Garden Design | Deborah Silver & Co.

Monday Opinion: Sharing

Gardener/readers write me on and off, astonished about the degree to which I am willing to share my knowledge and process. Why wouldn’t I? I was raised to believe that sharing with others was good. If you are like me, you grew up with a Mom who encouraged sharing. Share a toy. Share you seat on the bus. Loan your sister your prized sweater. Share the letter your teacher sent home with you with your Mom – this would be a Mom talking. Share your questions, hopes, fears, and aspirations. That call to share had another call attached to it. Share, with the idea that you might help. If you are able to share such that you can help others, help them. I arrived on this earth endowed with plenty of infantile selfishness-it took a Mom to temper that. Did I really want to share my prized baloney and mustard sandwich on white bread with a classmate who had no lunch? Not until I was instructed that sharing was a very special kind of giving. A kind of giving that was part and parcel of being a decent human being. My Mom assured me I would feel good about it. And that what I got out of the giving was in the end, irrelevant. This also from my Mom. I may have had no relationship whatsoever with that kid who had no lunch. I may not even have known her name. But if I could get by with a half a sandwich, which of course I could, it was incumbent upon me to share the half I could do without with another. It was the right thing to do. And it did, incidentally, feel good. Now, the sharing seems effortless. I am by no means the exception. I believe that people come by the instinct to give and share, naturally-don’t you?

The right thing to do-what is that? Every gardener, and landscape designer, comes face to face with this question over the course of a project. I like to share the design process with a client, just like nature reveals herself to me. In a genuine design relationship, lots of things are shared. Needs, dreams, concerns, budgets-there are lots of topics to cover. The client’s issues are invariably more important than mine. A beautiful design that does not work for a client is not necessarily a beautiful design. It is a design the heart of which fails to engage a client. This is a polite way of describing a dust bin. Just my opinion, this.

In the shop, we try to share the best advice we have available. A client with whom we do not share our knowledge is a client who has not gotten from us what they should. No matter my willingness to share, there are those times where we fail. I take that failure personally. We should be able to give timely and sound advice. That given, there are those times when what gets said doesn’t get heard-or what was heard bears no resemblance to what was said. This happens all the time. Communication is the art of life, is it not? Some things that go wrong in the garden can be squarely attributed to the nature of the season. Other things that go wrong might be attributed to a casual share, without any depth, or an insincere communication.

I have this communication problem on occasion with my garden. I may plant what I want, without listening to what has been shared with me by nature-about my weather, my zone, my seasons, my soil-you get the drift. I am eminently capable of being insincere with nature, as I don’t really want to answer to her. What I do not hear can come back to haunt me. Yes, usual sharing implies another who is engaged, and listening. Nature does neither. Nature has no need for a relationship with me. I am a small part of a much bigger scheme. She has no time for me. The entire burden of a successful relationship with nature depends on me. How tiresome is this? A gardener of the true sort establishes a fluid truce with nature-this is a kind of sharing. Sharing, with the primary responsibility clear from the start. Sharing as I usually experience it as a designer is a person to person pursuit. That sharing works some times-other times, not. Most people have shared something at one time or another that has not been heard. Operas have been written and performed for centuries about this. It is tougher than it appears, sharing in a real and thoughtful way.

The most difficult moment in the landscape design process comes at the beginning. You have a design to present. You have a conceptual plan to share. Taking enough time with this part is essential. The design is a collaboration-there is the sharing of information that goes back and forth across the table. That sharing may take a lot of time to transform into a final plan. Once there is agreement on the big issues, there are lots of details to share. Secondary but so essential to sharing-patience. Patience is not my long suit, but I try. Patience can also be overrated. Knowing how to bring an unfounded worry to a close is a way of sharing that is caring.

The second most difficult moment is that moment when a project is done. You will no longer be there every day, working on this part, but watering and tending that other part that is finished. Some clients can see instantly that moment when an installation becomes their garden-they say thank you much, and push off on their own. Bye Bye. Other clients are less confident. You may need to drive by, regularly. Sometimes it’s important to keep on sharing until there is no more need. Am I good at this? Sometimes. Other times, I call the memories of my Mom in- to give me a hand.

