Garden exhibit goes to pots at LongHouse reserve

Tag : long palm


Like a lot of things in the garden, a well-planted pot is a work of art. But you need more than plant material and potting mix. You need an eye, a sense of daring, an inspiration. I was struck by this when I attended the opening of an invitational garden container exhibit at LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton. In some cases, it was the container that was the art, in others it was the plantings, and at best it was both. Of course, the pots had a terrific setting - the 16-acre garden and sculpture park founded by textile designer Jack Lenor Larsen, where a geodesic dome designed by Buckminster Fuller and a bronze sculpture by Willem de Kooning looked grand in the greenery and cobalt-blue glass reeds by Dale Chihuly held court among spiky purple pickerel weed in the pond.

Several hundred people showed up, but I'm not sure they all came to see the pots, since Martha Stewart was in attendance to give out ribbons. She gave out a lot, but I thought all of the designers - many of whom were present - deserved them. As Southampton-based April Gonzales told me, "You can see the high art of container gardening here. And it was fun for the designers because we're not confined by the parameters of our clients' needs and desires." April had fun with her seascape of five pots and a giant clamshell surrounded by waves of sand sculpted to resemble dunes. "I glued seashells and starfish on the pots, and I added eel spears as Neptune's tridents - they were made by Long Island blacksmiths in the 1900s. I wanted to celebrate Long Island's love of the sea, even though a lot of the shells come from Mexico and the Philippines. I used eucalyptus, sedums, a Bismark palm, lots of sea-foamy-colored plants. The palm has a big wow factor. It took a crew of eight three hours to get everything set up. Then I said, 'OK, leave me alone with my glue gun' - and I worked another five hours."

Dennis Schrader of Landcraft Environments in Mattituck had fun, too. Except for the plants, his entry - which he calls "Lust for Rust" - is pure junk. Visualize two sheet-metal containers stacked on top of each other topped by a 10-foot-high tower - all of it wired and screwed together. Dennis haunted junkyards and old barns and accessorized judiciously with rusting pieces like legs from a wood-burning stove, a wagon wheel, flywheels and grates. "All of it junk," he said. "But junk with style." The containers hold about 30 plants that accent rust-colored foliage, from reddish-flowered kangaroo paws to a rusty-leaf Strobilanthes. There's a sedum named Milk Chocolate and a carex called Toffee Twist as well as black mondo grass and copper oxalis and rust-colored caladiums and begonias. For a little extra drama, gold-leaf a Fiona Sunrise jasmine decorates the tower. It was easy, Dennis told me. "Just look for unusual plant material, make sure the colors of the plants complement the pot - and get a tetanus shot."

But the LongHouse show also demonstrates that we can find the unusual in our own backyard. Like a container from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden featuring East Coast natives such as sweet bay and big-leaf magnolias, highbush and low-bush blueberries, Indian pink, pine shell azalea from North Carolina and sedges collected around New York City. "We wanted to show that native plants aren't forest weeds," said Uli Lorimer, curator of the garden's native plant collection, who collaborated on the entry with fellow staffers Jennifer Williams and Nancy Seaton. "You don't have to rely on annuals or tropicals. Everything in this container is hardy here - you only have to plant it once."

I lusted for the pot - a cast-iron whaling caldron once used to boil blubber and whale fat. Its aged patina complemented the plant palette. Other containers stood out along with their contents - like floral designer Eve Suter's delicate wire-macramé hanging baskets planted with morning glories. I thought about how lovely the mass of flowers will look as they scramble up the wire. And the white rippled container by Frederico Azevado featuring a golden-edged agave and yellow-flowered Thurnbergia. A little boy who came by with his mother was clearly a critic in training. "That one looks like a twisty noodle," he said. It did, but it was a very nice noodle. Tony Piazza of Water Mill made a statement with three copper pots decorated with graffiti like "Make Green Not War," and "Make Love Not Money." Designer Mary Gotovich touched me with the gentle shade garden she created in a vintage stone pot planted with white heliotrope, an upright fuchsia and a Japanese maple.

Groupings were equally lovely - especially 12 pots near the lap pool by Jonathan Wright of Chanticleer in Pennsylvania, who used succulents around a sculpture of an elephant ear leaf, and another collection by garden guru P. Allen Smith. Allen was on the road in Kentucky, but I got him on the phone. His exhibit consisted of seven glazed gray-green ceramic containers of slightly different sizes and shapes clustered to form one sculpture. "Flowers didn't seem right, so I went with chartreuse foliage plants," he said. "Hosta Guacamole, Heuchera Dolce Key Lime Pie, Sedum Angelina . . . I liked the idea of a group that read like a single object and captured the eye like a great orb of gold."

It worked for me - especially as the afternoon sun fell into evening and the chartreuse plants glowed in the fading light. "Container gardening is a great way to be expressive," Allen told me, "whether you're a beginner or a master gardener." There were other containers in the exhibit that enhanced his point, but I don't have space to tell you about them all. You should go and see them for yourself.