Serenity in the Garden

Black and White, the oh-so-chic color combination that we see adorning all the hippest living rooms in all the coolest urban settings is just as alluring in a garden...and perhaps even more so because the colors are not from Benjie Moore but from Mama Nature.... (black walls anyone? This is from apartmenttherapy.com, a great website!) Black and white tulip combinations create a luscious contrast especially if they are surrounded with green, green and more green... White Flower Farm  combined the 'Queen of Night' tulip, as close to black as a flower can get, with the white delicate Lily-flowered Tulip, 'White Triumphator' - that is the photo at the top of this post. I too planted Queen of the Night black tulips with a white tulip to create a late tulip show that is also a wonderful cut flower combo. Another black tulip you must consider is the heavily frilled and feathery-edged Black Parrot tulip which is especially beautiful -  it is...

A while back I took my landscape design studio class from Columbia University (I teach there)  to a powerpoint presentation given by the 'grande dame' of New York City gardens, Lynden Miller .  It was a fabulous talk about the various gardens she has installed all over New York and the impact they have had on city life.. (BTW, we saw Lynden at the N.Y. Horticultural Society , which has a fantastic horticultural library - open to all - on 37th Street at 7 Avenue.) Wow! What a legacy Mrs. Miller will leave.  She specializes in glorious mixed flower and plant borders which you can find in all parts of the city. Lynden calls her gardens 'sanctuaries for the soul in the city' and that they are. Lynden Miller has been, in my estimation, the modern driving force behind the beautifying of New York.   Her first commission was to restore the aged and forgotten six acre garden called Central Park Conservatory Garden .... As Director, Mr...

  My Talk: Aligning with Natural Forces:  Sustainable Garden Design using Native Plants Saturday  Oct. 1, 2011    at the Westchester Community College, Valhalla, NY 10:30 am - 12:30 pm The first rule of sustainability is to align with natural forces, or at least not try to defy them.  ~ Paul Hawken    Sustainable Landscape Design encourages a healthy biosphere and stresses both beauty and function. My upcoming Powerpoint talk is a blend of inspiration and practical ideas you can use to transform challenging sites into beautiful outdoor spaces using native plants. In my 2 hour class I will share captivating ideas and photos that illustrate what combinations of native plants to use which drainage measures you can take and what design techniques you can implement to transform any site whether it is steep or level, wooded or open,  suburban or urban.   F...

  Lost  by David Wagoner photo by Jan Johnsen (NYBG - pinus bungeana) Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, And you must treat it as a powerful stranger, Must ask permission to know it and be known.   photo by Jan Johnsen (one of my gardens) The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you. If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here. No two trees are the same to Raven. No two branches are the same to Wren. photo by Blondieb If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows Where you are. You must let it find you. from Collected Poems 1956-1976 © Indiana University Press

       Holy Mother Earth,  the trees and all nature, are witnesses of your thoughts and deeds. ~   Winnebago saying A garden is nature, bounded  -  protected and shaped by h uman hands.   It can be a simple balcony filled with planters, a sweeping vista dotted with trees or a small courtyard bordered by plant beds.   Our urge to co-create with Mother Nature has been with us since time immemorial.   This impulse lies in the need to be connected to something greater than ourselves.   Gardening enhances a heightened sense of empathy and expands our awareness of non-human life.   When we garden, we see how the lowly earthworm is as important as the forest.  This, in turn, leads to an oceanic feeling that we are one with Nature.  Arne Naess, the Norwegian philosopher, called  this expanded sense of self,   ‘ the ecological self’: " We are not outside the rest of natu...

'Painter's Palette' Persicaria photo from Moose Crossing Garden Center For the last 4 years, I have been creating an enchanting woodland garden for a favorite client. It is a shady site that is very wet.  A challenge indeed. In the course of planting up this garden I recently discovered:   Persicaria virginiana varigata (or Tovara) from Forest Farm Nursery Tovara virginiana , is an easy to grow perennial plant (hardy from zones 4 to  8) that thrives in shade and offers eye catching foliage color. It grows to 28  inches tall and spreads by means of underground stems. Each leaf has a different variegation pattern of green and white. The cultivar 'Painters Palette' has maroon markings as well.    Tovara has good drought tolerance and is ideal for mass plantings where its showy color and bold leaf size make a punchy display in shady recesses. It is clump-forming but can spread rapidly.  It...

Why do certain tree species evoke the same response from all people?  The Oak, for example, was considered  by the Celtic Druids to be the 'King of the Greenwood' . To them, oaks represented mighty and enduring power.   The ancient Greeks also revered oaks - groves of them were deemed sacred territory.   And Native Americans viewed the oak tree as a symbol of strength with supernatural powers. In fact, the tradition of “knocking on wood” is said to be of Native American origin  - they would knock on an oak tree in order to avert the failing of a hopeful prediction. This similarity is true for many other trees from Ash trees to apple trees to maples.... So why do disparate cultures see tree 'personas' similarly?   I think Albert Einstein figured it out.   In  1905, Einstein, a young patent inspector in Switzerland,  came up with a simple equation that challenged th...