I would share anything I know about horticulture or design with anyone. What I know is just my experience-nothing more, and nothing less. Is my knowledge special? Not particularly. What works for me is different than what works for lots of other gardeners. As much as things in the garden fail, lots of things work. Designers would do well to keep that in mind. There is no one way. There are lots of ways. Do I worry that someone else might duplicate my work from something I shared with them? No. My eye is my eye-this part of me is not transferable, nor can it be replicated in every detail. Lucky, this-for everyone involved. Anyone who might try to replicate my work will eventually be frustrated and unsatisfied. Hungry. Every person with a sincere interest in the landscape needs to rely on their own vision to finish a garden, or a landscape, or a moment. Every landscape I design and install needs a client to eventually sweep the scene with what is all their own. Having had good advice and design help, eventually being left on one’s own is a very good place to be. There is so much satisfaction to be had from one’s own invention. Some create gardens on their own. Some create landscapes via a relationship with a designer. All sincere paths to good design are good paths.

Whether you are a landscape designer, or landscape architect, or a passionate gardener, I will respect you enough to assume that you are a creative person whose job it is to imagine a project, and research anything you need to bring that project to fruition. I assume you are able. There are no shortcuts. Take the time, and do the work you need to do. The work you put to any project will, in the end, reward you. What someone has shared with you is not necessarily the gardening gospel. It is a point of view. And not necessarily your point of view. Trust your eye. If you cannot trust your eye, look outward. Most importantly, look inward.

I have a big interest in good gardening outcomes. World wide, there are so many beautiful landscapes and gardens that support that idea. Your computer is a means by which you can learn. What is out there being shared? Garden Design by Carolyn Mullet-I read her facebook page every day. The time she takes to share-extraordinary. Her editing, and choices of a topic to share-equally extraordinary.

What comes of your exposure to the work of others is that germ of an idea that might inform your own garden. Respond honestly and passionately to the work the work of your designer. In the interest of a better outcome-share what you can. Listen when you have a mind to. The aura created by that sharing all around – beautiful.

Posted on: September 16, 2013 15 Comments

Designing With Hydrangeas

The last two posts focused on the cultivation of hydrangeas. In short, what hydrangeas are available, and under what circumstances do they perform. Most of them are easy to grow, and willing. Some are marginally hardy. Some are not at all hardy in my zone. Some represent better than others. Growing hydrangeas is a much different and much easier topic to discuss than designing with hydrangeas. One could grow no end of them-as I do. I have 50 in my front yard. Putting them together in a coherent and satisfying way-this would be garden design. A garden or landscape design implies an idea, a scheme, or a plan. The purchase of a hydrangea is easy. Designing a place for it in a landscape-not so easy. Any plant that I have a mind to include in a landscape gets a thorough vetting. By this I mean-what does this plant require? How much space does it take? Where will it thrive? How can this plant be integrated into the whole? Once I have an idea for a space, is a hydrangea the best plant to express that idea? The picture above depicts a planting of limelight hydrangeas, before the bloom. This is the perfect moment to think over their addition to your landscape. Flowers can be very seductive, and distracting. A big growing coarse leaved shrub that needs plenty of space-that would be a hydrangea. A hydrangea planted in too small a space is like being occupied by an army-beautiful flowers notwithstanding. This is the simple and working description, not the romantic one.

Flowers are just but one aspect to consider. There are the green times. The winter times. The fall color. The early spring. Make it a point to be intimately acquainted with anything you plan to introduce into the garden, should the overall design be important to you. This planting of hydrangeas works well with certain other elements in the landscape. The yews are dense, and clipped. The boxwood is denser, and more closely clipped. The peonies have big leaves. The lady’s mantle blooms at ground level in a sumptuous way. The hydrangeas? They preside over all-given their height and exuberance. Hydrangeas have a density and bulky aspect that makes them ideal for garden situations where they cannot overwhelm their neighbors. Small leaved or delicate perennials can be visually and physically overrun by a neighboring hydrangea. Stout evergreen hedges can give a crisp look to a blowsy growing shrub. Yews can help support the lax stems of hydrangeas.

Annabelle hydrangeas will flop over in an instant. If you plan to make them part of a landscape design scheme, stake them early. This client loved the big growing rangy shrubs with their giant flower heads-but he equally loved the design of his landscape. These Annabelles were staked first thing, in the spring. The boxwood provides an orderly edge to the space. They also provide some green interest in the winter months.

