garden design Archives - A Way To Garden

garden-design ideas from george schoellkopf of hollister house

margaret — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 18:09:40 +0000

GEORGE SCHOELLKOPF returned from a 1979 trip visiting English gardens inspired to do some garden-making of his own. His canvas was a Northwestern Connecticut hillside and not the Cotswolds, and the home he just purchased wasn’t a grand manor house, but a simple 18th-century farmhouse. Nevertheless, George brought the feel of an English garden to life at the place that became Hollister House, which today is a much-visited destination garden, and also the site of a rich offering of educational programs throughout the season, including the popular Garden Study Weekend early each September. In the gardens at Hollister House in Washington, Conn., he has contrasted the formal and informal, made room-like spaces to explore, and experimented with a wide-ranging palette of plants over the years. George will be talking about the making of Hollister House on Saturday, Sept. 6 at the annual Garden Study Weekend there, along with several other noted speakers on a diversity of topics. Some of the design ideas that went into the garden’s making were what we talked about together recently. Read along as you listen to the July 14, 2025 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to […]

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designing for ‘abundance,’ with ecological landscaper kelly norris

margaret — Sat, 07 Jun 2025 13:16:47 +0000

WE MAY KNOW ONE when we see it, but what word best describes an ecological landscape? Compared to traditional, more formal gardens, such native-plant-forward designs are variously labeled as looser, or naturalistic, or wildish—all perfectly accurate. Is there perhaps a word, though, that really gets at both the visual and functional aspects that these beautiful, biodiversity-supporting plantings embody – a word that can help us set the intention for the plants we choose and where we place them? “Abundant” is the descriptor of choice and a primary design goal for today’s guest, landscape designer Kelly Norris, author most recently of the book “Your Natural Garden” (affiliate link). Kelly, the former director of horticulture and education at the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden for eight years, is the founder of The Public Horticulture Company, a Des Moines-based ecological landscape firm. His motto is “just keep planting,” which indeed adds up to abundance … if we follow some general guidelines on what key players we make room for. Plus: Comment in the box near the bottom of the page for a chance to win a copy of Kelly’s book “Your Natural Garden.” Read along as you listen to the June 9, 2025 […]

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adventures of a ‘bad naturalist,’ with paula whyman

margaret — Fri, 23 May 2025 19:36:47 +0000

AGAIN AND AGAIN, as I was reading the recent book “Bad Naturalist” by Paula Whyman, I kept thinking: Good thing I only have a couple of acres of land. Whyman tackled 200 acres on a Virginia mountaintop, dreaming of reshaping it, she writes, into “a native plant paradise, a model of conservation, a meadow that would inspire Julie Andrews to break into song.” But the natural world often has other things in mind than the ones on our to-do list, doesn’t it? On any scale, all the lessons nature delivers—lessons like ones about invasive plants, or about the unstoppable forward march of succession, about the impossibilities of enforcing concepts like control or perfection—are lessons hard-earned, and I talked with Paula, who shared some of her takeaways from years of ecological experiments on the land. Paula Whyman is an author, including of the award-winning book of short stories titled “You May See a Stranger.” These days she lives in the Blue Ridge foothills in Virginia on the piece of land that is the subject of her latest book, “Bad Naturalist: One Woman’s Ecological Education on a Wild Virginia Mountaintop” (affiliate link). Plus: Comment in the box near the bottom of the […]

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