American Gardening

Plant Hunters Still Search for Exotics

August 14, 2017 by admin Leave a Comment

Plant hunters still search for exotics.

Traveling around the world in search of plants for the home garden may seem like a dream job.

The plant however sometimes turns out to be more than just a plant.

Sarah Rose’s book For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World’s Favorite Drink and Changed History tells the story of English plant hunter Robert Fortune (1812-1880).

She traces the mid-nineteenth century journey of Fortune into China to bring back tea plants. Fortune hoped they would grow in India and thus compete with the Chinese tea market.

Kew Garden

Fortune visited Kew Garden in London, the center of botanical research for the “entire world” as she puts it. Rose writes: “Fortune steps up to a great greenhouse, the Palm House, gloriously situated on a hill.”

That reminded me that when visiting London a couple of years ago it was important that I see the Palm House at Kew. Here is my first view of it that sunny day. [below]

The Palm House, built from 1844-48, at Kew Garden in London to house plants collected abroad.

The size of this shiny structure overpowers you as you approach. How impressive it must have been in the nineteenth century when greenhouses and conservatories were only available to the wealthy until eventually the price of glass fell.

Plant hunters, like Fortune, represented horticultural institutions such as Kew and the Royal Horticultural Society in their quest for the newest plant varieties for the English garden.

At Kew the plants would find a home in the new Palm House.

In many cases plants like the weigela which Fortune brought back from China in the 1840s eventually became part of the English garden palette.

Nineteenth century American seed companies and nurseries later listed the plant as a garden favorite, and so American gardeners would plant weigela as well.

Rose writes: “Fortune popularised a remarkable variety of flora in the wake of his Chinese travels.” His “discoveries” included the bleeding heart, the white wisteria, twelve species of rhododendron, and the chrysanthemum.

We now know that when plants from other habitats become part of a new environment, there may be no natural predators. The result is that such plants can overrun the local landscape.

The interior of the Palm House at Kew.

Rose writes, “Today there is only guarded enthusiasm for the mass globalization of indigenous plant life.”

Nonetheless, plant hunters like Fortune still search the world for exotic plants that will grow in the American garden.

Filed Under: English garden design, English Style, Nursery business, Victorian

America’s Most Beautiful Lawns

August 7, 2017 by admin Leave a Comment

America’s most beautiful lawns

[I often write about the lawn. I am grateful to Australian lawn care professional Mark Richmond who contributed the following post about some beautiful lawns here in the US. Most of them are open to the public.]

The United States is the land of the free and the home of the… beautiful lawn? Across the country, there are endless swaths of lush and healthy lawns. The pristine green landscapes are the proud features of many college universities, residential homes, and historical buildings. While there are certainly some stunning landscapes to be celebrated in each of the fifty states, here are a few of the most beautiful lawns that the United States has to offer.

Bloedel Reserve

Bloedel lawn, Washington State

This Washington-state public garden is a breathtaking example of horticultural excellence. The flowing lawns have been maintained without herbicides and are bordered by the commanding presence of tall pines. One popular area of the reserve features a Checkerboard lawn — concrete squares placed intricately amongst the healthy grass.

The South Lawn at the White House

The striking contrast between the white of the presidential home along with the rich green color of the healthy lawn has made for a beautiful backdrop for millions of annual photos. The lawn has held many famous historical events, and currently provides an area for many political and social functions. With its design dating back several decades, the beautiful lawn has, and most likely will continue to be, one of the most well-known horticultural masterpieces.

Central Park Sheep Meadow and Great Lawn

Central Park — the colloquial American lawn and one of the most famous green spaces in the entire world. The great lawn covers 55 acres and is comprised of a healthy mix of high-quality fescue and bluegrass. The smaller 15 acre Sheep Meadow preserve is a popular area for picnickers, sunbathers, kite flyers, and anyone else who wants to revel in the sights of the fine green grass surrounded by the New York City skyline.

Manchester Farm

The rolling green landscape of this Kentucky farm could be considered the epitome of beautiful American lawns. The rich and healthy Kentucky bluegrass covers over 120 acres of the farm’s property and could easily be incorporated into a picture-perfect postcard.

The Lawn at the University of Virginia

This famous green space was designed by the founder of the University Thomas Jefferson and reflects his interest in Neoclassical and Palladian architecture. The well looked after grassy expanse is considered to be a U.S. National Historic Landmark District and the symbolic center of the University.

