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Celebrated author, Tom Christopher, joins Duncan Brine’s naturalistic landscape design seminar at the New York Botanical Garden.

January 29, 2020 by Julia Brine Leave a Comment

© Norman McGrath

February 7, 2020, 10 am to 12 pm

Naturalistic design is based on landscape’s particular potential, rather than a traditional style. The seminar focuses on images of the Brine Garden, six-acres in Pawling, NY.

Most recently, Tom wrote Nature into Art: The Gardens of Wave Hill. Tom has written for The New York Times, Horticulture Magazine, House & Garden, and Martha Stewart Living, and is the author of more than a dozen gardening books. Tom is a graduate of the New York Botanical Garden’s School of Professional Horticulture.

Check out Tom’s new podcast, “Growing Greener”. Find Tom’s podcast at www.thomaschristophergardens.com.

Seminar size is limited, to register click on nybg.org.

Filed Under: GARDEN LARGE Tagged With: Brine Garden, Duncan Brine, Garden Design, Landscape design, New York Botanical Garden, NYBG, Thomas Christopher

Connecticut Gardener

September 24, 2019 by Julia Brine

The Brine Garden —
Natural By Design

by Steve Silk

The Brine Garden

Viburnum dilatatum ‘Oneida’  Photos / GardenLarge (except where noted)

Duncan Brine doesn’t play by the rules. In the coloring book of his own garden, Duncan scribbles outside all of the lines. There’s no linear anything. He mixes up his foregrounds and backgrounds. Paths thread the garden but there is no “way to go;” instead, one dives into what he calls its purposeful confusion to embark on a journey of discovery. While many garden designers strive for a signature look, Duncan works hard to make the designer’s hand invisible, and says if someone ever asked him where the garden ends and woods begin, he would consider it a compliment. He has worked hard to, as he says, “Design something to look like it wasn’t designed.”

Duncan and Julia Brine

Duncan and Julia Brine Photo / Tobias Wolf

Consider, for example, the most gardenesque section of the sprawling six-acre horticultural free-for-all known as the Brine Garden; The Maze. This exploration-worthy outpost lies across the street from the main garden and the two houses that serve as the Pawling, NY home and headquarters for GardenLarge, the design firm helmed by Duncan and his wife Julia.

You’re wandering its network of gravel pathways in primetime, which in these gardens is fall, when the multitudinous viburnums (Viburnum spp. and cultivars) bear exuberant bursts of bright red berries, or the purple fruits of beautyberry (Callicarpa dichotoma ‘Early Amethyst’) glimmer like amethysts. Stands of red and yellow twig dogwood (Cornus spp. and cultivars) offer their own colorful commentary. Every few steps reveals a new view, or an old view made new by a change in perspective. 

Long Bridge at the Brine Garden

Betula nigra ‘Heritage’
Photo / Steve Silk

Overhead, the feathery seedheads of giant Chinese silver grass (Miscanthus giganteus) fly like flags, framing and edging parts of the property, and serving as a botanic way station on a sightline extending toward a distant ridge.

That far-off escarpment serves as the quintessential expression of the notion of the borrowed view. It’s Duncan’s riff on the Chinese and Japanese technique of incorporating a distant landscape into a nearby garden design by echoing its shape in the foreground or creating sightlines that emphasize the far-off scene, matching its foreground shapes to the distant. “That distant view is definitely part of the garden,” Duncan says. “In the early days I was really worshipping that ridge.’

Down an adjoining path, you will happen upon the flaming torch of a gold dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides ‘Ogon’), a beacon announcing your proximity to the bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) allee, a tour de force almost upstaged by its focal point: the sculptural circus of a weeping Katsura (Cercidiphyllum magnificum ‘Pendulum).

Along the way, your sensory journey is perfumed, in late summer, by the fragrance of summersweet (Clethra alnifolia cultivars) a plant which manifests many elements of Duncan’s idea of an excellent candidate for any woodland garden. It is at once low maintenance, simple, native, pleasing to the eye, and it bears fragrant flowers at an unusual time of year. What’s not to like?


Open Day at The Brine Garden
The Brine Garden, 21 Bluebird lnn Road, Pawling, NY will be open Saturday, Oct. 12 from 12 to 6 pm as part of The Garden Conservancy’s Open Days program. Admission is $10 per person; children 12 and under are free. For more info, visit gardenconservancy.org and gardenlarge.com


As eye-popping and sensory as strolling the maze can be, the Brine Garden’s real treasure trove lies across the street, where a fantasy forest spills across a rolling hillside and frames a serpentine stream whose banks are, in some places, nubbled with the emerging knees of bald cypress, and in others crossed by rustic wooden footbridges.  There, you will find areas such as Mulberry Cliff, Brothers Island, Cactus Hill, Microburst, and Hidden Corner.

