channel; The Home and Garden (HGTV) Channel (The Secret Gardens of New York); ABC’s Good Morning, America; and Martha Stewart.  He has served on HGTV’s Trend Advisory Board. He has written a wide variety of garden books: First a Garden (2005); Beyond the Windowsill (2007); and Beautiful Gardens of Kentucky (2010).

Donations are appreciated and will go into the Grandmothers Garden Fund

• 

Garden design in 2013 looks set to go along with the prevailing trend of placing a greater emphasis on those things which are local, sustainable and comforting.

(PRWEB UK) 15 February 2013

Garden design in 2013 looks set to go along with the prevailing trend of placing a greater emphasis on those things which are local, sustainable and comforting. With budgets still tight, and with the influence of the slow food movement and an increasing general consciousness of ecological issues, all that is natural, native and down to earth looks set to prevail in the coming year. Here are a few key areas that are likely to feature large in the world of garden design in 2013.

Back to reality

As beautifully demonstrated by Cleve West’s Best in Show garden design at the 2012 Chelsea Flower Show, there is a growing fondness for gardens which look back to the Victorian and Edwardian eras. West’s understated design used topiary and native plants to create a garden that was both reminiscent of a bygone age and accessible to a modern sensibility. West’s garden, and others like it, will likely have a large influence on garden designers this year.

Along with nostalgia, another important area for gardens is touch. Grasses, reeds and perennials are all likely to feature prominently, as designers seek out those plants that can make a garden more tactile and engaging. The sense that a garden is something to be touched, and not just looked at, is a growing trend that looks set to continue in 2013.

Do it yourself garden design

Perennials and grasses can give a garden a very natural look and feel, and the suggestion of meadows and grasslands they provide is a very popular one in the present climate. Last year’s ‘Olympic Meadows’ by Nigel Dunnet at the Olympic Park in Stratford was a big influence in this regard, but so too is the current mood for things which ‘feel’ natural and homely, and suggest authenticity.

As the trend for gardening itself continues to grow, so will the numbers of people who want to try their hand at designing their own gardens. While this might not be good news for small-scale professional garden designers, it does mean that there is likely to be an increasing awareness of garden design principles and planting.

Another trend which is likely to flourish in 2013 is for home grown herbs. More and more people use herbs in cooking, and this means many will prefer to grow their own, rather than relying on supermarkets.

Bringing the outdoors in and the indoors out

The ‘room outside’ concept of the garden being an extension of the home, first written about by John Brookes forty years ago, has continued to have a tremendous influence on small-scale garden design that has spread to our choices of garden furniture. The idea that having tables and chairs in your garden that might look just as good in your conservatory, or even living room has raised the stakes for furniture designers in recent years, and greatly improved the design standards applied to modern garden furniture.

An increase in the popularity of innovative and attractive garden furniture sets is certain to continue. Thanks to the usability and attractiveness of the rattan weave, as well as the fact that it can be easily and neatly stored away, rattan cube garden furniture has become very popular, and looks set to be a big trend for the coming year.

So gardens in 2013 are likely to be soothing and homely, and made up of comparatively muted colours and tones, filled with native plants that can be touched and enjoyed, with innovative and appealing garden furniture sets.

In terms of garden design, there is plenty to look forward to in the coming year.

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The seed catalogs are beginning to roll in, and I’m daydreaming about sunshine, green leaves and ripe tomatoes. There’s something special about choosing your seeds and plants for the upcoming growing season — maybe it’s the anticipation of what you’ll be eating, and maybe it’s the potential you have to grow your own food. Or maybe it’s because, deep down, we all just want to be farmers. Whatever the reason, it’s time to start looking through catalogs, store shelves and the still-closed doors of our local greenhouses to start planning this year’s garden.

For my garden design inspiration this year, I’m looking at one specific garden. The garden was created by Jim Nelson in North Kingstown, R.I., and it is the most unique and beautiful home garden that I’ve ever seen. Jim’s garden is not only beautiful, it’s also ecologically friendly; his ingenious design incorporates many materials that would have otherwise gone into the dump.

