Landscape Design | Dirt Simple

B Is For Boxwood

Regular readers of my essays know I have a big love for boxwood. This fairly small and very dense growing evergreen shrub is as versatile as any plant it has been my pleasure to plant. It is tolerant of a wide variety of soil conditions, and it is quite shade tolerant. Its natural growth is charmingly shaggy. It is more than tolerant of pruning-that is, pruning into shapes. Long hedges. Curving and scrolling hedges. Spheres, squares, rectangles, pyramids trapezoids and triangles-boxwood tolerates this too. Boxwood hardy in my zone is also hardy in pots-provided they get proper water and drainage. Boxwood is just about the most obliging plant material on the planet-for those gardeners that are as interested in design as they are in plants.

Boxwood flowers are tiny, and anything but showy. The leaves are quite small and unprepossessing. The texture the mass of leaves make-interesting and lively enough. Not massive and sculptural, like the leaves of ligularia, petasites, gunnera, rodgersia or alocasia. Quietly textured. Where boxwood shines has to do with volume, mass, and shape. A hedge of boxwood is satisfyingly regular and pleasing-no matter whether the hedge is natural and shaggy, or closely cropped. A mass of multiple boxwood plants can create shapes of great visual interest. That mass can be pruned flat-like a sheetcake. That mass could be pruned on an angle, or in undulating waves. That mass could narrow at one end, and wide at the other. Boxwood will oblige-whether the landscape design is crispy contemporary, or unabashedly traditional.

Boxwood grown over a period of time can be shaped into specimen plants-the hallmark of which is the evidence of the pruning hand of a gardener. Pruned boxwood in traditional forms and shapes dates back centuries. Pruned boxwood with a decidedly modern shape-equally as compelling. Why am I so interested in the shapes, the mass, the volume and the texture of boxwood? I am as interested in design as I am interested in plants.

A completely natural and God given landscape-that would be the wild and untouched places in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The climax forests. The primeval forests. The roadside weed colonies. What grows out of the tarmac, or next to the railroad tracks. An accident of nature can be the most thrillingly beautiful sight imaginable. Part of why people travel is to experience the natural world-untouched by people- in places all over the earth. An undisturbed stand of birch, a field full of Queen Anne’s Lace, a bog ablaze with marsh marigolds in the spring-all gardening people love these places.

That said, I am at heart, a designer. I favor landscapes that make a statement from the heart, the head, and the hand. People can be heavy handed, but they can also be kind, patient, observing, caring, daring, brilliant, and nurturing. I am interested in the choices gardeners make. I am also very interested in the choices designers make. Choices gardeners make provide for astonishingly different outcomes. Designed landscape spaces are structured. They may be structured around use, and traffic. They may be structured with beauty in mind. They may be structured for a particular season, a favored color, a sense of visual balance, for mystery, for fun, for meditation. They may be structured around a very personal and particular point of view.

Beautifully structured landscapes transform an idea or thought into a picture. I would explain this idea in this way. Many people could not draw a portrait, but every person is able to recognize the face of an acquaintance or friend. Many people recognize the faces of people they have not seen for years, or people they only know slightly. Visual recognition is a very powerful human attribute. We all have it. Designers appeal to visual recognition. The delight that comes from visual recognition-extraordinary. Design that manages to engage all of the senses is great design.

We had a number of boxwood topiaries delivered a few days ago, from a grower on the West Coast. We do not order plants over the phone, sight unseen, via an availability list. Rob flies out there every winter. He walks the fields. He chooses plants that he feels beautifully represents his point of view, as a designer. He discusses the pruning, the care. His buying-incredibly personal.

Any great design bears the mark and hand of a client, empowered by the hand of a skilled designer. I will say that the design of my landscapes is primarily about a relationship, forged. A passionate client, and a passionate designer makes for landscapes of note. I feel very confident saying that great landscape design springs from a relationship marked by mutual passion and respect. I have a great respect for the boxwood topiaries that Rob chose to buy. I feel completely confident that should I recommend to client that they invest in an old plant with a history, they will not be disappointed. There is a provenance in which to trust.

The intense rain this afternoon-so great for these newly relocated plants. The new growth is glowing. My clients who asked that I draw the locations for 100 boxwood in pots in his landscape-this post is dedicated to them.

This boxwood topiary-astonishing in its age and size. Rob tells me it reminded him of Thomas Church. I can see why he fell for it. There is the sure evidence of a patient, committed, and loving hand. We make extraordinary plants like this one available to gardeners. But more than that, we design.

