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Duncan Brine’s Naturalistic Landscape Design Seminar at the New York Botanical Garden

February 9, 2016 by Julia Brine Leave a Comment

Naturalistic Landscape Design

Annually, GardenLarge principal landscape designer, Duncan Brine, leads a popular seminar at the New York Botanical Garden.

A naturalistic garden connects to the existing conditions of its site. Discover a landscape design method that elicits responses from the site rather than imitating a conventional style or structure. Topics include connecting spaces, the relationship between background and foreground, transparency, and framing views. The instructor illustrates his talk with images of his six-acre naturalistic garden.

Friday, Feb. 17, 2017, 10 a.m.–12 p.m.

Instructor: Duncan Brine

Registration

Consider following the class with a stroll through the garden.


Filed Under: Classes/Tours, Design philosophy, Duncan Brine, GARDEN LARGE, GardenLarge, Landscape Design Firms, Landscape Designers, Naturalistic, Speakers, Structured Naturalism Tagged With: Class, Duncan Brine, naturalistic landscape design, New York Botanical Garden, NYBG, Seminar, talks

Anne Raver on the High Line for the New York Times

October 9, 2014 by Julia Brine

Upstairs, a Walk on the Wild Side

Unruly Final Section of High Line to Open

By ANNE RAVER SEPT. 3, 2014

When the High Line at the Rail Yards, the final section of the elevated park, opens on Sept. 21, we will no longer have to stop at 30th Street and stare longingly through the construction gate at the Queen Anne’s Lace blooming in wild profusion along the old tracks.

We can walk out on a wide plaza made of the familiar concrete planks, tapered so that plants appear to be pushing up out of the crevices. It’s the same planking system that flows from Gansevoort Street, a mile south, where the High Line begins in the heart of the meatpacking district, in the dappled light of a birch grove.

Highline image by Todd Heisler for the NYTimes

© Todd Heisler/The New York Times

The northernmost $75 million section has the same benches, too — modernist perches, of reclaimed Angelique, a tropical hardwood, and precast concrete, that appear to peel up from the floor. But now, they have morphed into picnic tables and even a seesaw for children, as one heads west, along a grove of Kentucky coffee trees toward the river.

Quaking aspens, their leaves rustling in the slightest breeze, rise out of beds full of sumacs, sassafras and the countless prairie plants and grasses that Piet Oudolf, the Dutch master plants man envisioned here. “It’s still lush, still natural, but we used different trees and other species,” Mr. Oudolf said on the phone from his home in Hummelo, the Netherlands.

The wild, untouched section is reached only after crossing the 11th Avenue bridge, where a wide central path rises gently over seven lanes of streaming southbound traffic, and lifts the heart with its dramatic views up and down Manhattan’s grid.

It is a relief to leave behind the old tamed High Line, truly a garden now, complete with a lawn. (Couldn’t lawn lovers just go over to Hudson River Park?)

After the bridge, the joy is gazing upon unruly plantings, left by the birds or the wind, growing out of the rusted track: chokecherry, laden with berries, milkweed pods bursting with seeds, evening primrose and blazing star, even a crab apple tree fruiting in the middle of a sea of Queen Anne’s lace.

Working with the designers — James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio & Renfro — Mr. Oudolf had created meadows and shady woodlands, a kind of call and response to the sunny openings and architectural canyons traversed by the entire High Line.

But now, as the tracks curve westward at 30th Street, there is more of a visceral sense of those freight cars that once rushed straight for the Hudson River, before taking a sharp right turn at the West Side Highway and shooting north to 34th Street. The wide open feel of the plaza at 30th Street quickly shifts to a westward journey. At first, sections of original rail track, with new wood ties filled with bonded aggregate, form a smooth walking path. After the bridge, you find yourself on a path with rusted rails and weathered ties, running along the untouched, self-seeded landscape all the way.

