Avant sp 18
by Derek Fell
I first encountered a tapestry garden during a tour of French gardens along the Normandy coast, near Dieppe. At a large estate known as the Parc Floral des Moutiers, the Mallet family maintained an elaborate woodland garden threaded with paths that lead down to cliff-top meadows overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Established by an Anglophile, Guilliaume Mallet, he conceived the idea of surrounding his new Arts & Crafts residence with a woodland of mostly trees and shrubs using swatches of cloth to choose the colors. Mallet owned a tapestry manufacturing company and hired the famous British architect, Sir Edwin Lutyens, to design the building. He also asked Lutyens’ collaborator, Gertrude Jekyll, to advise him on elements of his garden design.
Although the woodland looks entirely natural it is in fact carefully orchestrated to present a panorama of harmonious woody plants where the colors, textures and forms of leaves present a visual effect that is enchanting to view from the house. In addition to various shades of green, from light green through mid-green to dark green, individual trees add touches of blue from Atlas cedars, red from copper beeches, silver from pagoda dogwoods, yellow from variegated locusts and almost black from dark hollies. Ms. Jekyll not only advised on the planting of orange-flowering mollis azaleas to contrast with the blue Atlas cedars, she designed a pair of parallel perennial borders leading to the front entrance to the residence. She also recommended choice varieties of rhododendrons from British nurseries to create explosions of red, pink and white along woodland paths in addition to American dogwoods, yellow laburnum and a large collection of magnolias under-planted by hydrangeas in various shades of blue, pink and red, plus white. I noticed that the rhododendron known as ‘Cynthia’–a dark red—made the most striking impact of all the rhododendron varieties, creating huge domes of blood red color in June.
At my home in Tinicum township, my wife and I have created our own tapestry garden by clearing overgrown woodland of brambles, poison ivy and fox grape vines to accommodate mostly pink flowering redbuds, white and pink dogwoods and pink crabapples among clumps of Japanese maples, native winterberry and native viburnum. Another local garden that uses trees and shrubs to paint the landscape is the display garden of Solebury nursery, Paxson Hill Farms which combines native woody plants and non-natives along a series of gravel paths that lead visitors to a series of ponds.
Another good local woodland garden open to the public is Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve, south of New Hope where staff members can advise on the best native trees for Bucks County, but also under-story plants like ostrich ferns, blue woodland phlox, frothy white foam flowers, red columbine, white trillium, blue Virginia bluebells and yellow celandine poppies. Bowman’s Hill has various trails with bridges that cross streams, ponds and wildflower meadows on both sides of scenic Pidcock Creek.
The best tapestry gardens create a balance of evergreens and deciduous trees. Evergreens can be needle evergreens like conifers in various colors (mostly green, blue, silver and yellow), and broadleaf evergreens like rhododendron, holly and Southern magnolia. Some of the best deciduous trees to consider are Japanese maples which can display lace-like green or purple leaves, but also native snowbell, shadbush, fringe tree and swamp magnolia that produce various shades of green and seasonal flowers into the bargain.
When designing a tapestry garden it’s important to consider contrasts in size and shape of leaves. For example, at Parc Floral des Moutiers large colonies of Chilean rhubarb contrast their umbrella-like leaves with the sweeping branches of monkey puzzles, but since neither of these plants are reliably hardy in Bucks County, Japanese butterbur can substitute for Chilean rhubarb, while a weeping spruce can substitute for a monkey puzzle. At Parc Floral des Moutiers vast areas of woodland floor are covered with fragrant English bluebells, but at Cedaridge Farm I like to substitute the English variety with Spanish bluebells. Although the Spanish variety has no fragrance it makes a bigger color impact. I also like my woodland paths to be edged with hardy Barnhaven primroses. These come in myriad colors, including yellow, orange, brown, red, blue and white and they self seed freely.
Another important element to consider for any wood garden is bark coloration. Two of my favorite trees are the ‘Heritage’ variety of river birch, because of its honey-colored flaking bark, and the dawn redwood because of its chestnut brown bark coloration and fluted trunk.
DEREK FELL'S home and garden, Cedaridge Farm has been chosen as the Bucks County Designer House for 2018, allowing visitors to tour the property from April 29 through May 27, proceeds to benefit the Doylestown Hospital. For visiting times and more information go to buckscountydesignerhouse.org