Biltmore Estate

The perfect lush lawn is typically where the eye falls upon when viewing the Biltmore House. This North Carolina estate features a front lawn with what could easily be considered the greenest grass in the country — a mix of tall fescue and bluegrass. The perfectly symmetrical stripes of the lawn makes for a luxurious focal point in a view of the grand mansion itself.

Chanticleer Garden

Located just outside of Philadelphia in the town of Wayne, this 48 acre botanical garden is a picturesque place for walking and picnics. Not only are there many gardens to explore, but there are also several formal areas of lush lawn. The sleek appearance of the bluegrass and fescue mix is due in part to the always changing mowing patterns that keep the soil healthy and loose. The famous Serpentine area of the pleasure garden features a variety of aesthetically-pleasing crops — as well as comfy chairs to take in the breathtaking sights.

Longwood Gardens Cow Lot

As the name suggests, the former pasture land is a breathtaking aspect of this Pennsylvanian public garden. The sprawling grassy area is peaceful and serene — a perfect place for a walk or just to gaze at the lush vegetation.

Filoli Lawn

Just south of San Francisco, this Californian country house boasts over 16 acres of gorgeously stunning gardens and lawns. Considered a historical landmark, the well-maintained lawns accompany reflecting pools and rose gardens and perfectly exemplify the blending of the Anglo-American gardening style.

Middleton Place

An aerial view of this South Carolina plantation is the best way to see its magnificent lawn. As one of America’s oldest and most famous landscapes, it still boasts the turf terraces that were initially carved in 1741. The rich mixture of Charleston and centipede grass makes for beautiful shades of green that aren’t found elsewhere.

Kykuit

Oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller built this spectacular Hudson River Valley, New York property in the early 1900’s. It has retained its splendor ever since. The gardens and lawns are considered to be some of the best in the world, bringing great fame to their designer. The front lawn is manicured to perfection and is one of the many highlights of the National Trust estate.

When one thinks of traditional American landscapes, a lush and well maintained lawn is usually part of the scene. As you can see, there are many such examples across the country that show what the lawn can do for the landscape.

For more articles about the lawn and garden from Mark, check out the Company’s blog.

Filed Under: English Style, Garden fashion, Garden style, Lawn

White House Featured Newest Garden Fashion

July 31, 2017 by admin Leave a Comment

White House featured newest garden fashion.

Fashion drives much of the commercial world with gardening a prime example.

People want the newest tomato, the latest dahlia hybrid, and the popular shrub that everyone says is easy to maintain.

The White House landscape serves as an enduring example of how gardeners made decisions on what to plant and not to plant, depending on what was in style.

From the beginning White House gardeners followed the latest fashion.

Marta McDowell describes throughout her book All the Presidents’ Gardens how the White House became a beacon for the newest in garden style and fashion.

The West Wing we see today was once the site of several greenhouses.

The greenhouses were there for decades, keeping safe from winter’s chill among other plants the bay trees that decorated the porticoes and terraces in the summer,

In 1902 the greenhouses were demolished to make room for a Colonial Revival garden. The Washington Post wrote at the time, “Landscape gardeners have noticed the tendency to return to colonial flowers to harmonize with the colonial style of architecture which has become so popular.”

Solidago rugosa or golden rod became popular in the early 1900s in the White House garden.

The old-fashioned plant golden rod became one of the more desirable plants to include in the garden. “What has been termed ‘old-fashioned’ flowers will be given places of honor in the new gardens because of their beauty and hardy nature,'” wrote The Washington Post.

President Theodore Roosevelt and his family enjoyed this new Colonial Revival garden.

In 1913 a new First Lady Ellen Axson Wilson had more modern ideas for the garden.

She arranged for the American landscape gardener Beatrix Jones to design and install an Italianate garden. The garden was simple and symmetrical.

Inspiration from the Italian garden had become the latest in fashion.

In modern times we saw Michelle Obama plant a vegetable garden. Often children worked with her in the garden which people called a victory garden.

Her gardening inspired people around the country to grow their own vegetables.

It was no coincidence that the popular farm to table movement was happening at the same tine.

Growing your own vegetables had become the latest garden fashion. Everybody wanted to do it.