In these places and others on the property, the rhythms and rhymes of nature rule. Trees are planted in mini communities, which blur with and overlap other nearby communities. The idea of planting clusters of single species, which then bump against and overlap with another single species cluster is, says Duncan, “a structural element that is not easy to recognize.”


BEING DUNCAN BRINE

Duncan Brine presides over a garden ruled by trees. And in the 29 years he has spent developing his six-acre garden, he has developed some specific thoughts about woody plants, some of which he is happy to share.

“l spend a lot of time pruning the canopy to control light.”

“Prune surgically to open a tree so you can appreciate it as sculpture. ”

“If you can get people interested in native plants at all, you’re winning.”

“I’m really just crazy about Persian ironwood (Parrotia persica)- they are the most sculptural tree going. I prune them hard to expose their core.”

“Anytime you can use a fragrant plant, use a fragrant plant.” 

“Red buckeye (Aesculus pavia) is the showiest of small native trees. It has outrageously huge red flowers, but the tree stays small.”

“I love being inside a plant.”

“Katsura is not native but we love it anyway – its stature, its overall shape, it’s a strong grower, and the bark and leaves are good. Weeping Katsura  (Cercidiphyllum magnificum ‘Pendulum’) is the queen of the whole property. We liked it so much we planted a few more.”


Accordingly, the bald cypress grow thickly at the core of their community, then thin before merging with the outer edges of an airy grove of multi-trunked river birch (Betula nigra ‘Heritage’), which rises astride the sinuous stream.They in turn give way to the next community and the next. There are groupings of eastern larch (Larix laricina), swamp white oak (Quercus bicolor) and katsura.

Acer saccharum (sugar maple) in the Brine Garden

Acer saccharum (sugar maple) with Geranium macrorrhizum ‘Bevan’s Variety’ in the foreground. Acer triflorum (three flowered maple) is the
colored foliage in the background.

Callicarpa dichotoma 'Early Amethyst'

Callicarpa dichotoma ‘Early Amethyst’ (beautyberry)

Cornus alternifolia in the Brine Garden

Cornus alternifolia (Pagoda Dogwood)

But it’s never too obvious. In one spot, a tiny larch rises at the foot of a birch as if springing from a seed dropped by a bird rather than an idea drawn from the designer’s sketchbook. Always there are interlopers, rogue elements providing a sense of studied randomness that manages to appear entirely natural.

Throughout, woody plants rule.  “Trees are the most satisfying, the most worthwhile, the easiest to care for plants,’ he says. “Its just no question.” When the Brines first moved to their Pawling, NY property in 1990, it was essentially an old cow pasture. Duncan saw it differently. “I wanted it to be like nature.”

Along with the naturalist style goes native plants. The garden is full of them, but Duncan is no slave to regionalism. “You do want to have a basic structure of natives,” he says, “and occasional specimens of non-natives. There are lots of plants to love that aren’t native, but I stray conservatively.” Thus the Brine Garden’s native matrix is enriched with a splendiferous assortment of Katsuras, Parrotias, Metasequoias, and more.

All of which is a long way from Duncan’s first real garden, planted in a patch of earth next to an auto body shop in Brooklyn. But it’s not quite as far as you might think from his high school aspirations to be a director of theatrical plays. The Brine Garden is, if nothing else, a dramatic work of his own. It is a stage set glorifying the wonders of the plant world.

Parrotia persica (Persian ironwood)

Aesculus pavia (red buckeye) in the Brine Garden

Aesculus pavia (red buckeye)

Ilex verticillata (winterberry)

Ilex verticillata (winterberry)

It was a kind of a circular journey.  Duncan’s passion for theater led him to Hollywood and eventually a stint as art director for Faerie Tale Theatre. There he made a garden as a film set, and had so much fun that he started thinking more and more about plants and gardens and design. Plants, he realized, exuded a dramatic presence of their own. They were like living sculptures, and their expressive qualities enthralled Duncan. He soon came to the conclusion that designing gardens offered many of the same rewards of directing theater: the excitement and fulfillment of doing creative things you then share with other people.

He and Julia embarked on a world tour to learn more. They hit all the horticultural hotspots: Thailand, Singapore, Italy, France, England. Some of Europe’s great gardens were a disappointment.  “They were all about the architecture, not the plants,” he says.

“We traveled the world looking at gardens to be sure we could be different.” Then, he says, “We set out, point by point, to do the same things differently.”

