When I first started writing this column ten years ago, I named it “The Self-Taught Gardener” with the idea that we learn about plants and the natural world through observation and through others. I did not study botany and design in college but fell in love with working with the landscape when I acquired a site of my own to work on. I took classes at the botanic garden, went to lectures at Metro Hort, and visited gardens through the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days. And, much to my surprise, some of the most beautiful landscapes I have had the pleasure of visiting turned out to be products of similar journeys.
Once I learned that Berkshire Botanical Garden board members Madeline and Ian Hooper will host a design symposium next month at their garden, I immediately thought how meaningful it is to combine the two most significant ways one learns to garden – attending lectures and classes by designers and noted horticulturists and visiting inspiring gardens – into one singular event.
The symposium, Drawing on the Land, will take place on August 16th at the Hoopers’ garden in Canaan, N.Y. It will include talks by plantsman Roy Diblik, garden designers Dean Riddle and Kathryn Herman, and ceramist and gardener Frances Palmer. Talks on plant selection, garden composition, and design techniques will take place in the barn. The day will also include time to explore the landscape of Rockland Farm, which the Hoopers have been developing and refining for decades, and where, as Madeline states, “the garden continues to change. I never trust people who say they garden, but never move plants.” Ian concurs, as he talks about the many woody specimens, from outsized “dwarf” conifers to the paperbark maple, that they moved about the property when they realized they were not able to appreciate them enough in their original locations.
As Ian took me about the garden (Madeline was inside preparing a lunch for noted garden designer and friend Renny Reynolds who gave them plenty of ideas for the garden, including the allée of trees that leads to the house’s entrance),he shared with me his memories of bringing small containers of weeping hemlocks and other conifers onto the property in the back of their car. These hemlocks are now mature specimens offsetting the many rock outcrops that are a signature element of the landscape. After touring the garden, which involved climbing up to see a silver border of Russian olive, creeping silver willow, and yuccas offset by silvery blue conifers, and seeing the stumpery (which was inspired either by the stumpery of King Charles or one that they saw on a trip to Seattle – perhaps both), we headed back towards the house. As we walked about the more formal gardens that flank the pool behind the house (one of which recently acquired a central bed of Russian sage after years-long efforts to grow lavender which failed to prosper in the growing conditions of the garden despite numerous efforts to give it the drainage and Ph it preferred), Ian shared a thought on how things were always changing in the garden, “We decided we could make things easier and still get the effect we were looking for, so now we have Perovskia instead of lavender.”
As we sat down with Madeline to talk about the symposium, she expressed her joy at having a gardening conference at their house. She confessed that they knew nothing of gardening when they first came to the Berkshires, but they become involved with the Berkshire Botanical Garden, took every class and attended every lecture possible, assiduously taking notes and gathering ideas for their landscape. “We learned to garden by looking at the world around us and sometimes simply emulating it,” she admits, “and the conifers that sit at the back of the pool border, which mask our neighbor’s driveway, are a copy of a planting we saw on the cover of a White Flower Farm catalog.” And as proof of her record-keeping, she assures me she still has the image that inspired her.
Madeline and Ian can still be seen attending garden lectures, but they also learn by observing the patterns and plantings of gardens they visit. When Madeline shared that a recent guest, Fergus Garrett of Great Dixter, told them that one of their garden areas had one too many entrances, she was neither bragging about the provenance of their guest nor taken aback at his comment. She understands that “sometimes we work so hard in our own gardens that we stop seeing them and looking at them critically.” Gardeners are a community, working together to create beautiful places. Advice and good ideas come from every direction. Ian notes that Fergus did not tell them which entrance to remove, respecting their authority over their own landscape.
As they continued to share stories of the garden and its shifts and changes—as their conifers and woody plants matured, the plantings beneath them also evolved, simplifying and calling less attention to themselves to let the specimen trees take center stage—I realized how much they had to share with other gardeners about approaching the landscape.
I can only imagine the ideas that attendees of the conference will walk away with if they truly listen to the speakers, their fellow attendees, their hosts, and the landscape that surrounds them.
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A gardener grows through observation, experimentation, and learning from the failures, triumphs, and hard work of oneself and others. In this sense, all gardeners are self-taught, while at the same time intrinsically connected to a tradition and a community that finds satisfaction through working the soil and sharing their experiences with one another. This column explores those relationships and how we learn about the world around us from plants and our fellow gardeners.
