Garden Lecture by Two Masters at Horticultural Society of New York

Lecture at the Horticultural Society of New York

“Vegetable gardens make every property an act of eating”

Couldn’t miss landscape design icons, Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd, Friday, October, 30^th at the Horticultural Society of New York (http://www.hsny.org/)

Joe and Wayne delivered a unique one-two punch of garden design inspiration from their remarkable portfolio AND a hands on working consultation.

Partners Eck & Winterrowd’s North Hill home and garden is a natural “muse” to their unique brand and philosophical approach to garden design.  

http://www.northhillgarden.com/garden.htm

Joe and Wayne are adored, admired and respected for their extraordinary approach to landscape design.  They had me at “food” as in vegetables J, telling the audience they always include food as an edible garden design element.   The design duo noted, “Food is a primal pleasure” and opined that it’s really hard to be into gardening and not to satisfy that impulse.

From their creative, award-winning portfolio, the duo presented four garden design case studies that couldn’t help but ignite the attendees’ garden dreams.   According to Joe and Wayne, an overriding recommendation is to design a garden that embodies a “sense of place.”   I call this a horticultural DNA.   What does that mean?  “Essentially, if you live in area like the Hamptons, for example, where the Shingle Style prevails, it would be best not to introduce a style” that in Joe and Wayne’s perspective, “sticks out!”

Their pool design recommendation should most assuredly be acknowledged and considered:  rather than the ubiquitous Mediterranean standard of the turquoise-colored pool, homeowners should employ a violet or grey scale color for the pool lining.  Brilliant suggestion!

I noted the vegetable gardens they include in their landscape designs are extraordinarily beautiful; they employ a perfect pitch of texture, color and size of the plant to achieve enviable ornamental edible garden designs.  Their vegetable garden designs also ranged in size and scope from containers to the rather diminutive borders to the standard parterred potager to the sweep of orchards.  For example, Joe and Wayne showed a color-themed composition featuring gorgeous ruby rhubarb with a coral bark, clematis, and epimediums as the skirted ground cover.

“Vegetable gardens make every property an act of eating,” according to the design team.  Words to live by, I say.

The one-acre Rancho Santa Fe house and garden design demonstrated how they achieved a “sense of place” employing the Mission Style.  Part of a built, gated community, their vision was to “completely sequester” the property.  Their aim was to have visitors think this homestead was the original landowner who needed to sell off part of their land to maintain their “original estate” vs. the reality of this having been the last property available in the community complex.  The wink of the conceit succeeds spectacularly.  

The food terraces in one sloped area feature a Tuscany-looking citrus grove, figs, avocados, and macadamia nuts. Rather than mowed grass, there now exists, exciting and glamorous fruit trees.  The olive trees were planted on a diagonal with the last “row” smack up against the adobe wall.   They also planted a lot of rosemary so that it quickly – and oh-so-naturally began dripping over the adobe walls. 

Joe and Wayne also showcased the home’s “Gift of Gate or Donated Space.”   This is their thoughtfully designed garden “gift” to a homeowner’s neighbors and in less artistic hands might be referred to simply as “curb appeal.”   Here, the designers employed xeriscape, used native California plants and maximized the garden footprint to deliver a wowsy first impression for the homeowner’s guests.  At the same time, they provide a picture-perfect, good neighbor botanic postcard to all who pass by: Greetings!  Glad you are here…. J

The driveway they originally thought they wanted was illegal in California. No gravel… (What does that sign posting look like?  The European stop sign over stones?!)

In any event, they went back to the drawing board and got local river stones to characterize another overarching design principle they practice and that is to get inside the garden – to feel surrounded by it – as opposed to just looking at it. So they made a walking path through the olive grove they had planted.

Like all good garden artists, Joe and Wayne adhere to repeating planting for maximum effect – and here they planted 4,000 lavender plants! 

They proposed delineating the property, erecting a 15’ adobe wall around the property to give it the sense of place and enclosure. 

The yellow and white weeping lantana that caresses their terrace wall design illustrated another key design principle:  Build a strong space with lots of muscle and definition and proceed to erase it.  Here, they even added a vine that turns crimson in the autumn for added color and drama – and to remind the Garden State couple that owns the home, of their wonderful New Jersey roots.  They both described their rush to add romance and exuberance to the hardscapes and pointed out this is a design philosophy espoused by the great English author, poet garden designer, Vita Sackville-West, who created her own gardens in Sissinghurst. (www.en.m.wikipedia.org: Vita Sackville-West).   So build strong walls, then “fluff it up” with lots of pretty plants, is advice to good to ignore. 

Joe and Wayne also use water features in the garden designs.  “It must be completely natural or completely artificial.”  They said.  Huh?  Either use containers or Chinese water troughs or recreate nature with a fishpond for example.  You can also provide water vegetables in the water gardens. 