“We haven’t pruned a thing,” said Tom Smarr, the director of horticulture for the Friends of the High Line, as we gazed at a crab apple tree, heavy with fruit. “We’re going to do very little here.”

It’s the spirit of the old railroad that Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani wanted to tear down in 1999 when nobody loved it, except for a few graffiti artists and street people, and others drawn to industrial ruins. It was a romantic, forgotten place, but once it became a park, it had to support the weight of the five million people who now flock here annually.

Most of them think they are walking through a “wild” tapestry of plants that came here on their own. That’s how good Mr. Oudolf is. But, of course, the grasses and fabulous flowering plants and vines, the magnolias and shad trees, the groves of gray birch, are planted and tended by many human hands, not the unconscious random hand of nature.

“It’s not wild at all,” Mr. Oudolf said. “It’s an introduction to the wild.”

Apparently enough of us have missed that old sense of the High Line to want a piece of it back.

“We’ve had a lot of feedback from the community saying, ‘We want to walk on the original tracks,’ ” said Megan Freed, communications director for the Friends.

But you had better come see it while you can because the Friends call it an interim walkway.

“A time will come when we’ll have to do some of the things we did on the rest of the High Line,” said Josh David, president of the Friends, “in terms of removing the original landscape, stripping the steel work of lead paint, restoring the concrete” just to make this public park structurally sound and safe.

Mr. David and Robert Hammond founded the Friends in 1999, persuading the city to see the hulking steel dinosaur of New York’s industrial past as a powerful symbol that could be transformed into a new kind of park, deep in the city, yet hovering above it.

“I think for Robert and me and a few people who did spend a lot of time up in the original landscape, there will be a nostalgia for that lost place, which is one reason that the rail yard section is so exciting to us,” said Mr. David, who sat down next to Mr. Hammond at his first community meeting 16 years ago, because he thought Mr. Hammond was cute.

The new section also responds to another frequent request from the community: more activities for children.

“I was behind a family the other day, and the kid kept saying, ‘Can we go now?’ ” Mr. Smarr said on our afternoon walk.

Now, a section has been cut out of the steel structure, so that children and adventurous adults can explore the maze of girders and beams (covered with thick rubber safety coating).

The Rail Yards section affords a whole new set of experiences. People can look down on the expanse of commuter trains lined up below in Hudson Yards. They can eventually walk east, at 30th Street, beneath a vast colonnade to a forested spur that will span 10th Avenue. Coach is building the first of the skyscrapers that will hem in the sky, as the 26-acre, $15 billion Hudson Yards district proceeds.

All the more reason to enjoy the Rail Yards section of the High Line now.

“Something magical happens closer to the river,” Mr. David said.

It’s magical where the so-called weeds grow, too. Why make it an interim path? There are so many plants on the rest of the High Line, you have to look hard even to see the tracks.

Mr. David thought about that for a moment. “In theory, you could let it happen all over again,” he said of those plants that grew on their own, between the tracks. “Do the repairs, put the gravel ballast back and let it happen, like it did before.”

He didn’t think New Yorkers would want to wait around for that.

But I say: Let them wait. Here’s a little piece of the wild High Line worth keeping.

Correction: September 14, 2014
An art article in the New Season issue last Sunday about the Sept. 21 opening of the High Line at the Rail Yards, the final section of the elevated park, misidentified the tropical hardwood used for some of the park’s benches. It is reclaimed Angelique — not ipe.

Filed Under: Anne Raver, East Coast, GARDEN LARGE, Gardens, Landscape Designers, Native Plants, Naturalistic, New York NY, The New York Times Tagged With: Anne Raver, High Line, New York Times, NYT, NYTimes, Piet Oudolf

Legendary Norman McGrath Documents the Brine Garden

July 2, 2015 by Julia Brine 1 Comment

Norman McGrath, the Brine Garden

© Norman McGrath

Photographer Norman McGrath is shooting the Brine Garden in its 25th year.

