The Latest Word—Books, Web Sites & CD-ROMs
Plants & Gardens News Volume 17, Number 3 | Fall 2002
by Patricia Jonas
Woods and Prairies
Those of you familiar with Rick Darke's The Color Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses might reasonably imagine that the author-photographer of this acclaimed magnum opus had devoted his life exclusively to the study of those mostly sunny plants. It turns out that he is a man of at least one more, and rather different, obsession: the woods. "I'd always wanted to make a garden that evokes the spirit of the deciduous forest," he writes in his new book, The American Woodland Garden, and it was for that reason that he began a study of a woodland stream near his home in Pennsylvania early in 1983.
Most of us who try to learn something of the woods are satisfied with a few photographs and little notebooks of observations made on hikes. Even Thoreau spent just two years on Walden Pond. Darke, however, observed the life of Red Clay Creek for nearly 20 years in his search for "a deeper understanding of the natural patterns and processes that characterize the woodland landscape." He distills this study into a chapter called "Learning From a Woodland Stream," and I was as captivated by it as a child watching time-lapse photography unfold on a nature special.
Every day, from the same spot on a bridge, Darke set up his camera and photographed the scene, usually in the morning and evening as he passed it on his way to and from work at Longwood Gardens. At the end of the first year he had 500 photographs, and though he photographed less regularly from then on, the record he created transforms that place from the ordinary to the iconic. Capturing both large and small events in all of the woods' layers and seasons, his photographs and text communicate vividly the inevitability and pace of change on the creek.
At the end of the chapter, Darke writes, "When I began my study, my garden at home was very young and spare. It had little of the substance or subtlety of the incidental landscape I enjoyed from the bridge, and in some ways the natural woodland garden along Red Clay Creek served as a surrogate. Though I still feel a connection to the creek, my garden today has become my most intimate and affecting landscape."
The next chapter, "Designing the Woodland Garden," makes clear that science has served art well. Darke illustrates how he has translated the lessons of his study of that "surrogate" to the making of his own garden. His beautiful photographs dominate this lush chapter (typically with three related images per page and long captions providing most of the text). There are also photographs of other private and public gardens that illuminate principles of woodland garden design. One is eager to take up gardening challenges when they are as poetically presented as Darke's: "The challenge and opportunity of celebrating natural light in the woodland garden are to match the choreography of a particular design to the natural dance of light through the landscape."
Darke uses photographs just as lavishly in his first chapter, "A Forest Aesthetic," and even juxtaposes some photographs with color charts without getting into a muddle over color theory. He also doesn't avoid thorny questions like those related to provenance, exotic plants, and deer control, addressing them with a great deal of commonsense.
Finally, even though the first sentence of his preface claims that the book is not intended to be an encyclopedia, the last chapter, "The Forest Palette," is a selective but very successful 160-page A–Z of native trees, shrubs, and herbs "worth celebrating in woodland gardens." I even love the bibliography, which includes some titles new to me as well as many familiar ones, such as one of my favorite early works on ecological gardening, American Plants for American Gardens, by Edith A. Roberts and Julia R. Lawrence. Overall, Darke has delivered a tour de force to follow his magnum opus.
Celebrating Natives
William Cullina is a rising star in the horticultural firmament. His new book, Native Trees, Shrubs & Vines: A Guide to Using, Growing, and Propagating North American Woody Plants, should guarantee his ascendancy. The New England Wild Flower Society, for whom Cullina works as propagator, holds the copyright on this and on his first book, The New England Wild Flower Society Guide to Growing and Propagating Wildflowers of the United States and Canada. But on the paper marquees of the dust jacket and title page of the second, companion volume, Cullina's name takes top billing. And he deserves it. His voice is expert but fresh.
It is sometimes also a little kooky, as when he describes the underside of the spicebush's (Lindera benzoin) leaves as "toothpaste blue" (which toothpaste would that be?) or the American snowbell (Styrax americanus) as having a "layer-cake look" (not my mother's layer cake). However, I have written hundreds of culture sheets and an encyclopedia of plants and know it is not easy to fashion descriptions that help gardeners unfamiliar with a plant visualize it perfectly and simultaneously delight others who already know the plant well.
Here is how he begins a description of witch-hazel: "You have to respect a plant that laughs in the face of winter, especially one, like witch-hazel, that unleashes a belly-shaking guffaw. Common witch-hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) has the audacity to bloom in autumn.... Spring witch-hazel (H. vernalis) is even more impudent, hoisting its wispy four-petaled flowers in the depths of winter." He describes their ripe seed capsules as "splitting open like the maws of two baby robins stretched wide in anticipation of a worm." Hereafter, when I see witch-hazels, I will remember his words before any others, even my own.
As in most woody-plant references, for each species there is information on culture and landscape uses, but the sections on wildlife and propagation distinguish this book from others. The information on the wildlife each plant supports is astonishingly thorough; and Cullina's first-hand experience with propagation makes the propagation table at the end of the book indispensable to amateurs and professionals alike. There is also a very good pronunciation guide.
Landscape Restored
If you have too much sun for a woodland garden, your guides should be Sally Wasowski and Andy Wasowski, author and photographer, respectively, of Gardening with Prairie Plants. You don't have to live in the Midwest to make a prairie garden: There are remnant prairies throughout North America. What could be more appropriate than a prairie garden in a suburban yard in Levittown, Long Island, once part of Hempstead Plains, a 60,000-acre tallgrass prairie? What better place than a city lot?
A chapter in this book called "A Gallery of Home Prairie Gardens" helps one appreciate the variety of ways individuals, businesses, and communities have incorporated prairie plantings in their diverse landscapes. There are wonderful plans for gardens that meet different needs, like a "pocket prairie" or a food and medicine garden.
In the first half of the book, the Wasowskis cover the history, botany, and ecology of the North American prairie, as well as the design, installation, and maintenance of a prairie garden. They devote the second half to an encyclopedia of plants, organized by type—"Grasses, Sedges, and Rushes," "Cool Season Forbs," "Warm Season Forbs," and "Savanna Trees and Thicket Shrubs." (Both the index and the contents are excellent if you're not sure where to go for a particular plant.)
Spectacular distribution maps accompany every plant in the encyclopedia. Each section is followed by a table that puts all the information in an easy-to-read format. The encyclopedia entries are very short, but if you need more information, go to Rick Darke and William Cullina.
Patricia Jonas is a horticulturist, writer, and Director of Library Services at Brooklyn Botanic Garden. She is the editor of Japanese-Inspired Gardens in BBG's 21st-Century Gardening Series, and wrote the encyclopedia of plants for that book.