Thanks to McDowell’s book we see that we need go no further than the White House to encounter the newest garden style.

Filed Under: Garden fashion, Garden style, Lawn, Native plants

Carpet Bedding at Nineteenth Century White House

July 24, 2017 by admin Leave a Comment

Carpet bedding at nineteenth century White House

Last year on a visit to Miami’s wonderful ocean front villa and garden called Viskaya I saw rows of croton, the popular tropical plant.

Croton which grows outdoors in warmer regions of the country can add color and structure to any garden or bed.

In her book All the Presidents’ Gardens Marta McDowell writes that carpet beds at the White House in 1888 included croton.

Carpet bedding was a Victorian craze that took off towards the end of the nineteenth century.

McDowell writes, “Carpet bedding is the gardening equivalent of elaborate Victorian jewelry, furniture, and fabric.”

It is an ornamental style of garden fashion in which a design of something like a circle, diamond, or triangle is planted on the lawn with colorful flowers and leaves.

It was the idea of a head gardener in mid-nineteenth century England and America adopted the style as well as England.

McDowell says, “It is as ornamental as the Tiffany stained glass screens and light fixtures that had adorned the interior of the White House since the 1880s.”

It was a fashion that the White House gardeners adopted for the end of the century,

She includes in the book a wonderful quote to support that view.

Here it is.

In 1888 the editor of the magazine American Florist wrote, “I saw some excellent examples of carpet bedding in the White House grounds, but I find in my notebook particular reference to two immense beds of crotons that in themselves amply repaid me for my visit. The beds were twenty-five feet in diameter, with about 350 plants in each, seventy-five varieties being represented together.”

Crotons

While in Florida last year, I met representatives from Costa Farms, a Florida and South Carolina grower of tropical plants.

The company sells crotons which for us in the northeast become house plants. [below]

Crotons from Costa Farms

There are dozens of cultivars today.

We can only imagine what a scene the massive carpet beds of crotons must have made in the White House garden of the late 1880s.

Filed Under: English Style, Garden fashion, Garden style, Nursery business, Victorian

English Garden Inspired White House Landscape

July 17, 2017 by admin Leave a Comment

English garden inspired White House landscape.

The garden fashion that our early Presidents admired was that of the English.

In her book All the Presidents’ Gardens author Marta McDowell tells the story of how various Presidents left their mark on the landscape at the White House.

Thomas Jefferson preferred the English romantic garden, according to McDowell.

She writes, “While it was not the first romantic garden plan in America – William Hamilton’s Woodlands predated it, for example – it was certainly on the leading edge.”

The elements that made us this design included the simple carriage drive, underscoring Jefferson’s republican ideals of direct and open government.

She writes, “The thirty-foot-wide roadbed allowed two way traffic; the circular turnaround had a ninety-foot diameter.”

Jefferson offered a bit of formality and neoclassical design in the White House landscape.

English politician and writer Thomas Whatley’s book Observations on Modern Gardening (1770) had influenced Jefferson’s opinion about the landscape garden. Jefferson had seen several of the great gardens of England on his grand tour of the country with John Adams, all recommended by Whatley.

Jefferson loved the English garden.

McDowell writes, “A gently curving pedestrian walk invited strollers along the north perimeter of the property. On the south side of the house, two linear flower borders outlined a rectangle that framed the facade.”

Thus the early English design choice for the garden of the White House set the stage for what would become America’s most famous landscape.

Filed Under: English garden design, English Style, Garden fashion

How Much Lawn is Too Much?

July 10, 2017 by admin Leave a Comment

How much lawn is too much?

Near us sits a house surrounded by lawn with no trees or shrubs to mar its green covering.

I remember visiting Pittsburgh where I saw a lawn made of gravel. No green grass there at all. [below]

Gravel lawn in Pittsburgh

The question then is how much lawn do we need?

There is much discussion today about decreasing the amount of lawn in the home landscape.

The reasons are many including preserving water and offering plant diversity in the landscape to encourage pollinators.

At the end of the nineteenth century it seemed there could never be too much lawn.

In 1899 the Boston landscape architect Warren H. Manning who had worked previously for

Landscape gardener Warren Manning (1860-1938)

the Olmsted firm wrote A Handbook for Planning and Planting Small Home Grounds.