I was able to see Jim’s garden during the height of the summer. I had heard about this garden, but that in no way prepared me for the reality of it. When I first saw it, I wondered if Jim secretly had the staff of Better Homes and Gardens doing the planning and maintenance. This garden is beyond gorgeous, and there are so many elements in it that add to the quality and beauty.

The garden takes up every inch of the back yard, but it doesn’t make you feel claustrophobic or boxed-in. That’s because it isn’t barricaded by fencing; instead Jim makes use of a “borrowed view.” This technique was also often used by Frederick Law Olmstead (a famous park designer who designed Central Park) to frame a view that isn’t necessarily on the same property. So instead of feeling contained by tall fences, the end of Jim’s garden is open and draws your gaze along the length of the garden, giving you ample opportunity to admire all of his hard work.

Jim was lucky enough to work at a local elementary school where they were replacing the old marble in the bathrooms with plastic. Instead of letting this marble go to waste, Jim saved it and has built the most stunning work tables, fences and garden walls that I’ve ever seen. These beautiful marble pieces would even make Martha Stewart envious.

The pathways in the garden are also made with reclaimed materials. The bricks that create the garden paths were painstakingly taken from local beaches where they had washed ashore. It is possible that these bricks once made up a lighthouse that was destroyed in the 1938 hurricane. This brick walkway acts to keep weeds under control, and the sun-soaked bricks can heat up the surrounding soil more rapidly.

My favorite part of the garden isn’t the gorgeous marble work tables, the adorable garden gates, the smooth reclaimed brick walkways or even the stately arbors. My favorite parts are two sets of octagonal glass frames that Jim uses as cold frames and soil storage areas. I’d never seen anything like these before. I wondered where Jim had found these seemingly custom-made cold frames/soil storage units. But again, Jim rescued these from going into the landfill. What I thought were custom-made cold frames are actually the old light fixtures from the school gymnasium that Jim set in the ground for his own uses.

Jim’s garden (or “man-cave,” as his family refers to it) is by far the most beautiful home garden I have ever had the privilege to see. His unique design and use of found or salvaged items is truly astounding. Instead of relying on store-bought items, Jim created a gorgeous garden from items he was able to find or rescue. Seeing this garden has completely changed my image of using recycled materials in landscaping. Let Jim’s garden act as inspiration for you to find items to reuse in your home garden. Keep on gardening, Jim.

In this context, a Modernist design proved to be almost unrecognisable even as
a garden. “I remember the day a lot of TV companies came in,” Christopher
says. “A big influence on me was [architect] Tadao Ando and Japan, and the
Japanese company just walked straight past our garden while it was being
constructed. Everyone else was making gardens with tumbledown walls and
roses – and this TV crew literally thought my garden was the toilet block,”
he says with a laugh.

For Charles Moore, who commissioned Christopher, it was an opportunity to
create a garden that was “striking, bold and theatrical – I felt it would
have been a pity if the Telegraph had played safe with the
opportunity. I liked the thought of having something classical and modern at
the same time.

“I remember Terence Conran coming along to the garden,” he adds. “Tony Blair
had won the election a few weeks before [May 1 1997] and Terence Conran
said, ‘New Labour, New Garden’. Of course I wasn’t remotely interested in it
being New Labour, but I did want it to be different.”

Professionals were immediately aware that Christopher had done something
rather special. “It did mark a threshold in one respect, which was that
Christopher was a practising architect,” recalls Michael Balston, landscape
designer and seasoned RHS show-garden judge. “The manipulation of space was
very subtle and that hadn’t really been done before. It had this cleanness
about it. It was focused, yet there was a whole world there.

“It wasn’t a question of the facile ‘garden room’ idea. It was what we used to
call filtering – the creation of spaces beyond, which could be seen as
through a veil. And it was all integrated: the space, the materials and the
plants all locked together.”

Tom Stuart-Smith, who vies with Christopher as the most successful Chelsea
designer of recent times, says Christopher is one of the two contemporary
designers who have influenced him most (the other being Dan Pearson). “That
was a pointedly intellectual garden and it was so amazingly refreshing and
modern in the context of Chelsea at that time,” he says.

