Here's to You, Mr. Robinson

After attending the Chelsea Flower Show,  I took the train to see Gravetye Manor and Garden, the West Sussex home of garden writer William Robinson. Robinson lived there from 1884 until his death in 1935. He wrote The English Flower Garden and The Wild Garden, both remain relevant to today's gardeners. The Wild Garden was recently re-issued in 2009 with chapters added by the American garden writer, Rick Darke. Robinson was noted for challenging the Victorian fashion of using bedding-out plantings in rigid geometrically-shaped beds. Robinson advocated using native and exotic plants used in a natural way that reflected where they were found in nature. He was inspired by seeing plants in their natural habitats in North America and throughout Europe. The house has been a luxury hotel and restaurant for many years. The gardens are currently being refurbished by Dixter-trained Head Gardener, Tom Coward.

The house looking from the Wildflower Meadow

The entrance to the Flower Garden

                                     A view from across the garden to the same entrance

The opposite veiw from the entance

The Azalea Bank was still in bloom in mid-May

Steps in the Azalea Bank

The Croquet Lawn above the House; the top of the Azalea bank can be seen at the left

A path in the Wild Garden

A handkerchief tree, Davidia involucrata, was in full flower in the Wild Garden.

Camassia in the Wild Garden

The artfully arranged Kitchen Garden was huge

A seat with William Robinson's initials in the Kitchen Garden

This garden, along a wall at the top of the Wild Flower Meadow,  had some of the best combinations of plants I saw that day

I am uncertain of the name of the yellow spire in front of the ornamental rhubarb. I am sure it would not be hardy in New Hampshire but it was beautiful.

A pair of cardoons, with a purple-leafed fennel tucked beneath their broad grey foliage, were planted with a grass and the crimson flowers of Cirsium rivulare ‘Atropurpureum’

I have no idea what this plant is (I would welcome an ID) but I thought it had a magnificent presence

The Wildflower Meadow

The bouquet on my table where I had tea

Visiting Gravetye was a sort of  pilgrimage for me in my gardening education. There was much that inspired me for my own garden in Peterborough. I was thrilled to finally see it in person. Wave Hill, the public garden in the Bronx, has several gardens (most notably, their "Wild Garden") which are planted in a style reminiscent of Robinson. I think their "Flower Garden" may have also been inspired by the Gravetye Flower Garden. I have studied those gardens for many years. Now I finally see how they were informed by Robinson.

In my own garden, I am interested in both strong design and interesting plantings. Gravetye has both. Gardens worth preserving need a strong and coherent design first and foremost. When the bones are good and well-executed, an old garden almost calls for renewal. This garden has literal bones, i.e. walls, steps, pergolas, and spiritual bones, i.e. the writings of Robinson. It is a garden I hope to revisit on foot and by the fireplace with a book in hand.

Wave Hill's Chionodoxa are Back and So Am I

I have been on hiatus from blogging but a recent visit to Wave Hill in the Bronx during peak Chionodoxa sardensis season has inspired me to return. I was at lecture by Luciano Giubbilei at the New York Botanical Garden today and took a detour to nearby Wave Hill to see the drifts of glory-in-the-snow on the slope of the Abrons Woodland. The beautiful blue minor bulb has naturalized in the woodland as well as in the lawn under large trees and even in the Flower Garden. I hope my own woodland garden might get the blues this badly one day.

Wave Hill's Structure

We also visited Wave Hill while were we in New York City. It was unseasonably warm, in the high 70's, and many of the flowering spring trees were already in bloom. I ran in to an old friend, Brian McGowan, the former owner of one of my favorite nurseries, Blue Meadow Farm, in Montague , MA. Brian and his wife, Alice, had a gem of a small nursery that I was fortunate enough to frequent during the first decade of being a serious gardener. Some of the most interesting and choice plants I have in my public and private gardens originated from Blue Meadow Farm. Since closing the nursery in 2005, Brian has become the Assistant Director of Horticulture at Wave Hill.

Wave Hill has a lot to offer the inquisitive gardener in late March. I always find the structure of the hardscape and the arrangements of the plantings particularly informative before all the trees, shrubs and perennials leaf out later in the season.

Three views of the structure in the Flower Garden outside the Marco Polo Stufano Conservatory

A luscious saucer magnolia loaded with blossoms

Why???

Gleditsia triacanthos 'Ruby Lace' in the Upper Garden

Another plant bought at the same time in Boccelli Garden

Every year, I think the Gleditsia triacanthos 'Ruby Lace' in my upper border is dead. I pollarded this small tree in April, and July 4th weekend is upon us and it still hasn't leafed out! What is even more curious is that I have another tree, bought at the same time from Gossler Farm Nursery, planted in the Boccelli Garden and it has new branches nearly a foot long already.

I first saw this tree used as a cut-back plant in a mixed border at Wave Hill. It's beautiful bronzy-red foliage was a show-stopper and it's frothy texture is the perfect foil for the other plants in the Flower Garden. Mine usually puts on 3-4 feet of growth in a year and looks fresh and healthy in the garden until frost.