Digg Digg

Posted on: April 18, 2013 20 Comments

Filed Under: Detroit Garden Works, Good Design, Landscape Design, Plants, Spring, Woody Plants

Sunday Opinion: The Narrative

The posts of the past several weeks have a theme. The winter season is holding on for all it’s worth. Don’t believe me? We have snow in our forecast for the next 2 days. My last post, entitled “Holed Up” garnered a comment from Tara Dillard. She is a person I have never met. She is a landscape designer in Georgia who writes a blog-I read her blog, (taradillard.blogspot.com) and she reads mine. I leave comments for her every so often-she posts comments for me too. This constitutes a relationship of a certain sort. Though we have never met, I appreciate and am interested in her point of view. I believe she has an interest in mine. This is what I would call a narrative-a story. Not a fancy story, not a dramatic or life changing story-just a simple story about two people who have a passion for the same thing.

She commented on my most recent post:

Submitted on 2013/03/23 at 4:50 pm

It’s ridiculous but the bench with the cat on it, and another underneath, melts my heart.

Most gardens never reach this level of narrative.

XO T

A photograph I posted of an English stoneware cat basking in a sunny spot in our greenhouse space prompted her to write. Gardens and narratives-I have been thinking about this all day, thanks to her. A narrative is a story. The beginning story of this post is about how a landscape designer in Michigan and a landscape designer in Georgia have an exchange of ideas. This is a very modern, internet driven story. I suspect that we are very different, and have very different opinions about a lot of things. It is possible that we would have never made the effort to continue to talk, had we met in person. But the internet has enabled us to meet, and exchange ideas. Having made a commitment to write a blog on landscape and garden design, I was not expecting back talk. That said, the back talk is my favorite part of the writing. Tara’s backtalk is of the most interesting sort.

There is a second story here. Tara’s comment about gardens and narratives-provocative. I have her to thank for explaining how interested I am in narrative driven design. The land tells a story. The plants tell their stories. A client tells a story. I have a story. I do believe that the most beautiful landscape and garden designs are generated by a story. Should I have a concept that I wish to explain to a client, I create a story. That story is a bridge between two very different people. That bridge is a place where designer and client might meet, on occasion.

A garden or landscape that tell a story is a very powerful garden, indeed. The story may be about a love for plants, or a love for a passel of children, or a love of design, or a love for nature. The constant? The story. If I am able to encourage a relationship with a client that becomes a narrative, I know we will forge a relationship.

Thank you Tara. The landscape design that traces the narrative, creates a narrative, is a good design. A design worth considering. Every landscape should work. Should grow. Should prosper. But every landscape of note tells a story.

Posted on: March 24, 2013 3 Comments

Filed Under: Garden Design, Landscape Design Tagged With: garden narrative, landscape narrative, landscape stories

Winter Green

The color green has not nearly so much significance to a gardener as living green does. I have never taken the time to record how many different plants I have on my property, but suffice it to say that there are lots. Each of the plants have a certain shade of green associated with them. Taken as a whole, a garden is a green tapestry. Only a fraction of the possible colors of green represent in my garden today. A good portion of the garden is still dormant. My roses, shrubs and trees are bare. The perennials are buried under snow whose crust has frozen solid. My isotoma fluvialitis is entirely brown. What’s to look at? The living green in winter is a certain kind of green we call evergreen. Given that our winter is still holding on in March, this is the perfect time to be thinking about evergreens, and how they endow the winter landscape.

That group of plants that manage to stay green over our winter-not such a big range, but impressive in their delivery. The ability for spruce, douglas fir, white pine, boxwood, and rhododendron to stay green over the winter is an extraordinary story of adaptation. Evergreen trees and shrubs do not shed their needles and leaves at the end of the season. They shed interior needles on species specific schedules during the growing season-but definitely not during the winter. Evergreen trees has evolved such that the individual needles have very little in the way of surface area. Those needles are vastly better adapted to resist the drying from winter winds, and survive without photosynthesis going on, than a big fat juicy leaf of a hydrangea. Hydrangeas, and many other deciduous plants, shed that juicy liability in the fall. The needled and broadleaved evergreens-they tough it out.

My urban property has but one large spruce. I am sure it has been here at least 40 years. Maybe 60 years. This tree is green, winter and summer. The winter green is moody and dark, unlike the summer emerald green. I am never more appreciative of that green than I am right now. I barely notice this tree in the summer. In the winter, I see it coming from blocks away. The evergreens that define my winter garden-I could not be more appreciative.

Yews are needle leaved evergreen shrubs. Their dense and dark forest green needles provide such beautiful structure to a garden. In the spring, the new growth is lime green. In the depths of the winter, the color is almost black. Watching the change in color given the season is to understand how plants deal with stress. A yew floating in much too much water-the needles will be yellow. A yew that dies makes a spectacular issue of that demise. Orange needled yews-I am sure you have seen them. Yews in the thick of enduring the winter-the needles are almost black. The color green teaches, should you be watching.