Describing the eternity pool they installed to create a mirror-like affect “tickled the hell out of us.” And utilizing the “borrowed scenery,” they fueled the Tuscany-inspired look of the landscape. They created a sense of openness and enclosure. The walls and the house were cited so that you cannot see the other homes in the community.

The lecture also included a pre-Civil war home in Kentucky.  Located in Henry County, the home was part of the 1,000 acre working farm. Here too, in order to delineate the home space from the working farm area, they built wall – old-looking ones, and then created an arborvitae hedge in front that sloped away to one side ending in a grove.  The use of the grove terminates a hedge in a natural way.  Because the house used lots of bricks formed and dried on the property since it was built in 1830, they used lots of brick.  Remember, “Don’t stick out.”  In fact, all the material they used in the garden came from the property.  Limestone bluffs ring the area, so, you guessed it, they created a lush courtyard, brick and limestone paths, terraces.

They designed the vegetable and herb garden patterned off and hedged with box, which is ubiquitous in the South.  Again, they demonstrated how they employed the “borrowed landscape” with images that showed how the rolling farmland and hills beyond become part of the garden design.  And the daisy meadow they dreamed up is magical.

The final house and garden they toured as part of the lecture was near Louisville, Kentucky.  The surprise here was that they recommended not putting any garden around the house!  Just leave it pristine and undisturbed.

The wife loved an old tractor shed on the property located about 1,200 feet from the house.  Thus, they proposed, “Travel to the Garden!”  The next surprise is that they proposed using old corrugated metal for the garden walls.  But in fact, the design team offered that there was significant wisdom in using the idiomatic material.  The homeowners love Modern, Mid-Century fine art and the metal fit right in with their aesthetic.  Plus it took care of the deer problem nicely too.   The walls have achieved a splendid patina, and are now draped with those glamorous, romantic plants to fluff it up.  The contrast is high drama.  Walking to the garden it’s all sober and austere. Then the wide gates open up to a garden paradise.  They used gravel pathways punctuated by nepeta spilling over onto the walks for a rhythmic accent and to give form to the plant shapes.  The walks are almost erased by the end of the summer, joked Joe.  They created different grades or levels of garden within the paradise for added excitement.  The color gold was used in a major way here – in all its permutations – contrasting with the burgundy of a berberis or the grey of the gravel stone.  Gorgeous. In the middle of the garden is a formal vegetable garden – neat as a pin – that contrasts nicely with the romantic exuberance of the decorative garden surrounding it. 

Following the slide show and lecture, Joe and Wayne literally turned things around. After a short break, they conducted a working session, and took questions and design challenges from the attendees, providing garden solutions on the spot!  

This valuable lesson from two masters was deeply appreciated by all.

The all too short lecture at the Horticultural Society concluded with a book signing. Between them they have written six books. 

I bought two.  I finally got their recent, instant classic, “Our Life in Gardens” and the beautifully crafted “Illustrations and Elements of Garden Design.” You can purchase directly from Amazon, too.

Chapter 2

I think I put the “blah” in blog ^:^ 

Not from my writing, mind you – but I can’t seem to carve out the time to write the blog, as I am so busy writing my book…

Yet, I love blogs. I love their immediacy, consistent story telling; their intimacy and the courage displayed in their author’s delivery.  There’s no hesitation to share expertise, opinions, photos.

Once I checked with my editor that it was OK to pursue the blog, I thought I’d take to it like morning coffee.

In fact, I eagerly wrote the first entry and couldn’t wait to write and post news about the trials, triumphs, joys and exciting adventures involved in writing and producing my first book: “Celebrity Chefs & Their Gardens” (working title.) The concept I pitched my publisher was to explore the nexus of where garden art meets the other arts – the franchise would be how gardens inspire musicians, sculptures, painters, and above all, the culinary artist. They most demonstrably use the bounty of the garden in their culinary art. 

It is a joyful experience that interests just about everyone who hears about the process – from foodies to gardeners to politicos to champions of healthy eating as way to healthy living aficionados.  (I did say everyone, right?) 

Further, my daily routine couldn’t have been better conceived or more simple or fun.  During the week when we live in our jewel-box apartment in Greenwich Village in New York City, the goal was to follow my early morning workout at the health club with some coffee, writing the blog, shower, (maybe reverse that order – no dirty blog writing!), write a celebrity chef profile (or two) for the book, break; then render the garden art for the book – which is a water color of every chef’s garden design whether it’s their personal home garden, the Greenmarket (www.cenycgreenmarket.org)  , the restaurant’s or a favorite farm he uses.  (and the chefs are, curiously, almost all men.) 