Norman and his wife, Molly, had lunch at Duncan and Julia Brine’s home and toured the Brine Garden in the fall of 2014. Not long afterwards, Norman emailed,

“Very much enjoyed our recent luncheon and visit to your beautiful garden. The fruits of all your care and planning have produced a unique environment. Would you consider embarking on a year long study which would examine closely the seasonal changes which make it so special?”

The Brines were thrilled at the prospect of collaborating with such an exceptional professional.

Norman is best known as an architectural photographer and author of the definitive book, Photographing Buildings Inside and Out, which has sold over 47,000 copies. But, for the past decade Norman has been observing and creating images of the Great Swamp, part of which is just across Route 22 from the Brine Garden.

Born in London, Norman was educated in Ireland where he earned an engineering degree at Trinity College, Dublin. His father was the Australian-born architect and author, Raymond McGrath. Norman has lived in the US since 1956.

Norman has photographed the work of a wide variety of influential and well-known architects and designers, including Mies van der Rohe, Hugh Stubbins, Charles Gwathmey, Frank Gehry, and Philip Johnson. His work has been featured in every major architectural publication and a collection of his photographs has been acquired by the Library of Congress. www.normanmcgrath.com

Filed Under: Art, Brine Garden, Duncan Brine, East Coast, GARDEN LARGE, GardenLarge, Gardens, Hudson Valley Attractions, Images, Landscape Inspiration, Pawling NY, US Tagged With: Brine Garden, Duncan Brine, Hudson Valley, Landscape, Landscape design, landscape photography, naturalistic landscape designer, Norman McGrath, photography

GardenLarge Timeline, Since 1984

October 11, 2014 by Julia Brine

 

Duncan and Kyle Brine, John K. Hutchens1984

GardenLarge started in Brooklyn, NY.

1990

Brine Garden started in Pawling, NY.

1991

Kyle Brine in the Brine Garden with his father, Duncan Brine, and Duncan’s stepfather, John K. Hutchens.

The Literary Garden, introduction by Duncan Brine2002

The Literary Garden, Penguin-Putnam, introduction by Duncan Brine….

NYC exhibit of the Brine Garden and Sylvester Manor of The Manor: Three Centuries at a Slave Plantation on Long Island, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, by Mac Griswold. Exhibit images by Michael Dodge and Everett H. Scott.

2003

The Brine Garden selected for the New York Botanical Garden, “Creativity Tour”.

CRW_27162005

Many Splendid Things, Passport Magazine, Litchfield County Times, by Tovah Martin, photographer: Laurie Gaboardi.

2006

New England Wild Flower Society seminar at the Brine Garden….

Garden Conservancy Open Day at the Brine Garden…. Connecticut Horticultural Society talk by Duncan Brine, West Hartford, CT.

2007

A Purposeful Confusion, Best of the Hudson Valley, Hudson Valley Magazine, by Lynn Hazlewood, photographer: Philip Jensen-Carter….

Duncan Brine, naturalistic landscape design seminar, the New York Botanical Garden….

Butterfly in the Brine Garden

Duncan and Julia Brine, the Brine Garden, Vistas and Close-ups, Staged by a Filmmaker,The New York Times, by Anne Raver, photographer: John Lei.

2008

GardenLarge, The Big Idea, Horticulture, by Carleen Madigan, photographer: Stacy Bass….

Designer Plant Combinations by Scott CalhounDuncan Brine, Designer Plant Combinations, Storey Publishing, by Scott Calhoun….

The Large Garden of Duncan Brine, Woodstock Times, by Andrea Barrist Stern….

Duncan Brine, speaker, Hardy Plant Society, Connecticut Chapter, Wethersfield, CT.

Duncan Brine, speaker, Garden Club of America, St. Louis, MO.

American Horticultural Society'sAmerican Gardener2010

American Horticultural Society’s American Gardener, article by Duncan Brine, photographer: Rob Cardillo….

Brine Garden 20th Anniversary, Doug and Cindy Tallamy visit the Brine Garden (Bringing Nature Home and The Living Landscape)….