Evergreens provide a stalwart backdrop in the winter for the snow covered branches, and the wispy tufts and remains of the perennial garden. This black green backdrop of hedged yews brings a magnolia into clear focus. Were this view open to the street, the delicate tracery of the branches and the overall shape of this tree would be lost. Specimen evergreens need ample space around them-appreciative space. Hedging evergreens whose repetition defines spaces help to create winter interest.

Broad leaved evergreens are a glutton for punishment. Rhododendrons feature broad leaves with big surfaces that suffer much more damage than needled evergreens. Those big leaves react to winter weather graphically. Those big leaves are sitting ducks for serious cold and vicious wind. The rhododendron outside my home office window tell me whether the day is cold. In cold weather, rhododendron leaves curl and drop down. In very cold weather, the droopy outline of the leaf is rolled in on itself- much like a pencil. In much the same way as I curl up on a cold day, their curling and dropping mechanism helps protect them from extreme cold. In the picture above, the leaves are hanging, dangling, from the stems. This is a winter profile, generated by adaptation. Once the leaves fan out, I know the temperature has moderated. Rhododendrons prosper far better in warmer zones than mine, but my few plants grace my garden with green all winter.

Boxwood-no other evergreen shrub describes a landscape better. Most of our suppliers winter their boxwood in tunnel houses. How so? A boxwood out of the ground, in a pot, is an evergreen needing protection from the winter. Boxwood in containers require special care, as their roots winter above ground. Lots of water prior to the freeze is a good idea. A wilt pruf spray- not a a bad idea. Evergreens in pots at the front door is a very good winter look.

Boxwood in the ground prospers in my yard. The evergreens, both big and small, both needled and broad leaved, define a landscape both summer and winter.

If a winter season is unavoidable, the evergreens help to make it a little easier to bear. They organize a space when snow has all but obliterated any of the details. Once established, evergreens are long lived, and low maintenance.

This day would have been ever so much more bleak, without the evergreens.

Posted on: March 7, 2013 6 Comments

Filed Under: Landscape Design, Plants, Winter, Woody Plants Tagged With: evergreens, evergreens in the landscape

The Garden Designer’s Roundtable: Romance

What makes for a romance? An attraction that cannot be denied. An attraction that evolves from the excitement generated by the hope that a relationship might lead to a steadfast commitment. The romance suggested and generated by the possibility of love-who hasn’t experienced it? Gardeners romance their gardens-meaning they seek to establish a relationship with their environment, their love of plants, and their property to a mutually satisfying end. I never met a gardener that was not committed to the long term. However, mutually satisfying outcomes are rare. Things go wrong. Plants die. Taste’s change. More than rare, garden outcomes that stir the heart are short lived. Ephemeral. This makes the possibility of true romance all the more desirable.

Nature-the object of every gardener’s sincere affection. On occasion, that love is returned. Sometimes I am face to face with it in such a way that takes my breath away. But more often than not, nature has another idea in mind. I have had my hopes dashed more often than I care to recall. The weather here last spring was anything but. All of the efforts made to protect the spring flower buds-spurned. There are less dramatic challenges to one’s love for the garden. A lack of rain-or too much. The neighbor’s kid or the neighborhood rabbit who snaps all the lily buds off. The specimen evergreen that is not so happy where you have planted it. The effort it takes to improve the organic content of the soil. I suppose the spring will eventually come when I think I’ve had enough-but it hasn’t happened yet.

Anyone who gardens long enough realizes that a romance has its ups and downs. There are on occasion those perfect moments. An hour or a day or a season that enchants and utterly satisfies. They could be very simple, and not so readily apparent to a casual observer. The sun emerging after a spring rain. A quiet hour spent weeding. Watching a hummingbird feed. How the roses look just before they bloom.

That June day several years when the roses were blooming like I had never seen them before-heart stoppingly romantic. That summer day when all is good enough in the garden such there is time to take time to enjoy it. There are those perfect moments that come when you least expect them, and are over before you know it. That fairly accurately describes my relationship with nature. Never easy, and often times irritating and disappointing. Despite all that does not work, a life without a serious relationship with nature has no appeal to me.

This cold windy and snowy February moment that Milo and I shared in the garden-satisfying indeed. I am sure the other members of the Garden Designer’s Roundtable have an equally personal romance with nature-be sure to read on.

Lesley Hegarty & Robert Webber : Hegarty Webber Partnership : Bristol, UK

David Cristiani : The Desert Edge : Albuquerque, NM

Debbie Roberts : A Garden of Possibilities : Stamford, CT

Jocelyn Chilvers : The Art Garden : Denver, CO

Mary Gallagher Gray : Black Walnut Dispatch : Washington, D.C.

Posted on: February 26, 2013 12 Comments

Filed Under: Garden Stories, Landscape Design, The Natural World Tagged With: the Garden Designers Roundtable