Hydrangeas are big growing. They need lots of space. This planting of Annabelles has a grass border. The slender simply textured blades of grass contrast and highlight the big leaves and rangy growth of the hydrangeas. The ivy was part of an existing bed when we renovated the space-I did not see any reason to get rid of it. The texture of the grass with the hydrangeas is more pleasing than the texture of baltic ivy.

The flowers of hydrangeas are overwhelmingly beautiful. And overwhelming. They need a big space to be. They are a perfect match with massive architectural features, as a stone wall or flight of stairs. Their sheer bulk, strong presence and white flowers makes them ideal for expressing a long sweep, or directional line in a landscape. The white flowers make a great backdrop for other flowers, either perennial or annual. Their height, which can be somewhat controlled by pruning, makes them ideal for facing down other larger landscape elements, like trees.

A hedge of Limelight hydrangeas is a soft way of defining a space. You need the room to let them grow up to be what they are destined to be. A long run of them can enclose a space, in a friendly way.

A landscape dominated by evergreens, and deciduous trees at a distance, can be leavened, brightened, by hydrangeas. The leaf is a medium green, and the white flowers can be seen from blocks away.

Hydrangeas develop woody legs, over time. Face them down with shorter growing ornamental grasses-or in this case, Honorine Jobert anemones. Your design may ask for layering. A design is not about this plant, or that plant. It is about a community of plants, the interaction of all with the weather and the seasons.

Great design is intimately associated with the relationship a designer assigns from one plant to another. The relationship of the plants to the space. What defines that relationship? Color, mass, texture, line, volume, weather-all of these design elements figure into the design of a landscape. A design that accommodates, makes use of, and features the habits of the plants involved is design that is visually sensitive.

The most important element in design? The gardener in charge. It is easy to grow hydrangeas. It is much harder to design successfully with them. But when the design plan is well done, a beautiful shrub goes on to help create a breathtakingly beautiful space.

Posted on: August 19, 2013 21 Comments

Filed Under: Good Design, Garden Design, Landscape Design Tagged With: designing with hydrangeas, hydrangeas, Limelight hydrangeas, Garden Design, Landscape Design

The Roundabout

Big houses on very small properties-a given, in urban areas. A very small property that is hosting a very large house presents a special set of design considerations. The entire space is instantly visible. This makes it very difficult to create a sense of mystery, or discovery. There are few opportunities to create “rooms”, each with their own distinct atmosphere. There is a single view, and few options to generate other views. It is easy for a large structure placed in a small space to look uneasy or unsettled. Big buildings loom over small spaces. They block the light. They are the dominant landscape feature with a capital L.

This particular property is very narrow. Critical to a successful landscape design is an assessment of how the house sits relative to the grade. This house is set very high, given that the client wanted window wells that would add light to the basement level rooms. This meant that a retaining wall and curb was necessary to create a driveway which is level. A driveway would necessarily be a big feature of this landscape. There is no room to make it a secondary feature. Given the stone on the house, I designed a concrete aggregate driveway with a stone curb. Why so much fuss over a utilitarian feature? When the driveway occupies a big part of the front yard landscape, that driveway needs to be functional and beautiful.

I like a front walk which begins at the sidewalk, and ends at the front door. That route may be direct, or meandering. It is also nice to have a walk from the driveway to the front door. This is a matter of convenience. The idea of pair of walkways in this small space seemed overpowering. I was thinking about a landscape which would be based on an ellipse. Much like a roundabout that enables traffic to flow, without stopping and starting. Though I am nervous approaching a roundabout, I find the process goes smoothly once I am in it. A gravel ellipse would touch the concrete aggregate drive such that a path from the drive to the front door would be visually unobtrusive.

The gravel ellipse would be bordered on each side by garden. This would help to keep the gravel surface out of view from the street. The elliptical ring with the blue handled flat shovel pictured above would have a gravel surface. The innermost ring would be grass.

The property had been overrun with trucks over the course of the construction of the house. Given that the soil had been compacted to an extreme, we dug into it with pick axes and shovels. We would eventually work some compost into the soil, but I subscribe to the idea that plants will thrive if they like the existing planting conditions.

A pair of half elliptical fountains would be installed in the center of the garden. As much sculpture as fountain, they provide a focal point for the landscape. They could be planted with water plants, or not.