In the book he said that there should be “the largest available central lawn space, in which there should be but few single specimens of shrubs and trees and no formal beds of flowers.”

Thus he encouraged as much lawn as possible.

He cautioned not to spoil the look of the expansive lawn with too many trees and shrubs, and discouraged formal beds of flowers.

The lawn therefore became the central feature in the landscape.

Today you can find an array of different opinions about the lawn.

Since at the same time Manning supported the lawn he also encouraged the wild garden and using native plants, today he might look at the lawn quite differently.

He was the son of Jacob Warren Manning who owned a nursery in North Reading, a town outside of Boston. Warren, in fact, worked at the nursery for his father for several years. Therefore he knew a lot about plants

As homeowners graple with what to do with the lawn, there are many options.

No question the lawn still plays an important role in the home landscape.

The issue revolves around the questions of how much of a lawn do we want and for what reasons.

Filed Under: Lawn, Nursery business

Defining the English Garden

July 3, 2017 by admin Leave a Comment

Defining the English garden

The sweeping lawn of the English landscape garden developed in the

Lancelot Capability Brown

eighteenth century under the inspiration of gardener to the King Lancelot Capability Brown (1716-1783).

Tim Richardson writes in his book The Arcadian Friends: Inventing the English Landscape Garden, “The Brown brand resulted in a green monotony across England, and even across much of Europe and parts of America; it was primarily Brown’s example which inspired the nineteenth-century phenomenon of the ‘English garden’.”

So we have Brown to thank for the lawn which has long defined the English garden both in Europe and in America.

Today the term ‘English garden’ is full of so many meanings.

When we use words that have multiple meanings, we tend to be on a higher level of the ladder of abstraction because we are not clear.

Academic and Senator Samuel I. Hayakawa, in his book Language in Thought and Action, described what he called the ladder of abstraction, a concept used to illustrate how language and reasoning evolve from concrete to abstract.

Thus, for example, the more you want to confuse your audience, the more likely you are to use words that do not have a clear meaning.

You could say that such is the case with the expression ‘English garden’. Because of its history it has so many meanings.

Which English garden do you mean? From what period?

One thing we do know however is that the lawn has been an integral part of the English garden since the eighteenth century.

Here is Chatsworth, north of London, the home of the Duke and Duchess of Derbyshire. [below]

England’s Chatsworth

Over the centuries several landscape gardeners provided its design, but it was Brown that installed the extensive lawn in the eighteenth century.

Today Chatsworth stands as one of his most famous English gardens, marked by his signature lawn.

Filed Under: English garden design, English Style, Garden fashion, Garden style, Lawn

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Victorian Carpet Beds

June 26, 2017 by admin Leave a Comment

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Victorian carpet beds

A week ago I visited the nineteenth century Harriet Beecher Stowe house and garden in Hartford, Connecticut. At the same time that Stowe lived there Hartford attracted other artists and writers.

Stowe remains best known as the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Some argue that the book galvanized the issue of abolition and even contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War here in the US.

Her house stands as it did in the nineteenth century.

A Victorian garden still surrounds the house.

Luckily the staff at the Stowe Center provided a guide to her garden. The property is small but includes much of what was important to middle-class gardeners at that tine.

A herb garden, a blue garden, and even a wildflower garden are just some of the expressions of Stowe’s love of gardening.

As I rounded the corner at the front of the house I noticed a large circle of flowers in the lawn.

It was a carpet bed, popular in the Victorian garden of the nineteenth century.

Since this was only mid June, the flowers in the bed were quite small. The variety of flowers however caught my attention.

In the center of the bed you could see both a castor oil plant and elephant ears. By summer’s end both of these will be tall plants that will give a sense of height and structure to this round garden.[below]

Carpet bed on the lawn at Harriet Beecher Stowe’s house in Hartford, Conn.

In 1869 Stowe co-wrote the book The American Woman’s Home: Principles of Domestic Science with her sister Catherine Esther Beecher.

The book includes several chapters on the woman’s role in making an ‘economical, healthful, beautiful, and Christian home.’

There is a section in the book about gardening. They write, “In yards which are covered with turf, beds can be cut out of it, and raised for flowers. A trench should be made around, to prevent the grass from running on them.’

A row of red bricks now circles the colorful flowers that I saw.

They write, “These beds can be made in the shape of crescents, ovals, and other fanciful forms.”

