Lois de Vries' Garden Views

Happy Earth Day from all of us at the Sustainable Gardening Library!  Please garden and farm responsibly, because we can’t get there without you.

Paul and I at the GWA Awards celebration (Photo: Sara Stine-Brown) Recently, I was privileged to present GWA: The Association for Garden Communicators’ Green Medal to Paul Tukey, whose life, vision, and work embodies the highest ideals in promoting earth-wise gardening. He paid a high price for his early entry into the “better living through chemistry” side of the lawn care profession, but ultimately became one of the anti-pesticide movement’s most ardent proponents. By documenting his up-close and personal experience with lawn chemicals, and the story of dermatologist Dr. June Irwin’s fight to have pesticides banned from her small town of Hudson, Ontario, Canada, Tukey shined a spotlight into the darker corners of the industry. He made some mistakes along the way, but he talks about them with unflinching honesty. Today, Tukey is the Chief Sustainability Officer at Glenstone, a museum that melds art, architecture, and the environment in a 220-acre, organically-managed setti...

Give the Earth a hug on Earth Day (credit: SoulPancake) How do you love the Earth through gardening? Soul Pancake’s video Props to the Planet is my go-to inspiration for Earth Day and every day. It asks people to pause a moment to reflect on how, why, and what they love about our planet. It brings a complex subject down to earth. It shows, in a spontaneous way, how loving the Earth is fun and makes both people and the planet happy. On Earth Day, it seems appropriate for those of us who enjoy gardening, or simply experiencing gardens, to pause and think about how we can love the Earth through our favorite pastime. I’ll kick us off: How do you love the Earth through gardening? I act as a steward of my small corner of the world and am mindful of protecting its natural ecosystems and providing wildlife habitat. I enjoy the beauty of exotic and ornamental flowers as much as anyone, but have learned over time that some of them are not very well-behaved in our region, so I respect the ...

From Wreckage To Wood Sculpture Join woodworker and artist Dan Freed Saturday, September 27th at the Sussex-Wantage Library, 69 Rt. 639, in Wantage, NJ for a fun and educational peek behind the scenes of how he made his award-winning Hurricane Sandy Birdhouse Sculpture. Hear where the idea came from and what it symbolizes, touch samples of the wood, and find out what woodworking tools and techniques went into creating it.  Like many of us Freed was hit hard by Hurricane Sandy. But unlike most of us, he used that devastation as inspiration to create Hurricane Sandy Brought to Justice in Sussex County, crafted from broken trees left behind by the storm. The event is suitable for all ages and Freed encourages parents to let their aspiring young artists tag along, since many of the materials he used are touchable by little hands. Hurricane Sandy Brought to Justice in Sussex County will be on display through October 31st. Registration via the Library’s website http://bit.ly/1rtxj...

The Duke Farms eagles, that is. By 7:17 this morning when the screenshot was taken, one chick had hatched and another was pipping. The third chick is not due until Sunday but, since the first two were late in arriving, it's likely the third one will be, as well. You can watch live at: http://www.dukefarms.org/en/Stewardship/WildlifeCams/eagle-cam/   The eagles' tree was downed by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. They built a new nest in a nearby tree and researchers were able to locate the camera so that it has a perfect view of the nest. Enjoy!

Miltoniopsis Whether you like your orchid shows big or small, ‘tis the season. Stony Hill Farms’ 26th Annual Orchid Open House starts today and continues through Sunday, March 9th. It includes free lectures, and wine and cheese tasting stations hosted by vendors from Sussex County. Stony Hill’s orchid house is located along Route 24/513 West in Chester, NJ. Go slow along the driveway; it’s narrow, but has several pull-overs where two cars can pass. We visit each year, if only to inhale the fragrance of the Miltoniopsis (not all are fragrant) and Dendrobium nobile . Their plants are all bloom-size, reasonably priced, and I’ve learned how to keep most of mine alive. They also offer a nice selection of cachepots. I like Stony Hill because it’s a small, family-owned business that’s a pleasant drive from where we live. Quarters are a little cramped when everyone flows out of the lecture and into the greenhouse, and you may have to wait in line to pay for your purchase, but everyone is ...

Lilacs at Willowood Arboretum A big shout-out goes to all of the folks who delight gardeners through their daily work at public gardens across the country and the benefactors who had the foresight to understand how important these spaces are to soothing the human spirit. Staff and volunteers will be working special events this Mother’s Day weekend, so take your Mom or your special lady to a public garden to enjoy the pleasures of spring flowers. Here in Northwestern New Jersey, Willowood Arboretum celebrates Mother’s Day with tours of its lilac collection, light refreshments, and music. You can also purchase starts of some of their unusual lilacs. While the more than 30 public gardens in the Philadelphia area offer perhaps the highest concentration of horticultural displays anywhere, there are public gardens in every state. If you don’t find a location at http://www.nationalpublicgardensday.org/ , use Google to search for “National Public Gardens Da...