I did this brilliant routine exactly -- zero times. 

How could this be, I’d ask myself over the evening’s martini cocktail as I reviewed the day and took a break with my husband before returning to writing or the art. 

Mainly, because I was so busy scheduling photo shoots and interviews.  If I have 16 NYC master chefs with two photo shoots for each – the kitchen and the garden, along with the interviews – well, you can do the math… And not surprisingly, schedules change – especially for “my” famous chefs who manage multiple restaurants in their empire, and/or support a plethora of community greenmarket and farm initiatives.  Many have admin staff and/or public relations support.  I have to contact my crackerjack team: the book’s photographer, Jennifer Calais Smith (www.jennifercalaissmith.com) and the food stylist, Patty White (www.pattywhitefoodstylist.com)

So you see, when rescheduling, there are any number of players that need to be consulted.  No different from any corporate or project work, it’s just I was the only one doing the scheduling and correspondence and the changes.  And believe me, I loved coordinating with all the chefs and their staffs.  They are all super talented, energized, dedicated artists and professionals.

With deadlines looming, it wasn’t too long before I realized I needed help.    I had to write and produce the art. No one else could do that.  But if I could get some assistance in the coordination of all the detailed full-color, photography, then we’d be good.  Ta da! Enter Lauren Grimley – smart, savvy, not to mention oh-so-pretty girlfriend, now former girlfriend L, of my nephew, Garrett.  She’s genius and can surely help me keep my focus on what I need to do while adding to the team dynamic.

It has, ahem, been some months, that I have submitted a posting.   But I am an avowed optimist and think these turn of events will lead to more time for writing, art and blogging.

Back to a central question of my singular first/only blog:

What chefs in NYC and Long Island, including the Hamptons, the Gold Coast, and Five Towns do you recommend for the book??

Here we go J

catching up with the book

Today is my first posting about writing my first book.  

I had every intention of doing this much earlier - years ago, in fact.  

Maybe because we just came home from seeing "Julie & Julia" at the cinema or maybe I seemingly have more time now (more about that later), but I was determined to launch writing about the book today.

The soon (too soon?!) to be published book started as a concept in early 2002.  At that time, I was most interested in how the garden inspires artists -- all artists: musicians, painters,  fashion designers, cinematographers, writers, photographers and .... But most significantly, culinary artists, because they so obviously utilize the bounty of the garden to create their own art.  

So I thought a book franchise might start there --exploring the art of the garden from the perspective of how provocative and compelling a garden is to the creativity of  artistic endeavor.  

And it was!  I was over the moon when I was able to secure a publishing contract at that time for the book, "Celebrity Chefs & Their Gardens."  But then, all too soon, that publisher said there were too many garden books on the market and we needed to wait.  

For me?  Other opportunities arrived and I put the book concept on the shelf, so to speak. 

 

I had a new publisher interested in 2007 and we worked through the concept throughout 2008.  

At the same time, the world of gardening changed. A lot. Increasingly, gardeners were focusing more on growing their own food.  More and more, community gardens were turning from ornamental plants to vegetables and fruits.  Food scares and concerns about the safety of our food were news headlines!  Michael Pollan and Alice Waters were becoming icons for what seemed to be a growing (sorry) movement..

So I could feel the book subtly migrate to explore and learn about the unique chefs that celebrated not just the art of the garden but the integrity and tradition and purity of the garden and what that meant to our culture.  

I set out to identify those "celebrity chefs" who I now prefer to refer to as master chefs or noble chefs, who are leaders in marrying culinary art with garden art in an almost truer sense.  They grow their own food for the restaurant, their gardens do indeed inspire their work in the kitchen, and/or they elevate their local farmers and growers as partners in their pursuit of truly fine dining.  Menus imbued with seasonal, fresh local food. Not imported. Not exotic in the old way.  

I hoped these chefs, these culinary artists, could illuminate how they heroically changed the way we think about dining, about food, about nutrition.  They helped lead a revolution - a movement.  It soon became about lifestyle and politics too.

The book contract was finalized around Christmas 2008. I was so honored and so excited.  The book is to be published for spring 2010.

This will be the story of how that book came about, my overture to the chefs, my interview adventures (and there have been some epic tales!) and securing the perfect lineup of celebrity, er, noble chefs. And  finding the most wonderful photographer, food stylist and of course, working with a fantastic and supportive editor.  

Whenever I tell my friends and family about the chefs and their philosophy, not to mention the struggles and "triumphs" to coordinate all the elements of the book, they love it. I hope you do too. It is so exciting to learn from these culinary leaders.

This first book focuses on chefs from New York City, the Hamptons and the Garden State.  I will share the list of chefs later...  

(Tell me who you would nominate to include in the book?)

I hope you will enjoy this story....