There are those whose gardens are playgrounds, pantries, or stage sets for seasonal performances. There are people who dare to approach the scenery.
Landscape as Laboratory’s approach isn’t unique to designers, but their antics teach us a lot.
American Roots: Lessons and Inspirations from the Designers Reimagining Our Home Gardens, by Nick McCullough, Allison McCullough, and Teresa Woodard (Timber Press, 2022) details the personal growing spaces of more than 20 working American gardeners. Checking it up. Left to pursue favorite plants and passions.
The authors buck typical “American” landscape tropes, such as manicured lawns and cookie-cutter suburbs, to present contemporary land gardens rooted in each region’s climate, plants, stones, and soil. Reveal. The result is a fresh look at American gardens, anchored by history but seen through a regional lens, diversity, geography, people, and cross-sections of the plants they care for.
Coastal gardens, historic public landscapes, ambitious private estates, numerous garden and design books that focus on the country’s natural landscapes nod to the vastness of the “flyover” state. “American Roots,” by contrast, begins by celebrating the Heartland with a perspective that the author has branded as Midwestern modern.
The book begins in the garden of Mr. and Mrs. McCullough’s home in Columbus, Ohio. There, a series of formal garden rooms are a staple of British design, surrounding a modern black and white farmhouse. Individual gardens surrounded by hedges and gathering spaces, complete with road trip finds and familiar farming materials, serve as spaces for experimentation and expression, and are ever-changing, but never-ending, pandemic causes. This is especially true when making travel plans.
Horticulturalists in Nebraska and Wisconsin are cultivating designed prairies in the suburbs and setting up experimental, eco-friendly gravel gardens. In Indiana, a curated container collection of plants on a covered porch reveals a love of plants. Beds and Borders Surrounding the Late NineteenthThe two-story 100th-century house is also ‘zoned’ for experimentation and pleasure.
Heading east provides a glimpse into the private gardens of city-based professional designers turned rural weekend warriors with the goal of creating immersive and dramatic environments filled with plants, art and collections. can do. Grower John Gwynn and his partner Mikel Forcarelli tend Saconet Gardens around their home in Rhode Island. “Yards are stupid,” says Gwynn. “It’s really fun.”
Add alpine crevice gardens to a peculiar list that includes pocket prairies and gravel gardens. Cozy seating area with reused and upcycled materials. A landscape that was once the literal set of a gardening television series, complete with meticulously cut shapes. Numerous passionate spaces serving creators in New Orleans’ stylish vegetable gardens and productive, nutritious flower gardens.
On a practical level, each profile includes a list of your favorite plants and “learn from”. [the gardener]Need tips on hard-working topics like discovering vintage gardens, designing with annuals, gravel garden basics, styling vignettes, growing container gardens, introducing landscape drama, creating climate-resilient gardens, and more. see this section. ‘American Roots’ offers inspiration and experience from talented designers and offers gentle nudges to express yourself and your place in the garden.