Category: garden design history

Sometimes I feel as if the lawn is the one calling the shots in my yard, not the other way round. That’s particularly true when I am pushing a mower in 95º heat, or paying an exorbitant electricity bill after a season of lawn irrigation. (Electricity, as I pump irrigation water from our old, 1852 [...]

There is something very satisfying having a few hens about the place… John Brooks,  A Country Garden This morning I stepped with no small trepidation back into the world of chickens. I’ve had chicks here before, many times in fact, over the last 20 years, but the last two occasions proved disastrous: weasels got into [...]

One of the great things about working in design is that you get a chance to experience a wide range of mediums, far greater than you would ever have in even the most ample single garden. Recently I was called out to redesign a pool deck in nearby Sudbury, Massachusetts. The setting was spectacular – [...]

Several years ago my sister Cindy and I traveled to England. We passed a few delightful days in London, then went down to Dorset to spend a week at a small inn that specializes in garden tours. The setting was utterly charming, a 17th century thatched building nestled in a tiny village in the thick [...]

By their very nature, gardens hold surprises.  Many are not so pleasant, like the about to flower clematis I discovered one morning last week cruelly carried off by a late frost. Most however, are delightful, especially when completely unexpected. Here’s one I thoroughly enjoyed today: Kalmia flowered deutzia, deutzia x kalmiiflora (or sometimes, kalmiifolia). I [...]

The lilacs opened in my garden this morning, and as the breeze carried that heady scent through the open window for the first time this year, I was instantly transported back to my childhood in Milwaukee, walking with my mother to school on sunny May mornings past towering shrubs of redolent lilacs. Long forgotten details [...]

If I were to tell you that there were a neglected group of trees, shrubs, perennials, and annuals that could provide excellent color to even the dreariest corner of your landscape, would you be interested? If I were further to say that these plants did so throughout the growing season, without the normal gardener’s headaches [...]

Part Three of an Occasional Series on Tips for Designing the Home Landscape As spring rolls finally rolls around here in Boston, and people start to spend more time outdoors enjoying the fine weather, my clients inevitably ask me about ways to increase privacy. Essentially, there three options to block unsightly views or to enclose [...]

Part One of an Occasional Series on Tips for Designing the Home Landscape When you step into a really well designed landscape, something just feels right: There’s a sense of pleasure, of comfort, of being at home, outdoors and in. While you might be tempted to think that this sensation arises from nature, in reality [...]

A chill wind blows through the cold and barren garden as I make my way back to the house amid small mounds of left-over ice and snow.  Here and there the tip of an occasional snowdrop can be seen trying to force its way upwards through the frozen earth; other than the evergreens, all seems [...]