I examined my plant in the upper garden carefully this morning and I see new plump buds promising to sprout. It is always about the time that I am threatening to replace it that it finally comes to life. If anyone has an explanation, let me know for I am truly puzzled. Hopefully, I will be posting and boasting about this extraordinary plant in my upper border in September!

Express Yourself

The Main Axis of Sakonnet Garden

An Acer griseum grove smolders in the backlit Orange Room

The grey foliage of Scot's thistle, Onopordum acanthium, in the Silver Meadow

The Red Pavilion from Old Delhi in the Tropical Quadrant

The bold foliage of Petasites through the Meconopsis Ditch into the Central Lawn

View from the Cental Lawn into the Dog Pen

A pine limbed up by Mikel

More Architectural Limbing

Small Sculpture on a Pedestal near the House

View from the Meadow through a Holly Topiary Entrance to the House

The Path in the Wild Wet Meadow

Saturday I spent the day at a symposium called Lofty Aspirations of Down-to-Earth Gardeners hosted by Sakonnet Garden and Wildmeadows (SG&W) in Little Compton, RI. SG&W is the magical garden of John Gwynne and Mikel Folcarelli which has been a collaboration in the works for thirty years. This is their first day-long symposium. You knew that they were serious when the invited Fergus Garrett, the head gardener at Great Dixter and Marco Polo Stufano, the now retired horticulturalist who created the gardens at Wave Hill in the Bronx, to be the guest speakers. To top it all off, add Dominique Browning, the former editor of House and Garden, as a moderator and you have created a splendid day for conversations about "gardening as an inspiring art form."

Marco Polo Stufano stressed the importance of structural plants to create form and, when properly placed, how they can help pull the design of a garden together. As an Italian, he affirmed that he "loved things touched by the hand of man." Fergus Garrett talked about how gardening gave him the sense of freedom to express his thoughts and to be creative. He encouraged the audience to be more willing to be experiment while gardening. At Great Dixter he is carrying on Christopher Lloyd's legacy by keeping the garden the same, that is to say, to keep it vibrant through revision, refinement and change.

Fergus immediately noticed how John and Mikel are having fun in their garden. After the symposium, we were invited to tour the garden which is contained within a wall of hedges and fences and is separated and hidden from the house. It is divided into a series of rooms each reflecting "the owner’s ongoing experiments with lighting, space, color mixing, collecting and growing wonderful plants."

I went away feeling a renewed freedom to continue to express myself in my own garden through, as Fergus stated, style, atmosphere and personality. And, thanks to John and Mikel, I won't forget to have it be fun.

Wave Hill, the High Line and Wagner Park All in One Day in October

Wave Hill's Flower Garden

Another View of the Flower Garden

The Entrance to the Marco Polo Stufano Conservatory

The Wild Garden

The Aquatic and Monocot Garden at Wave Hill

The Gansevoort Woodland on the High Line

The Washington Grasslands

The Diller-Von Furstenberg Sundeck

The Chelsea Grasslands

The 10th Avenue Square

Rhus glabra on the Sundeck

The Hot Border at Wagner Park

Leonotis leonurus and a Bright Orange Cuphea Make Great Companions

Maude, Tovah and Laura Enjoying the Hot Borders

Last Sunday, three gardening friends and I did a fearless day trip from New Hampshire to NYC and back to visit public gardens in the city. We left at 5:45 am and arrived at Wave Hill, the public garden in the Bronx, at about 10 am. The weather threatened but ended up being very cooperative. The view from the Pergola Overlook across the Hudson River to the Palisades was spectacular. We spent a lot time examining the plant combinations in the Flower Garden. We also visited the Wild Garden and the Aquatic and Monocot Gardens before having a nice lunch on the terrace at the Wave Hill House.

Next, we drove down the Henry Hudson Parkway to the High Line, the recently opened New York City Park, in the Meatpacking District in the Lower West Side of Manhattan. The High Line is a park built on an elevated 1930's freight rail structure. The planting design is inspired by the self-seeded volunteer plants that began to establish themselves after the train made its final delivery in 1980. There are more than 200 species of perennials, grasses, shrubs and trees in the park. The garden was designed by Dutch planting designer, Piet Oudolf. Oudolf is world famous for using grasses in his designs and was the perfect man to take on this project. We spent much of our time there analyzing the way in which one perennial or grass slowly interwove into the next forming a very natural looking tapestry.

Our final stop was Wagner Park, the Lynden B. Miller designed public garden in Battery Park City at the very tip of Manhattan. Some of us had never seen the Statue of Liberty which prominently held court in the Upper Bay where the Hudson River flows into the Atlantic Ocean. The lighting could not have been more beautiful. Wagner Park, like all Lynden's gardens, was meticulously maintained. There were two borders with contrasting hot and cool color themes. Our favorite gardens were the hot borders which were ablaze with a stunning combination of Leonotis leonurus paired with a bright orange cuphea.

We were back on the road by about 6 pm and in our beds by 10:45 pm. It very busy and inspiring day that was totally worth the effort.