Meet me at the Franklin Lakes Public Library on October 9 th , when I’ll be the featured speaker in its Lecture Series . I'll be introducing Cultivating the Inner Gardener, an illustrated talk that focuses on how gardening from the inside out creates a personal space that is not only beautiful and healthy, but also combats stress by providing a sanctuary from today's hectic world. The presentation, which includes stunning garden photos, begins at 7:00pm at the Library, 4 70 De Korte Drive, Franklin Lakes, NJ  07417 . I’ll explain how gardeners at every level of expertise can dig more deeply into the meaning that gardening holds for them, in order to create a more satisfying experience. Once they learn how to invest thoughtful time up front, they’ll eliminate confusion and expensive mistakes later. By planning a space that harmonizes with their personal dream of what a garden can be, homeowners can focus on the things that really matter to them. For details, contac...

The Gentlewoman's Potting Table - A Living World Awaits The Women’s Association of Morristown Medical Center has once again done a superb job on the 2012 Mansion in May. My favorites, of course, are the gardens and the landscape designers, have put together some clever and inspirational ideas for visitors to enjoy. While few of us have the space or the purse to reproduce their grand concepts in toto , these visual delights can be used as jumping-off points for even the most humble of gardens. I tend to favor the moody spaces, such as Back to Nature’s A Living World Awaits and Cording Landscape Design’s Garden in the Glyn, where, in my imagination, I can slip right into the scene before me. But, there’s a garden for everyone here, from the very formal Tudor Rose Garden to the very casual Sports Court. Don’t miss it. While you’re helping the Women’s Association raise funds for the new Inpatient Hospice and Palliative Care Center, you’ll glean some great ideas for you...

Photo courtesy of Dan Chomuk of Cording Landscape Design I missed the press event for this year’s Mansion in May, but am hoping to see it later this month. A designer showhouse and gardens presented by the Women’s Association of Morristown Medical Center, the setting is a spectacular castle near Morristown’s fabulous “Millionaire’s Row.”  Sixty landscape and interior designers have done a superb job and the $30 ticket price goes to support a good cause --- the new Inpatient Hospice and Palliative Care Center. The mansion and grounds, Glynallyn, are open now through May 31st. Set on seven acres of terraced gardens the estate, named Glynallyn, is a 32,000 square foot manor home modeled after the English castle Compton Wynyates in Warwickshire England, a favorite of the British royal family. Glynallyn is listed on the National Register of Historical Places and is considered one of the most impressive examples of English Tudor architecture in the United States. It was the br...

Garden lifestyle speaker and coach Lois J. de Vries was recently appointed chair of the Garden Writers of America's Sustainability Task Force. GWA, headquartered in Manassas, Virginia, has 1,800 members worldwide including book authors, staff editors, syndicated columnists, free-lance writers, photographers, landscape designers, television and radio personalities, extension service agents, breeders, growers, and other gardening professionals. (Click here to read more)

The restored pool at Bamboo Brook The sixteen clubs that make up District 4 of The Garden Club of New Jersey have collaborated on a period flower show scheduled for Friday, September 16th from 1:00pm to 4:00pm, and Saturday, September 17th  from 10:00am to 4:00pm. Floral design entries will be on display in the Stone Barn at Willowwood Arboretum; horticultural submissions can be seen in the Music Room next door at Bamboo Brook. Children’s and special entries are located in the Summer Playhouse at Bamboo Brook. The Show’s theme, “In the Spirit of the Garden” honors Martha Brooks Huthcinson, America’s first female landscape architect, who designed Bamboo Brook. Hutchinson was a founding (1914) member of the Somerset Hills Garden Club. For more details, click http://bit.ly/pbDmB3

Meet me at Perennial Fest on June 4th at Donaldson's Greenhouse and Nursery, 178 Airport Rd., in Hackettstown, NJ for the debut of my latest hands-on program, Garden Sanctuary a la Carte. The program starts at 1:00pm.  Wear your walking shoes and bring your wallet for this "Try and Buy" workshop designed specifically to make purchasing the basics of a garden sanctuary easier. We'll start the ball rolling with some quick relaxation techniques to set the mood, talk about what inspires you in the garden, mull over your motivation for creating a garden sanctuary, discuss focal or meditation objects, and kick around some basic design ideas. Be sure ...to check out Donaldson's demonstration garden sanctuary for a tangible example, as we grab our carts and go on a guided shopping tour. You'll get a checklist and map of the sales yard to use as I lead you from one clearly marked station to the next to select your focal ornament, background tree or shrub...

My first post for Diggin' It , The Christian Science Monitor's garden blog, appeared at the beginning of February 2011, when I joined Judy Lowe's team of garden writers to share my knowledge about gardening in the stony clay of northwestern New Jersey and my thoughts about gardening from the inside out. It's been both challenging and fun to come up with topics during the dead of winter, when nothing much was happening in the garden beyond the slow crawl of our mini-glacier. There isn't any duplication of material between the blogs, so I invite Garden Views' readers to follow me on CSM, too. All of my Diggin' It posts are archived at http://bit.ly/hH2r8z . Despite its name, The Christian Science Monitor is not religious in nature, but rather a respected international newspaper that has won seven Pulitzer Prizes for national and international reporting. It was the first national daily newspaper to go Internet-only. Happy Easter!