That became, of course, the Victorian obsession with carpet bedding and ribbon bedding.

The staff at the Stowe Center told me that Harriet Beecher Stowe favored flower beds over kitchen gardens.

That was evident as I walked around the house.

The restored landscape reflects the Victorian style of gardening popular at that time.

Filed Under: Garden fashion, Garden style, Victorian Tagged With: flower gardens

Victorian England Treasured US Rhododendron

June 19, 2017 by admin 2 Comments

Victorian England treasured US rhododendron.

Right now you see rhododendrons in bloom everywhere.

The native rhododendron has fascinated me for many years. I always look forward to its late May and early June blooms.

Here’s a view of my garden right now. [below]

A scene in my garden with two rhododendrons that are blooming.

Our native rhododendron, however, played a greater part in the English garden in the nineteenth century than our own. At that time they were more popular in England than here in America.

Philadelphia nurseryman Thomas Meehan (1826-1901) in his magazine Gardener’s Monthly in the June issue of 1870 lamented the fact that Americans did not appreciate the rhododendron.

He wrote, “It has often been a source of wonder, that the idea that the most beautiful of all American ornamental plants – the Rhododendron – could not be grown in its native country, should ever prevail; yet so universal is this belief, that though persistent efforts have been made by enthusiast nurserymen, like Parsons of Flushing, and Hovey of Boston, to introduce it to public notice, and to show that they can be as well grown as any other plant, only a few yet realize the fact; and thousands of our readers do not know what a rhododendron is.”

Today we acknowledge the battle between native and exotic plant choice for the garden. The issue is certainly not new.

Native plants, according to the nineteenth century American seed and nursery catalogs, were not as popular as ornamental plants from countries like China and Japan. But first these plants, including native US varieties, had to appear in the English garden.

The same happened to the rhododendron.

Eventually, it assumed an important role in American gardens.

Frederick Law Olmsted used the rhododendron extensively in 1895 for his landscape design at the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina.

Filed Under: English garden design, English Style, Native plants

Public Relations Campaign Attacks Clover

June 15, 2017 by admin Leave a Comment

Public relations campaign attacks clover.

The lawn has been a part of the home landscape since the eighteenth century.

Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both treasured the English lawn, the inspiration for all lawns American.

Clover in the lawn. [Courtesy of Today’s Homeowner]

Clover, the tiny four leafed plant we all love, has been a part of the lawn for decades as much as bluegrass.

Then in the 1950s a chemical company, to advance a weed killer, used a public relations campaign to declare white clover a weed.

Warren Schultz tells the story in his book The Chemical-Free Lawn. He writes that in the 1950s “a major producer of grass seed and chemicals launched a public relations campaign disparaging clover. Clover is a weed, the company declared. It doesn’t belong in the modern lawn.”

The goal of the campaign was to sell a chemical to kill lawn weeds, including clover.

Schultz says, “Its point of view carried the day, and now homeowners spend a lot of time and money trying to get rid of this once-popular plant, blind to its fine qualities.”

Clover has long been a part of lawn seed mixes.

Rochester, New York seedsman James Vick (1818-1882) wrote about the value of clover in 1878 in his magazine Vick’s Illustrated Monthly.

Vick said, “Kentucky Blue Grass, with a little White Clover, about a pound to the acre, and a few ounces of Sweet Vernal Grass, will make a good lawn.”

In 1936 Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Gardening also noted the value of clover.

Under the name, white clover, or Trifolium repens, Taylor’s says, “It is the chief clover in grass mixtures and makes a valuable constituent of lawns.”

In the past garden books and magazines often said that clover was valuable for the lawn.

More recently in Pennsylvania the Lehigh Valley Master Gardeners wrote in their blog, “Clover is a legume, like soybeans, and it has the ability to fix nitrogen out of the atmosphere and convert it to a form readily available to plants, including the grass it shares soil with. People liked clover for this reason and it lessened the need for fertilizing the lawn.”

The public relations campaign in the 1950s was succesful. Today it is common for companies selling herbicides to consider white clover a weed.

In this time of frequent draught and renewed interest in native plants, why not reconsider the case of the clover, and even, as many people are doing, welcome it as an integral component of the lawn?

Filed Under: Garden fashion, Garden style, gardening, Lawn, Native plants