The original stone garden, featuring hostas and European ginger.

As every gardener knows, a landscape evolves and develops over time, so it’s always fascinating for me to return to my projects to see how they have changed after a span of years has gone by.  My very first Cambridge clients called recently to ask me to consult on the garden I first created there thirty years ago. I visited on a cold and rainy day in April to assess the situation (see ‘before’ shots) and figured out an informal work plan, then returned in early May to meet with the landscape contractor, Ariana Loubsky and her son Alex, and made a list that included buying in a pallet of large flat fieldstones and 4 Japanese maples to add to the clients’ collection.  Then in late May, my clients, Ariana and Alex and their two colleagues, and I set out the Japanese maples, laid out the stepping stones, made an extension of the brick walkway, and moved plants around to turn a garden that needed refurbishing into a lush and verdant paradise.  A few days later, my clients threw a small garden party to celebrate.  Here are some pictures of the process.

BEFORE

Before. L: The muddy back yard needed some TLC.  I proposed extending the brick to include the base of the steps and decided to replace the small, thin flat fieldstones with larger, thicker material. C: A handsome carved stone sculpture was set far enough from the brick terrace that I decided to create a way to get close up. R: Some years ago in this area, I had created a planted “pool” in a shady wooded area along with a softly curving gravel path bounded by steel edging. It now needed refurbishing.  Photos: JMMDS.

PROCESS

Before I arrived, the team prepared the site, brought in new larger flat fieldstones, and dug holes for the trees. I used spray paint to suggest the route of the stepping stone path.

We carefully set each tree into place.

As we worked, I explained my theory of stepping stone path design to all the workers, ensuring that what I learned so long ago in Japan would be passed along.

To begin the stepping stone journey, I placed one of the large flat fieldstones into the gravel walkway I had created there some years ago. The largest stones were set at the beginning, ending, and at every decision point along the way.

Alex placed moss in the carved grooves of the stone sculpture, after I set ostrich ferns to one side to give it a lacy backdrop and smaller ferns in front to bring softness to its base.

AFTER

I set some structural stones around the “pool” and as a base for the larger Buddha sculpture, and then moved some of the large-leafed hostas into groupings and placed Ostrich ferns for height. Ariana planted the soft, golden Irish Moss into the metal dish, which I set off-center so that it seems to float on top of the washed river stone surface of the pool.

A smaller Buddha now sits happily on a flat fieldstone beneath an umbrella-like threadleaf Maple (Acer palmatum var. dissectum).

The stepping stone path floats by on the way to the next event—the carved stone sculpture.

The carved stone sculpture can now be seen close-up along the stepping stone path that is set into a field of myrtle (Vinca minor ‘Bowles Beauty’).

A small stone basin is protected by another threadleaf maple, soon to be surrounded by a bed of myrtle.

The path ends at a tall stone lantern that graces the back corner of the garden. From here you can look back to the house and see how the whole garden journey works.

The 2013 Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill Tour

Photo by Thomas Linger, from Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill, page 48.

If you’ve never had an opportunity to tour the private gardens hidden behind high brick walls or at the end of narrow alleys in Boston’s beloved neighborhood on a hill, tomorrow is your chance.  The Beacon Hill Garden Club, formed by twenty residents with a love of horticulture in 1928, continues to open its gates to 12 hidden gardens and four “ribbon” gardens viewed from the street.  It is a self-guided tour that takes place rain or shine.  Tickets cost $35 in advance and $40 the day of the tour—look for them at select Charles Street stores.

The Beacon Hill Garden Club Releases a New Book

If you can’t get to the tour this year, then by all means buy a copy of the just-released book, Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill:  Creating Green Spaces in Urban Places. Besides being so happy that several JMMDS-designed gardens are featured in its pages, I am also thrilled with the book’s content.  Rather than looking at case studies of specific gardens, the book highlights the elements of these tiny urban shade gardens, teaching us about character, walls, paving, levels, gates and doors, ornaments, furniture, and more.

Photo by Thomas Linger, from Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill, page 40. JMMDS design.

Not only are the photographs handsome (by Peter Vanderwarker and Thomas Lingner/The Able Lens), but the writing delights as well.  Here’s an example that reminds us of the original purpose of these hidden gardens:

“Since the back yards of our houses were originally strung with laundry lines and used as outdoor kitchens and for privies, we can credit the gradual improvement in indoor plumbing, city services and household appliances for allowing us to inherit, and bequeath, the gardens of today…”

You can buy the book at the tour or contact the Beacon Hill Garden Club on their website.

Photo by Thomas Linger, from Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill, page 44.

The three gardens shown above are projects on which JMMDS was involved.

This landscape design created by Home Outside online design service takes into account both of the owners’ personal design styles. What’s your design style?

When: Sunday, April 28, 3:00 p.m.

Where: Alyson’s Orchard, Walpole, NH.

A benefit for Parks Place Community Resource Center, the event will include a silent auction. Admission by donation.

By Jennifer Silver, JMMDS

JMMDS Senior Landscape Architect Jana Bryan and Principal Julie Moir Messervy enjoyed getting their hands dirty as they put together their part of Massachusetts Horticultural Society‘s award-winning exhibit, “Sowing the Seeds of Change” at the 2013 Boston Flower and Garden Show that ran from March 13th through 17th at the Seaport World Trade Center. The exhibit highlighted the Society’s 184-year legacy leading the charge to bring the fruits of horticulture into the lives of ordinary citizens.  JMMDS’s part of the exhibit focused on Mount Auburn Cemetery, founded by Mass Hort in 1831 to address the need for alternate burial grounds in the Boston area, introducing the “garden cemetery” as beautiful landscaped resting places.

Jana (left) and Julie standing behind the blooming Mount Auburn Cemetery display before the 2013 Boston Flower & Garden Show. Photo: Katherine MacDonald.

Julie and Jana designed the exhibit so that a beautiful weeping white pine tree formed its background with several handsome rhododendrons in front to set off the central focal point–a handsome iron cemetery path sign inscribed with the word, “Bigelow Ave.” to commemorate Mount Auburn’s earliest designer. Thanks to President Dave Barnett, Director of Preservation and Facilities Gus Fraser, and Chief of Conservation, David Gallagher for helping find just the right focal point.

The “Bigelow Ave.” sign that formed the focal point of the exhibit.

The designers were able to create the exhibit using a broad variety of plant material amassed by Mass Hort staff.  They hedged the little corner exhibit with boxwood and then layered in ostrich fern, blue flowering Jacob’s ladder, geranium, ivy, and a collection of miniature ferns. Daffodils peeked through the groundcovers, providing subtle color throughout.  Thanks go to Mass Hort’s Executive Director Katharine MacDonald, Gardens Curator David Fiske and Director of Operations Clark Bryan, and Charlie Harris, all of whom worked so hard to make this exhibit possible.

Two years ago Ball Horticultural Company sent JMMDS some shrubs to try out in our home gardens, all of them selected from established performers in our Zone 5 growing area. The shrubs arrived in perfect condition—healthy and lush little specimens. I took several home and plunked them in the ground, then had to move them later as my garden design evolved (some of them moved more than once!). All continued to thrive despite the unceremonious treatment. Here are my favorites.

L: Physocarpus ‘Lemon Candy.’ Photo by Ball Horticultural Company. C: Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia). Photo by allanbecker*gardenguru. R: Lady’s mantle (Alchemilla mollis). Photo by Prescott Park.

Physocarpus ‘Lemon Candy’

I love physocarpus, commonly called ninebark, for its exfoliating bark and many-lobed palmate leaves. ‘Lemon Candy,’ with its bright chartreuse leaves, is stunning. It supposedly has a mounded form up to 3 feet in height and diameter, but mine is rather upright vase-shaped and is already 3 feet tall after only two years. The color is a gorgeous foil to bluish-lavender; I surrounded mine with perovskia, lady’s mantle, and ‘Walker’s Low’ nepeta. I will definitely be needing some more ‘Lemon Candy’ to repeat throughout the garden.

L: ‘Merlot Rose’ weigela. R: ‘Wings of Fire’ weigela. Photos by Ball Horticultural Company.

Weigela ‘Wings of Fire’ and ‘Merlot Rose’

I have in my yard an antique no-name weigela which is breathtaking when it’s covered with rose-pink trumpet-shaped flowers but for the other 49 weeks of the year is rather nondescript. My two Ball weigelas, ‘Wings of Fire’ and ‘Merlot Rose,’ are remarkable mostly for the gorgeous coloration of their leaves. The foliage of ‘Wings of Fire’ is a light green tinged with copper that turns a handsome shade of red in fall and holds its color until frost. It seems to need no care whatsoever and is already well on its way to forming a 3-4’ mound.

Weigela ‘Merlot Rose’ has dark bronze-green foliage. It’s a knockout in a mixed border of echinacea, rudbeckia, yarrow, and sedums, where it easily stands up to all the hot colors around it. It is also tough and fairly drought-tolerant, never withering during several hot, dry weeks last summer.

Abelia grandiflora ‘Sunshine Daydream.’ Photo by Garden Beauty.

Abelia grandiflora ‘Sunshine Daydream’

I don’t usually love abelias; I find their pink-yellow-green variegation homely, but the fragrance of ‘Sunshine Daydream’ makes me swoon. I want it near the house while it’s flowering. This summer I intend to dig it up (yet again) and put it in a pot that I can place by an outdoor seating area while it’s in bloom. I’m told they like being in pots and are quite drought-tolerant and self-sufficient.

Hydrangea paniculata ‘Fire and Ice,’ whose panicles change color over the growing season. Photos: Ball Horticultural Company.

Hydrangea paniculata ‘Fire and Ice’

‘Fire and Ice’ is simply a gorgeous hydrangea. Up to 6′ tall, upright, with fantastic panicles of flowers that start out ivory, then blush darker and darker as fall approaches, its only flaw seems to be that it doesn’t taser the deer that come to nibble at its elegant lime-green leaves. In its second summer, I moved it to a new bed where it gets morning sun and fairly heavy afternoon shade. It has grown astonishingly fast and looks lovely underplanted with hostas, hellebores, Virginia bluebells, and ‘Mrs. Moon’ pulmonaria.

Buddleia Flutterby Petite™ ‘Blue Heaven’

Finally, I have to mention the dwarf ‘Blue Heaven’ butterfly bush. I was disappointed to learn a couple years ago that buddleias don’t feed the caterpillars of my beloved butterflies, but this one is worth keeping around for its beauty alone. The flowers are an intense bluish lavender that I crave in my garden. It’s worth noting that like all buddleias, this one takes a long time to leaf out in spring and looks dead as a doornail; it’s not. It seems very happy in a large container in the herb garden, with ajuga as a living mulch.

We’d love to hear about the shrubs you’re loving (or looking forward to acquiring)!

A charming collection of rounded beach pebbles set out on a shade garden floor bring unity to this garden vignette. Photo by JMMDS.

As I wrote in Home Outside :

“The easiest way to connect the energy both in and around your house is to repeat

an element:  a color, a texture, a shape, or even a style.  When you do this, you

create an automatic connection between the elements that stand out in a

landscape of otherwise unrelated objects.

“Children enjoy ‘connecting the dots’ by drawing a line from one numbered dot to

the next to reveal a picture that couldn’t otherwise be deciphered.  In a similar way,

you can connect focal objects to each other and unveil a larger pattern by repeating

an element and uniting different areas….Repeating an element can help restore

order to a chaotic landscape and bring harmony and a sense of balance to the whole

property.”

Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love

(Taunton Press, 2009, pp. 186-187)

Oblong shapes find repetition in the stone underfoot, the plantings that intersect it, and the enclosures, including the hedging and the mortared walls, to create a harmonious whole. Design by Nelson Byrd Woltz, at the Charles Luck Design Center, Richmond, VA. Photo by JMMDS.

Planting form, texture, and shape can act as repeating elements as well.  Here the weeping panicles of the tree in the background are echoed in the carefully pruned Chinese wisteria trees at Longwood’s Wisteria Garden. Photo by JMMDS.

Julie and Cary at work in the JMMDS studio. Photo: JMMDS.

As the snow falls down hard here in Saxtons River, it is difficult to imagine that in just a few short months, the ground will be green again and we’ll be back to preparing our landscapes for the coming year.  But as we consider planting those ornamentals or installing our new patio, it is important—now more than ever—for us to be conscious of our role as gardeners in the natural environment.

It is not unusual for us to feel depressed and powerless about our own abilities to combat the ecological crisis our world now faces.  Sure we can drive a hybrid car and keep reusable shopping bags, but just when we start feeling good about this, we hear that carbon emissions continue to rise and that the rainforests are being cut down as quickly as ever.

There is something that all of us can do, though, to create an immediately observable and powerful benefit for the plants and animals around us.  Permaculture has become a big buzzword in the landscaping world in recent years; however, the term (coined by Aussie farmer Bill Mollison in the 70s) essentially just describes a collection of practices and concepts that have been in use for thousands of years and that have allowed countless civilizations to live practically and sustainably on the Earth.  Permaculture begins with a series of core principles (such as “recycle your waste,” “exert the least effort for the greatest change,” and “start small and build off your success”) and emphasizes the use of systems that will produce useful services for the landowner and for the restoration of the environment.  Practices such as sheet mulching are relatively simple to do and yet will help attract an variety of microorganisms to your garden that will support an abundance of healthy plants and that will go a long way in promoting biodiversity on your land.

Proponents of permaculture often stress that its methods are meant for both professional and unprofessional landscapers alike.  As any environmental scientist will tell you, it is the people who work directly with the land who are in a unique place to bring about tremendous environmental change.  Their intimate knowledge of how plants and animals interact with one another is the key to helping our ecosystems to reach their full potential.  Permaculture is something that we can see the gains from almost immediately and does not require us to purchase more products and services.  Nor does this practice require us to spend hours of frustrating time vying for government funding.  In fact, we only need to step into our back yard to start this real environmental revolution.  Nature is an extremely powerful and resilient force; the only question about its future is whether we will give it a home in which to thrive.

Permaculture Resources

Permaculture Institute website

Permies.com (“the largest permaculture site on the Internet!”)

Hemenway, Toby, Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, 2nd ed. (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2009).

Tallamy, Doug, Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants (Timber Press, 2009).

Editor’s note: In January we were fortunate to have Cary with us as an intern at JMMDS. Cary, a senior and American Studies major at Williams College, is considering a career in landscape design. Last summer he completed the Permaculture Design Course at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center in Occidental, CA.  We enjoyed having him with us and wish him luck in his studies and future career!

This looks like a happy home! Design: Alice Moir. Photo: Randy O’Rourke (Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love, p. 105).

“My daughter Charlotte and I play a game whenever we get in a car together.  We drive along and point out the houses that look ‘happy.’  ’There’s a happy house,’ she will exclaim.  I’ll look quickly as I drive past and agree.  ’What about that one?’ I will ask.  ’Smiley,’ she’ll reply as she sees a little white cape with dark green shingles and a red door.  ’How about that one?  Happy?’ I’ll ask.  ’No, bored,’ she’ll assert as we drive past a brick Tudor with white trim, little landscaping, and no detailing to speak of.  As we pass by another taupe-colored Victorian, complete with turret, large colonnaded front porch, and red door and trim, she exclaims, ‘Happy!’

“What is your house’s ‘happiness quotient?’  When you walk outside and view your house from the street, how does it look?  How welcoming to strangers?  Does it appear shy?  Standoffish?  Or exuberant and embracing?  We’ve decided that it isn’t the size of a house or the tidiness of its yard, or the obvious manifestations of wealth that makes a house seem happy.  Sometimes the most intriguing houses are snug, cozy little cottages, or ones strewn with playthings in their front yard, or those that need a new coat of paint.  Some of the most unhappy are new, oversized ‘trophy’ houses that occupy most of the space on a small site.  How do you create a happy home for yourself and your loved ones?”

From The Magic Land by Julie Moir Messervy (Macmillan, 1998, pp. 49-50)

“Happy Home” is the theme of our new Pinterest contest.  Create a Pinterest inspiration board of elements you’d like to see in your ideal front yard, for a chance to win a front-yard makeover! See the new Home Outside blog for full contest rules and details.

Win a front yard landscape design makeover! See the Home Outside blog for full rules.

Have you seen the Feb/Mar 2013 issue of Organic Gardening Magazine? It features the first article in Julie’s “New Homestead” column.

The article, entitled “Marrying Elegant Design & Sustainability,” describes Julie’s vision of the New Homestead, a definition much broader than the traditional farm compound often associated with the word. The New Homestead, she writes, “could be as small as an urban rooftop filled with vegetables and herbs growing in pots” or “a suburban property with a deck constructed of sustainably harvested wood, native plants around its perimeter, and a vegetable garden in the front yard.”

Everywhere, people are re-learning old-fashioned skills such as growing food and bee-keeping, while also employing the latest technology in energy efficiency and resource conservation. In the New Homestead column, Julie shares how to incorporate these systems and products into your landscape in beautiful and imaginative ways.

Boston-area courtyard landscape design by JMMDS. Green wall designed by JMMDS project designer Anna Johansen, fabricated and installed by g_space, is planted with primarily native shade-loving plants such as Christmas and wood ferns, small Solomon’s seal, woodland strawberry, bunchberry, fringed bleeding heart, and wintergreen. Photographed by Susan Teare for Organic Gardening Magazine.