The big gestures are strongly horizontal, in contrast to the strong vertical lines of the house. Once the arcs of Hicks yews adjacent to the house have a chance to settle down and grow in, they will be maintained at a height below the ground floor windows. The gravel path from the drive to the front door is already invisible from the street. The yew, boxwood, and a pair of DeGroot Spires arborvitae will provide evergreen interest over the winter months.

The garden adjacent to the lawn features plants that grow three feet tall, or less. This garden will be dominated by peonies. Beautiful in bloom, the make compact and glossy leaved shrubs that look good all summer. The plants are spaced such to permit the additional of taller growing annual plants.

There is a mix of plants. The outside garden will be taller, once it grows in. The Little Lime hydrangeas grow 4-5 feet tall, as will the roses. Russian sage and shasta daisies are bordered in the interior by stachys hummelo and Visions in Red astilbe. This garden will provide a sense of privacy and intimacy for the inner fountain garden. Adjacent to the sidewalk, a buffer of lamb’s ears and moss phlox. On the lot line, a single Vanderwolf’s flexible pine, a few magnolia stellata, and a grouping of fothergilla gardenii. A few lilacs, a favorite of the client, were placed where they would have room to grown. The lilacs are faced down with lespedeza. Euonymus “Moonlight” is planted behind the yews. A stand of “Goldner’s Bouquet” daylilies were planted on the south side of the house.

Bordering the fountains, a frame of sedum John Creech will help to keep the lawn mower at bay. Interestingly enough, it is remarkably tolerant of the overspray from the fountains. This landscape has only one organizing idea. But rather than a beginning and an end, there is a roundabout.

A schematic landscape plan is a simple series of shapes that indicate what goes where, and how one travels from one place to another. If the landscape plan works well on a structural level, then the additional of the plants will bring a sculpture to life that is pleasing to the eye.

Posted on: July 28, 2013 19 Comments

Filed Under: Garden Design, Landscape Design Tagged With: roundabouts, geometric landscapes, Branch Studio, perennial gardens, Garden Design, Landscape Design, fountains

More Romance

I spent the better part of the day planting containers for a client who engaged me to design and install the landscape for her new lakeside home-last year. Most of what I saw in ground today is a year old. I was more than happy by what I saw. I credit the degree to which her plantings have taken hold to the grading, the drainage work, and plant choices that matched her existing conditions. I know am posting many too many pictures. But perhaps the oversized collection of pictures will give you a feeling for the overall landscape. Many of her John Davis climbing roses are now over my head. The romance of that was considerable.

Buck built the ipe benches specifically for this porch. The concrete pots are our interpretation of an original French faux bois box.

The espaliered Katsuras in this 36′ foot long raised stone planter provide screening from the house next door, in a space barely a foot in depth. These espaliers are well on their way to making a green wall.

The lakeside has a pair of perennial gardens, endowed by patches of little lime hydrangeas, and some birch.

Near the water, several meadow areas planted with chasmanthium latifolium grass, wild daisies, and amsonia Blue Ice.

The meadow garden

Later in the season, the meadow will feature monarda and asters. Last fall, we planted lots of blue and white camassia-for this spring. Some of them are still in bloom.

The more formal perennial gardens feature nepeta, stachys hummelo, and phlox.

The alliums-we could have planted many more.

a view of the garden

It is easier to see the design of the lakeside landscape from the second floor balcony. Very formal landscape elements contrast with less structured gardens.

Even informal gardens benefit from beautifully generated curves.

The roses and clematis on the pair of pergolas-they are obviously very happy. I am astonished at how much growth they have put on-in just one year. This willingness to settle down and grow makes me feel like the selection and siting of plants was correct. And that the maintenance has been good.

There is plenty of romance going on here.

roses and clematis

pergola garden

The June garden is represented by large flowered clematis, and John Davis climbing roses.

Venus dogwoods blooming

container planting at the front door

rosemary, on the second floor terrace.

This semi shady side garden is simple. The privacy afforded the second floor terrace is courtesy of 14 6″ caliper Bowhall maples. All of them seem to be taking hold, just fine. All in all, I am very happy about what I saw here today. Planting the pots-my pleasure.

Posted on: June 11, 2013 30 Comments

Filed Under: Landscape Design, container planting, Summer, Plants, Garden Design Tagged With: Garden Design

Monday Opinion: Sharing

Designing With Hydrangeas

The Roundabout

More Romance

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