Duncan Brine, speaker, Berkshire Botanic Garden, Stockbridge, MA….

The Brine Garden, a chapter of Gardens of the Hudson Valley, Monacelli Press, by Susan Daley and Steve Gross, photographers, text: Nancy Berner and Susan Lowry ….

50 Beautiful Deer Resistant Plants2011

The Brine Garden on the cover of 50 Beautiful Deer Resistant Plants, Timber Press, by Ruth Rogers Clausen, photographer: Alan L. Detrick.

2012

Duncan Brine, speaker, Naturalistic Whole Property Design, Peconic Land Trust’s Bridge Gardens, Bridgehampton, NY.

2013

Duncan Brine, speaker, symposium with Rick Darke and others, SALT Conference, Connecticut College….

Private Gardens of the Hudson Valley by Jane GarmeyNative Drama, the Brine Garden’s chapter of Private Gardens of the Hudson Valley, Monacelli Press, by Jane Garmey, photographer: John M Hall….

Duncan Brine, speaker, Spencertown Academy, Spencertown, NY.

2014

Duncan Brine, speaker, judge with Julie Moir Messervey and others, Northwest Flower and Garden Show, Seattle, WA….

Duncan Brine, interviewer, NY Times garden writer, Anne Raver, Mad Gardeners’ Symposium, Falls Village, CT.

Filed Under: Anne Raver, Brine Garden, Design philosophy, Duncan Brine, Dutchess, East Coast, GARDEN LARGE, GardenLarge, Horticulture Magazine, Hudson Valley Attractions, Hudson Valley Magazine, Native Plants, Naturalistic, Pawling NY, Scott Calhoun, The New York Times

Northwest Flower & Garden Show – Duncan Brine judge and speaker, along with Julie Moir Messervy and Douglas Justice

January 29, 2014 by Julia Brine


Duncan Brine joins Julie Moir Messervy and Douglas Justice as a judge and lecturer for the 2014 Northwest Flower & Garden Show, in Seattle, Washington. Former judges include James van Sweden, Wolfgang Oehme, Piet Oudolf, Laurie Olin, Panyoti Kelaidis, and Michael Pollan.

On Wednesday, February 2 at 1:30 pm Duncan Brine will present “Naturalistic Landscape Design: Breaking Rules on Principle”.

Julie Moir Messervy is the principal of Julie Moir Messervy Design Studio in Saxtons River, VT. In 1999 she completed the award-winning Toronto Music Garden, collaborating with renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the City of Toronto, to create a three-acre public park based on music by J.S. Bach. Messervy’s award-winning books include Home Outside, Outside the Not So Big House, and Contemplative Gardens. Messervy is the recipient of many awards, including the APLD 2006 Award of Distinction.

Seattle, Washington skyline

Along with duties as the Associate Director and Curator of Collections at UBC Botanical Garden, Douglas Justice teaches in both the Applied Biology and Masters of Landscape Architecture programs at UBC and is involved with public and industry extension. A former nursery manager, gardener and horticulture instructor, Douglas holds a Bachelor’s degree in horticulture and a Master’s in botany. He is an active member of a number of local, national and international plant and garden organizations and is currently writing a book on trees for the Vancouver area.

Since 1989 gardening enthusiasts have been flocking to this annual celebration which includes an acre of Show Gardens created by the most respected garden designers and landscapers of the region and a marketplace with over 300 exhibitors. The show is also renowned for offering the largest roster of free horticulture seminars of any garden show in the world.

February 5-9, 2014

For more information

Northwest Flower & Garden Show logo

Subscribe to GardenLarge

Filed Under: Classes/Tours, Duncan Brine, GARDEN LARGE, GardenLarge, Home Page, Landscape Designer, Northwest, Speakers, Winter Tagged With: Duncan Brine, Landscape design, naturalistic landscape designer, Northwest Flower & Garden Show, Seattle, Show judge, speaker

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