He has succeeded in his quest. Not only has he created the six-acre Brine Garden, he has developed clients in New York, Connecticut, and beyond. Many of the trees, shrubs and perennials destined for client gardens are divisions or seedlings of plants drawn from his own garden’s population of more than 400 different species, roughly half of which are native plants. Duncan also teaches a landscape design seminar at the New York Botanical Garden and his poetic, pithy presence on Twitter led Timber Press to dub him the Ogden Nash of the garden world.

There is a difference even in his approach to dealing with the deer that prey on so many gardens in our area.  A small herd of five or so visit his yard daily. To deter their predation Duncan takes an approach in keeping with the GardenLarge notion: “I planted 50 viburnum, and simply out planted the deer.” In addition, much of what goes in the garden is lower in hierarchy for preferred deer dining, so you won’t find lots of hostas or other deer candy in the Brine Garden. That’s not to say there aren’t a few perennials among the woody plant brethren: you’ll find everything from Brobdingnagian plume poppies (Macleaya cordata) to tiny golden thymes (Thymus praecox ‘Evergold’ )

Plants that look their best in fall abound because in addition to the Brine Garden’s robustly naturalistic style, it is distinctive for its focus on the seasonal beauty of autumn. “We emphasized fall because we knew most other gardens emphasize spring or early summer.  I set out to be different.”  Accordingly, in addition to countless woody plants bearing foliage or fruit set ablaze by fall’s fiery finale, the are plenty of herbaceous autumn splendors such as a toadlily (Tricyrtus spp. and cultivars), false aster (Boltonia asteroides), Arkansas blue star (Amsonia hubrichtii), and more. Lots more.

Because in the Brine Garden’s ongoing evolution, there is always more.

Steve Silk

Steve Silk

Steve Silk designs, photographs, lectures and writes about gardening. He is a past president of the Connecticut Horticultural Society, a former newspaper photographer, travel writer, and was managing editor of Fine Gardening.

Filed Under: GARDEN LARGE

Mad Gardeners Visit the Brine Garden

October 3, 2018 by Julia Brine Leave a Comment

PAWLING, NY: MEMBERS OF THE MAD GARDENERS ARE INVITED TO VISIT THE BRINE GARDEN ON SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6 FROM 12 TO 6 P.M., RAIN OR SHINE.

© Norman McGrath

THE BRINE GARDEN has an old-fashioned ambiance. Explore its 6 acres of naturalistic plantings, enhanced by twin 1920s farmhouses. Visit; receive a property map and an extensive plant list indicating U.S. and Dutchess County natives.
Distant hills are a backdrop to this garden of many parts. Grass and gravel pathways connect ecologically and horticulturally diverse areas. The maturing native plant collection includes an allée of Taxodium distichum (with intriguing knees), groups of Chionanthus virginicus (with drupes), and more than twenty Viburnum (native and non-native). Several hedges of Miscanthus giganteus structure the garden while relating to the Phragmites of this formerly agrarian landscape.
Duncan Brine is an instructor at the New York Botanical Garden. He and his wife, Julia, are principal designers of GardenLarge, a naturalistic landscape design and installation firm. They began their business in 1984 in Brooklyn, NY, and they have been creating and caring for residential gardens, from New York to Boston, since then. They specialize in native and deer resistant plants, whole property gardens, and invasive plant control.
The Brine Garden appears widely in books, magazines, and newspapers. Read Anne Raver’s New York Times piece on www.gardenlarge.com.

ABOUT MAD GARDENERS
Mad Gardeners are a group of passionate, amateur and professional gardeners in Southern New England. Members of the organization sponsor a yearly landscape symposium, visit each other’s gardens, and are involved in invasive plant control in the region. If you’re interested in becoming a member contact Angela Dimmitt at angeladimmitt@aol.com. Annual membership is $30 for an individual, $40 for a couple.

THE BRINE GARDEN is in Dutchess County, in the Hudson Valley, at 21 Bluebird Inn Road, Pawling, NY. It’s near the Pawling stop and the Appalachian Trail stop on Metro North’s Harlem Line; only 1-1/2 hours north of New York City. For directions go to GardenLarge visit the website: gardenlarge.com/directions.

“Duncan and Julia Brine’s six-acre garden, a dreamlike landscape that takes its cues from the old shade trees and fence posts remaining from the farm that was once here…”

— Anne Raver
The New York Times

 

 

© GardenLarge

PUBLICATIONS

  • The Brine Garden is featured as a chapter in Gardens of the Hudson Valley and Private Gardens of the Hudson Valley, both published by Monacelli Press.
  • Horticulture Magazine, The American Gardener, and Hudson Valley Magazine have featured Brine’s landscape design.
  • The Brine Garden is on the cover of Timber Press’ 50 Beautiful Deer Resistant Plants.

