![]() ![]() My favorite was the Pacific Northwest streamside garden room abundant with ferns, conifers, and rhodies as well as a few Asian-inspired statues to evoke a landscape that’s ubiquitous in a high end Seattle garden retreat. A number of thematic garden rooms have been created to support these collections. The Tubbs brothers were 20th C plant collectors, and this arboretum celebrates over 3,500 kinds of native and exotic plants.Above all, this is clearly a summer country home, where informality and connections with nature are purposeful. Landscapes like this became popularized by recent trends seen in the English landscape overseas, as well as the back to nature movement seen with other emerging developments such as the reactionary, ant-industrialization arts + crafts movement. ![]() As a 20th century country estate, the grounds have a very pastoral feel with informal beds of cottage gardens among a large scattering of specimen trees. The main building is the original Kennedy family farmhouse dating back to 1792, and later acquired by the Tubbs brothers as their country estate, which was eventually named Willowwood. The site has several outbuildings including a conservatory, barn, stables and barn converted to a visitor/event center.Here are my highlights, observations and thoughts: Of course this is just a a comparison and generalization, and i encourage y’all to visit this place to see for yourself. My conclusion for characterizing this site goes as follows: Willowwood Arboretum has plant collection heritage and scale of Tyler Arboretum, with cottage garden bed styles and arrangement of a slightly less formal Wave Hill, paired with the farm style and vernacular landscape seen in a farm-turned-garden such as the tiny McLaughlin Garden South Paris, Maine. Trivial mental exercises can happen anywhere, and the latest was when I visited Willowwood Arboretum in New Jersey and tried to established the site’s “spirit of place”, or genius loci. One silly example is when i hear a new musician perform a song for the first time, the first exercise going on in my head is trying to compare their “sound” and traits to other artists to create an a la carte caricature of sorts in my mind (For the record Aussie singer Courtney Barnett has the rapping abilities of Eminem with the vocal delivery of a Tom Petty / Melanie hybrid). I find that making connections between ideas, spaces, arts & culture and even people is a fun way to give more meaning to experiences. In my day job as a knowledge manager at an architecture firm, i’ve learned that one of the keys to success is making connections amongst various groups of people, resources, and emerging knowledge to solve problems more efficiently and effectively. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |