But Do You Have a Crew?

A friend sent me a link to a story in the Washington Post by Adrian Higgins, a fascinating look at decades of Wolfgang Oehme's career. It centers on his first residential garden in Baltimore, designed more than four decades ago, when Oehme was a recent emigre from Germany. His ideas were radical - he ripped up lawn and a rose garden and "layered the outdoor spaces with specimen shrubs, massed perennials and ornamental grasses, turning the idea of a garden on its head. As a predominantly herbaceous garden, it grew lusher by the month, bloomed defiantly in the heat of summer and became a tapestry of colors and textures in the fall and beyond." This suburban garden, Higgins writes, was a launching pad for a revolution in U.S. garden design.

Such plant-rich gardens brought nature back into public and private landscapes, expanded our plant palettes, gave us a fresh appreciation for seasonal change outside our back doors. 

But I read the article looking for some mention of what it takes to maintain such an extravagantly layered landscape - you'll see from the photos in the Post piece that there are an astounding number of plants, many of them large grasses, squeezed onto a suburban lot. Which makes for lovely blurring of boundaries and gorgeous textures and a huge amount of work. Just think of the bio-mass generated on that one small lot.

Such luscious gardens are a delight, but I've come to believe that how much we enjoy our gardens is directly related to how much they cost to maintain, in dollars, time, and resources. Without a crew of gardeners at our beck-and-call, how can we create satisfying and productive gardens that we actually have time to enjoy? Perhaps to save our backs and the earth's resources we need to be more modest at home, and enjoy extravaganzas like the ones shown below in public landscapes.This is a question I continue to contemplate, and the subject of my new book due out in October.....

Here are a few images of Oehme Van Sweden Associates gorgeous gardens, courtesy of their web page.

Comments

[Eugene Carlson]

Good item, Val. Always interesting to read about the Oehme-Van Sweden way of doing things. They’re enormously influential landscape designers who, as you note, have done much to change the way we garden.

As one who gardened on the East Coast for many years, I sort of took them for granted since their ideas were literally part of the visual landscape.

But they’re not that well known in the West. I think that’s partly because their signature plant palette -- a combination of herbaceous perennials and grasses – was developed in their home base in the Mid-Atlantic states and does especially well in that climate – moderate to cold winters and warm, humid summers.

I also hadn’t thought, prior to reading your item, about the maintenance issue as it relates to their gardening style. One of the hallmarks of the OVS garden ideal is that you plant large blocs of a few plants that grow easily and that maintain interest year around, or close to it. That’s supposed to reduce the amount of time one has to spend fussing over individual specimens.

Still, there’s always a day of reckoning. Grass must be sheared once a year, perennials must be cut back and, in fact, you do end up with a sizeable pile of biomass. No free lunch.

I know you’re working on your own ideas of rejiggering the work/pleasure ratio for gardeners and I look forward to reading what you have to say about this in your upcoming book.

A final note about Oehme-Van Sweden. If one were to write a case study of how to create a successful landscape architecture firm, these guys would be the model.

Wolfgang Oehme was the plantsman. He brought an extensive horticultural background and a contemporary European aesthetic. Jim Van Sweden is a brilliant businessman and marketer as well as having a fine design eye. It was a great combination on which to build a firm.

They really got going in the ‘80s and the timing couldn’t have been better. There were plenty of clients with money and gardens were catching people's attention. And their ideas, based around a contemporary landscape aesthetic, actually created a new design niche. A couple notches above the well-tended but generic garden but below the landscapes that are more about the concepts (unintelligible to most of us) of the architect/designer than they are about the needs of the client.

OVS could give you a landscape that looked terrific and contemporary – in the Mid-Atlantic that meant it wasn't 60 per cent azaleas -- but one that wasn’t so pretentious that you had to justify it to yourself and explain to your friends.

An essential part of their plan was to take plant material considered common (Rudbeckia, Sedum), or ignored (grass) and show how it could be used in a new and interesting way. For example, there's nothing commoner in the mid-Atlantic than black-eyed susan and you have to hand it to them as marketers that they convinced their clients to pay for, and showcase, it in their gardens.

This meshed nicely with the increasing idea of natural gargening. It also gave them an edge on big commissions, public parks and corporate gardens. They could be competitive because the plants they specified are easy to propagate and not that expensive to buy or maintain. Plus, it isn't lawn, which was falling increasingly out of fashion.

I stopped by the OVS office a couple years ago on a visit to Washington. It’s still the same townhouse on Capitol Hill where they were 30 years ago. Something nice about that.

[Sue N.]

Really enjoyed reading Eugene's comments. Makes me suggest you look at Paul Miskovsky's work in Massachusetts. He's been winning the New England Flower and Garden Shows with his design work (yes, before they tanked this year, now he's on the board resurrecting, but I digress). He's got a fresh aesthetic, economical, but exciting.

[Bridal jewelry, Wedding jewelry, Bridesmaid jewelry, Wedding jewelry sets, Bridesmaid gifts]

As a bride-to-be on a tight budget, I recently discovered an online bridal jewelry store called GlamForLess.com.
Though their website is plain and simple, I found some great deals on jewelry sets for me and my bridesmaids.

I think other readers on a tight budget may also find GlamForLess.com to be helpful.
You may want to check them out at http://www.glamforless.com/ and inform other readers about it.

Keep up the good work.

Best regards,
Lisa Bloom