“Christopher made it smart to want a new-looking garden. And there was so much
going on in it – he has this curious reputation as a minimalist, but there
were so many little incidents and details.”

For Mary Keen, it was the way the planting was integrated with the overall
design that was most interesting. “He was always thinking of the whole
picture rather than the detail; the plants were put in at the end. He was
innovative with the planting – it was very spacey.”

Indeed, in the context of garden design at that time, when borders could be so
pumped up with plants they looked like they were on steroids, Christopher’s
“border” in the Latin Garden looked positively sparse. “I remember Simon
Hornby [then RHS president] coming along,” he recalls, “and he said, ‘We
love the spaces between the plants’. That wasn’t something I really thought
about. It seemed quite natural to me.”

There was also an element of innovation about the plant choice – the use of a
pared-down palette of striking plants, little colour variation and a
backdrop of grasses. In 1996, as part of his preparations for Chelsea,
Christopher made his first visit to Piet Oudolf’s now-celebrated nursery in
the Netherlands. They hit it off and talked plants, and Christopher returned
with various specimens including the unknown Thalictrum rochebrunianum he
would later use in the garden, causing a minor sensation, a plant which
is now firmly in the garden design repertoire.

Looking at images of the Latin Garden now, it’s hard to believe that it seemed
so radical just 16 years ago. But that’s a reflection of how influential it
proved to be. After 1997, modern gardens became a fixture on the Chelsea
scene. So far none has surpassed the original and best, but perhaps 2013,
Chelsea’s centenary, will be an auspicious year.

TELEGRAPH GARDEN 2013

The Telegraph garden for Chelsea 2013, designed by Christopher
Bradley-Hole, is a contemporary and contemplative design, inspired by the
English landscape, by the Japanese approach to garden making and by modern
abstract art.

Christopher says: “The garden is a representation of England as a wooded
landscape from which openings were cleared to allow settlement, civilisation
and cultivation. English native trees and shrubs are used in a graphic way
to create an understorey which expresses the way a field pattern has been
superimposed on the land.”

The garden reflects Bradley-Hole’s personal passion for the English landscape
and also his visit last year to Japan, which has long been an inspiration
for his design ideas.

As well as blocks of box, yew and beech, which form the field landscape, oak
is shown as a structure – a colonnade of columns crafted from English green
oak.

View
the 15 show gardens at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show

Watch
Christopher Bradley-Hole talk about his 1997 Telegraph garden

The redevelopment of the former Lyndale Garden Center site is getting closer and closer to reality.

While site developer The Cornerstone Group hasn’t locked down all retail tenants or finalized the housing portion of the project, it has released the most recent renderings of what the site—which will be aptly named Lyndale Gardens—could look like.

According to the designs, which can all be seen in the photo box above, the developer plans on both apartment and townhome style housing units, with many of the townhome units having a perfect view of Richfield Lake. In addition, multiple areas of public space are still a big part of the site’s design. The design shows a splash pad, community oven, community garden, walking trails, market pavillion and a performance stage.

The only nailed down tenant is Lakewinds Natural Foods, a co-op grocer with two metro area locations. A purchase agreement for the old Lyndale Garden Center building and land was finalized in early January. The agreement changed the developer’s original plans to rehab the building for retail use.

An exact start date for construction has not been set. The development firm’s president, Colleen Carey, told Patch in an August 2012 interview that she would’ve ideally wanted to start in the fall of 2012, but it was best to wait for all the leases to be finalized.

“My timeline would be as soon as we can get the tenants in place,” she said in the interview.

Small retailers or restaurants interested in leasing space can contact The Cornerstone Group via e-mail at info@tcgmn.com.

Richfield Patch will continue to update readers as more information becomes available.

Related articles:

• Lyndale Garden Center Developers Team Up With Farmers Market For Community Event
• Richfield Community Members Weigh in on Lyndale Garden Center Redevelopment Plans
• ‘City Loses $500K in Kensington Park Foreclosure’—Or Did It?
• Lyndale Garden Developers Team Up With Farmers Market For Community Event
• Developer Unveils Initial Lyndale Garden Design Plans
• Developer to Host Lyndale Gardens Open House Monday

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