It's hard to believe that the April issue of the Cultivating the Inner Gardener newsletter marks a full year of sharing my ideas about garden design with spirit in mind with my readers. I'd love for you to join these gardening enthusiasts and discover a new approach to your favorite pastime. Ground-breaking Ideas Each monthly issue offers subscribers innovative ideas about how to design a garden that is a sanctuary from the commotion of daily life. Together, we explore the rich potential of sounding our own depths to create gardening experiences that speak to the soul, as well as the practical matters of constructing our dream garden in the real world. Action Steps Action challenges for readers to work on during the coming month offer assignments for everyone who wants to get started right away. These run the gamut from summoning up childhood garden memories to designing the bones of your next garden project. All are intended to get you outdoors and reconnected to nature. Mo...

Meet me at Flower Fest on April 9th at the Ocean County Library, 101 Washington St, in Toms River, NJ, where I'll be presenting Cultivating the Inner Gardener, an illustrated talk that focuses on how gardening from the inside out creates a personal space that is not only beautiful and healthy, but also provides a sanctuary from today's hectic world. The presentation includes photos of gardens that hold special meaning for their owners and shows how they have incorporated their own values and fondest memories to produce a garden rich in personal meaning. Flower Fest is the library's celebration of the arrival of spring with displays from local garden clubs, horticultural societies, florists, and environmental organizations who will show visitors some gardening tricks, flower arranging, ways to have an eco-friendly garden, and much more. For more information, contact Scott Walker by phone (732) 349-6200, ext. 5914 or e-mail swalker@theoceancountylibrary.org .

We’re just back from the Garden Writers Association 62nd  Annual Symposium in Dallas, Texas and in the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing some product, plant, gardening, and travel information from our trip. Kudos to all who were involved with pulling together the four day whirlwind of seminars and garden tours, complete with meals and side trips, that had us up by 6:00am but not even close to a bed before 10:00pm. For 500 of our closest friends! The heat in Texas this time of the year is a bit intense for Jerseyites, but we paced ourselves and were willing to suffer for the sake of horticulture and great food. There’s always an after-tour on the fifth day. This time, a day in Fort Worth gardens. By that time, we needed a vacation from the vacation. Dan and I tacked on a few days, vegged out, and played tourist.  This year, that meant going to cousin Brenda and Michael's gorgeous ranch in the Texas Hill Country. After a relaxing day at the Strickland Arms B&B in Austin, ...

Dan and I spent Sunday at the Watnong Chapter of the North American Rock Garden Society meeting admiring club members' handsome hypertufa alpine troughs, viewing slides of troughs and alpine rock gardens, attending a workshop about creating an appropriate soil mix for the troughs, and learning about the giant alpine trough at the Haggerty Education Center at Frelinghuysen Arboretum. The presenter was Mike Wilson, who recently retired as the rock garden specialist there and now heads his own consulting design firm. Within the next few weeks, Dan will join our friend Diane and her neighbor to experiment with various recipes and forms for making the troughs. In August, the Garden Club of Central Sussex County will be holding a workshop for members and guests who want to learn "how to do it." I feel as if there's a vortex of hypertufa swirling around me, but I'm not especially interested in it myself. Dan read me a bunch of "recipes" and described a vari...

Save the date. I’m scheduled to present an overview of Cultivating the Inner Gardener: Gardening for Personal Growth ( http://cultivatingtheinnergardener.blogspot.com ) on June 5th, 2010 at 1:30pm, at Donaldson's Greenhouse and Nursery 's Perennial Fest in Hackettstown, NJ . Come by and say “hello” if you’re in the area. I'll review what it means to garden for personal growth, why gardeners might want to integrate this approach into their gardening routine, how gardener-centric coaching differs from garden coaching, and how gardening from the inside out can breathe new life into the gardening experience. Other experts will speak on a variety of gardening topics throughout the day. Perennial Fest features demonstration gardens for a variety of landscapes, including shade, sun, pond edges, and deer-resistance. Visitors will see examples of which plants work well for these types of gardens and what they'll actually look like when planted together. In addition t...

This week, I attended a press event for the Mansion in May, a designer showhouse and gardens presented by the Women’s Association of Morristown Memorial Hospital. The designers have done a spectacular job and the $30 ticket price goes to support a good cause --- the expansion of the Emergency Department at Morristown Memorial Hospital. The mansion and grounds, Fawn Hill, are open now through May 31st. Ensconced in a bucolic setting just outside of Morristown, the 34-acre estate, originally named Graymar Farm, traces back to 1937 when the president of Alleghany Corporation, Allan Kirby, purchased part of a large farm located in New Vernon. The farm remained in the Kirby family until 1980. A few years later, the estate was acquired by its current owners, renamed, and enhanced through a meticulous restoration of the main house and other buildings. The magnificent 21-room stone manor house with slate roof and colonnaded rear terrace perches atop a knoll, affording sweeping visas of ...