The first article highlights a JMMDS design project in the Boston area: a courtyard that functions as an entryway, parking space, driveway turnaround, and outdoor room. New York bluestone and limestone planks set into a sea of pea gravel can bear the weight of vehicles while allowing rainwater to permeate the ground, reducing run-off. Curving 5’6″-high green walls of shade-loving native plants create privacy, textural interest, and beauty.

Native birch trees (Betula papyrifera) in the entry planters provide a handsome complement to the four-story Silver LEED-certified house by Wolf Architects, Inc. Photo: Susan Teare.

We are longtime fans of Organic Gardening Magazine and are very excited about the New Homestead! You can subscribe here.

Here are a few of our favorite things that we’re giving or have been given (or wouldn’t mind being given) as gifts this year.

1.   Hard act to follow: we were all told growing up that the best gifts are those that are handmade by the giver.  No one does a better job at this than our Jana Bryan.  Master baker and chef and crafty person, Jana asked each of us for our favorite flavor.  Mine was almond, Jennifer’s cardamom, Anna’s Campari, Bethany’s coconut, and Erica’s was cinnamon.  Lo and behold, this is what we received!

Gifts from Jana’s kitchen, clockwise from top: Campari shortbread with orange-rose buttercream; coconut espresso cream layer cake; almond cake; cardamom croissants; and a braided cinnamon wreath. Photo: JMMDS.

2.   Another edible JMMDS favorite is anything from L.A. Burdick in Walpole, NH, purveyor of handmade chocolates, but especially their box of specialty caramels.

Burdick’s caramels, provided for us by a kind client. It should be said that this is not the original box; we have had to return to Burdick’s several times for resupply. Photo: JMMDS.

3. I have neither given nor received the Lake Morey Adirondack chair by Pompanoosuc Mills, but it would make an outstanding gift. Of excellent solid construction, this chair holds up beautifully outdoors.

The Lake Morey Adirondack chair by Pompanoosuc Mills. Photo: JMMDS.

4. How many of you know what a joggling board is? My children used to bounce on one with their cousins for hours. The Old Charleston Joggling Board Co. has been making them for 50 years. The 16-foot-long original Joggling Board (painted Charleston Green, of course) is a fantastic addition to an outdoor living area.

Image: The Old Charleston Joggling Board Co.

5. Looking for a book for a gardener? Mount Auburn Cemetery: Beauty on the Edge of Eternity (Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery, 2012) is a gorgeous hardcover tour of the Cambridge, MA, cemetery through the photographic lens of Richard Creek. Another book we’re giving this season is The Roots of My Obsession: Thirty Great Gardeners Reveal Why They Garden, edited by Thomas C. Cooper (Timber Press, 2012). I have an essay in the book and thoroughly enjoyed reading the other twenty-nine.

Left: mountauburn.org. Right: Amazon.com.

6. Love birds, but hate watching squirrels eat all the birdseed you put out? Hate ugly squirrel-proof feeders even more? Gardeners’ Supply is selling these great-looking and affordable Globe Cage Feeders.

The squirrel-proof Mixed Seed Globe Cage Feeder. Image:  Gardeners Supply Company.

7. After saving up for three years, I gave my husband Steve a special gift: the Forno Bravo Strada 60 tailgate pizza oven. Given the fact that he is a marvelous baker, it is not without personal benefit to me!

Steve baking bread in his Forno Bravo Strada 60 pizza oven. Photo: JMMDS.

8. A gift that Steve recommends for the baker in your life: The Frieling Brotform (dough rising basket). These traditional European bread rising containers give the perfect form and texture to your bread, with a delightful crunchy crust. Steve got his at King Arthur Flour‘s wonderful store in Norwich, VT, but they are no longer available there; try Amazon.

A perfectly formed loaf awaits its turn in the Forno Bravo pizza oven. In the background is Steve’s prized stash of dough rising baskets. Photo: JMMDS.

9. Here are a couple of stocking stuffers for last-minute Santas: the Rapitest Digital Soil Thermometer so the gardener knows just when to get out and planting in the spring, and the Norpro Triple Blade Herb Scissors for chopping herbs directly into the pan or atop a dish for garnish.

L: Rapitest Digital Soil Thermometer. Photo: Harris Seeds. R: Norpro Triple Blade Herb Scissors. Photo: Amazon.

10. And finally, if you want to give the gift of landscape design, there’s the Home Outside online landscape design service, the Home Outside Palette app for iPhone and iPad, and the book which inspired both: Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love.

Happy holidays to all of you, from all of us at JMMDS!