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Advice Offered On Creating A Naturalistic Landscape Design – 27east
Publication: The East Hampton Press & The Southampton Press
By Anne Halpin
Gardeners interested in a more natural look for their landscapes were treated to an inspiring and insightful talk on Sunday afternoon at Bridge Gardens in Bridgehampton by Duncan and Julia Brine.
The Long Bridge at the Brine Garden © gardenlarge.com
The principal designer and his wife and partner in the Pawling, New York-based Garden Large, a naturalistic landscape design firm…
Their talk focused on the process of making a naturalistic garden personal and unique to each site…
The first step in the process involves acquiring a sense of the region and the characteristics of your particular property, what Mr. Brine calls “the givens.”
Mr. Brine used his own family’s property in Dutchess County to illustrate the design process…
For Mr. Brine, naturalistic landscape design responds to the native plants already in place. The landscape is understood as an environment, the plantings part of a whole—a bigger picture than a traditional garden bed or border…
For the Brines, the goal of a naturalistic garden is to, in Mr. Brine’s words, “idealize and partner with nature’s potential in a place.”
A large garden such as theirs can replicate the different ecosystems of slopes, and wet lowlands, the plantings visually integrating with views of their neighbor’s property and the distant ridgelines. On a small property, a naturalistic garden can’t invoke an entire ecosystem, but it can serve as a fragment of nature, a quotation of a natural environment.
The naturalistic garden…can offer a refuge and respite for the senses. And because the plants are chosen to suit the givens, the garden will look like it belongs there, and the plants will thrive. It’s a low-maintenance, resource-conservative place that can nourish the gardener’s soul as it helps nature along…
These are excerpts, for the full article, go to http://www.27east.com/
Join us in the Hamptons this weekend?
Hudson Valley’s Duncan Brine, aka Garden Large,
Speaks in the Hamptons on Sunday, March 18 at 1pm
The Peconic Land Trust announces its third annual lecture series at Bridge Gardens, in Bridgehampton, NY. On March 18 at 1:00pm, Duncan Brine, principal of Garden Large, presents his naturalistic landscape design process, expanding on his recent article in “American Gardener” magazine.
“A naturalistic garden combines a gardener’s needs and desires with nature’s dictates; its design cannot be premeditated because its inherent beauty is inextricably linked to the landscape on which it is created.”
Mr. Brine is an instructor at the New York Botanical Garden and the New England Wild Flower Society. Garden Large specializes in native plants and whole property gardens. Visit www.gardenlarge.com, for more about Garden Large, Duncan Brine, and the Brine Garden.
© gardenlarge.com
The Long Bridge at the Brine Garden, Pawling, NY
Scott Medbury, president of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Vincent Simeone, director of Planting Fields Arboretum, and others, are also featured in the speaker series. Reservations are required and the fee is $15 per person. Refreshments will be served following each program.
For reservations and additional dates and details on the speaker series, go to Bridge Gardens on www.PeconicLandTrust.org.
The Peconic Land Trust
The Peconic Land Trust was established in 1983 to conserve Long Island’s working farms and natural lands. The nonprofit Trust has worked in concert with landowners, local government, partner organizations, and communities to conserve over 10,000 acres in NY, on Long Island. The Trust’s professional staff carries out the necessary research and planning to identify and implement alternatives to development. While working to conserve the productive farms, watersheds, woodlands, and beach front of Long Island, the Trust is also protecting the unique rural heritage and natural resources of the region. The Trust has Stewardship Centers in Southold, Cutchogue, Bridgehampton and Amagansett and its Main Office is in Southampton, NY. The public is invited to enjoy a wide variety of fun and educational activities through the Trust’s “Connections” programs which strive to connect people to the natural lands of Long Island’s East End.
Bridge Gardens
Bridge Gardens was established in 1988 by Harry Neyens and Jim Kilpatric, who designed and installed the gardens over the ensuing 10 years. In 1997, Bridge Gardens Trust was created as a charitable corporation to maintain and preserve the gardens. In 2008, Neyens and Kilpatric donated Bridge Gardens to the Peconic Land Trust. Rick Bogusch, a landscape architect with a long career at Cornell Plantations in Ithaca, NY, is the garden manager.
Bridge Gardens covers over five acres and consists of an Inner Garden and an Outer Garden. Developed first, the Inner Garden features a large, meticulously-trimmed knot garden surrounded by beds of 180 different culinary, medicinal, ornamental, and textile and dyeing herbs. Overlooking these plantings, the garden house is the manager’s residence/education center. In the Outer Garden, the favorite attraction is a collection of antique and modern roses. Bridge Gardens also contains animal topiaries, a lavender parterre, perennial beds and borders, a water garden, woodland paths, a hidden bamboo room, double hedgerows of privet with viewing ports, and specimen shrubs and trees.
Duncan Brine to present at Peconic Land Trusts’ Lecture Series – Bridgehampton, NY
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© gardenlarge.com
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• Sunday, March 18: “Naturalistic Whole Property Design”Brine, principal landscape designer of Garden Large, and instructor at the New York Botanical Garden along with the New England Wild Flower Society, will expand upon an article he wrote for the American Horticultural Society’s “American Gardener” while focusing on the six-acre Brine Garden in Pawling, NY.Anne Raver featured the garden in the New York Times, and the recent book “Gardens of the Hudson Valley” compares Duncan to Russel Wright of Garrison, NY’s Manitoga.Discover how this designer finds inspiration in existing conditions and elicits ideas from the prevailing nature of a place.
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Duncan Brine Returns to Speak in the Hamptons
A few years ago, Duncan spoke at the Peconic Land Trust’s Bridge Gardens. Now, the Horticultural Alliance of the Hamptons (HAH) has invited Duncan to join their experts’ lecture series in February of 2016.
© Norman McGrath
Established in 1986, the HAH’s membership includes amateurs as well as professionals, and is open to anyone with an interest in horticulture. Its educational program includes year-round monthly lectures given by experts in horticulture from around the US and abroad. The HAH also publishes an informative newsletter, maintains an extensive horticultural lending library, and offers workshops, roundtable discussion groups, and tours. Open to the public, free to members, $10 non-members.
Garden before House: A Natural Order
When the Garden Designs the House – New York Times Annotated
Multimedia
The Home Aquatic
Partly by chance, Mr. Browne, 60, a managing director of the Tweedy, Browne Company, a New York investment firm, stumbled on an approach to construction that has been advocated for the past decade by prominent landscape architects up and down the East Coast,
All argue strongly for spending a lot of time with the land that will surround a house before building it.
“By understanding the natural dynamic of a site, you can create more potent and meaningful architecture,” said Mr. Woltz, who holds master’s degrees in architecture and landscape architecture from the University of Virginia, where he teaches a course called “Sites and Systems” that emphasizes the importance of assessing a site’s prevailing winds, geological conditions, plant communities and soil qualities, among other conditions. “The goal is to inspire architecture that’s inextricably linked to the land,” he added.
“A lot of people don’t get it. They say, why haven’t you started building yet?” said Mr. Gordon, 46, of the couple’s East Hampton friends. “There’s nothing worse than when people tear down the trees and plunk down a house, put in a few plants and call it a day.”
“We’re trying to focus on making the house part of the land,” he said.
Mr. Browne discussed with Mr. Gordon the idea of cultivating an intimate garden around their future house, while allowing the rest of the property to feel like parkland.
In the spring of 2000, before making any major decisions, the couple built a temporary 35-foot-tall observation platform in the middle of the property to help them formulate their ideas for the overall design.