Filed Under: Classes/Tours, Fall, GARDEN LARGE, Hudson Valley Attractions, Pawling NY

Julia Brine and Pawling Women Entrepreneurs

April 30, 2018 by Julia Brine 1 Comment

Julia is featured this spring in the Pawling Record, along with a talented, eclectic group of Pawling business women. 

Women Entrepreneurs Pawling

First row, left to right:

Sara Nemerov
ENVY BRANDING
Boutique celebrity licensing, branding and management.
Envybranding.com

Michelle Farnum
MORALES COMMUNICATIONS
Creative Director
845-855-0527

Laurie Spens
LAURIE SPENS PHOTOGRAPHY LLC
Celebration and portrait photography for business and family.
914-548-2659

Dorian Winslow
WOMANSWORK
Wholesale and online garden gloves and accessories for women.
Womanswork.com

Julia Brine
GARDENLARGE
Naturalistic landscape design, NY to Boston and beyond.
Gardenlarge.com

Yvette Naylor
DUTCHESS COFFEE CO.
Serving the local community with fresh roasted coffee.
Dutchesscoffee.com

Toni LaPietra
THE MUSIC BOX
Creating musicians since 1997. Music instruction on all instruments.
845-724-5867

Jane Haslam
JANE HASLAM PHOTOGRAPHY
Events, portraiture and sports photography in Pawling and beyond.
845-490-2281

Tina Buchanan
ANEU SALON
Highly ranked, full service, class act salon.
845-855-1319

Sarah A. Friedman
FREVILLE FARM, LLC
Small batch farm products created steps away from our fields.
Frevillefarm.com

Second row, left to right:

Melissa Hogan
REVOLUTION EQUESTRIAN
Horse back riding lessons and boarding.
914-806-5402

Gabrielle Semel
INNER BALANCE STUDIO
Fitness and classical yoga practices; integrating mind-body-spirit.
Innerbalancestudio.org

Julia Harrer (RYT)
YOGA IN THE TREES
Yoga spanning all levels, kids to adults, private and class sessions
available.
Yogainthetrees.com

Reed Asher
PHOENIX POTTERY
Fully equipped ceramic studio. Classes offered, call for details.
845-855-5658

Cynthia Kinahan
PAWLING BREAD CO
Naturally-leavened, handcrafted artisan bread.
Pawlingbreadco.com

Not pictured:

Amanda Dykeman
DYKEMAN FARM
4 generation farm stand and pumpkin patch
Bestcorn.com

Lisa Kelsey
LISA KELSEY DESIGN
Editorial design, social media, writing.
lisamkelsey.com

Amie Rennolds
AMELIE RIVES RENNOLDS ARCHITECTURE PLLC
Designing for city and country.
212-982-8281

Patricia Rusch Bellucci, Esq., CPA
RUSCH ASSOCIATES, LLC
Tax consulting and return preparation; estate planning and probate.
845-855-0353

Coleen Snow, LCSW
Individual therapy for children, teens and adults, located in
Pawling.
845-803-5574

Filed Under: GARDEN LARGE

Brine Garden Jazzed by Arts Workshop

December 5, 2017 by Julia Brine Leave a Comment

We attended an inspiring workshop this past weekend in the small hamlet of Wassaic, NY, “Art, Rural Education, and Economic Growth.”It was organized by artists from the Wassaic Project, and New America, a large public policy institute. They brought together local educators, students, artists, non-profits, and educational experts at the historic Maxon Mill.

Wassaic Project, New America, Brine Garden

The topic? Arts education in the Hudson Valley. Discussion was lively. Hats off to Jeff Barnett-Winsby and Tara Foley of the Wassaic Project for hosting.

The workshop has us looking for ways to expand the Brine Garden audience. We’ve made a start. Over 27 years, we’ve spread the word about our 6-acre garden, filled with many native plants. We’ve befriended the Garden Conservancy, ArtEast, Dutchess Tourism, FrOGS (Friends of the Great Swamp), Front Street Gallery, Harlem Valley Appalachian Trail Community, Mill Street Loft, and Oblong Land Conservancy. These groups have promoted us and brought their members to the garden. We want to sustain these relationships and create more such relationships. We want school groups to visit and others we haven’t yet considered. We wonder who else might want to visit the Brine Garden?

Filed Under: GARDEN LARGE

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