The Cultural Landscape Foundation Announces a New Season of Garden Dialogues - Exclusive Access to Beautiful Gardens, their Owners and Designers

Media Contact: Nord Wennerstrom | T: 202.255.7076 | E: nord@tclf.org

Third Season of One of TCLF’s Most Popular Programs– Events in CA, CT, DC, DE, FL, IL, KY, MA, ME, MN, NY, RI, TX, VA and WA – and Toronto and Vancouver in Canada

Washington, DC (February 27, 2014) - What's Out There Garden Dialogues, a national program inaugurated in 2012 by The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) that offers exclusive access to some of today’s most beautiful and innovative gardens, and the opportunity to learn about the creative process from the garden designers and their clients, will run March 15 through October 5, 2014 in fifteen states and the District of Columbia – and in Toronto and Vancouver in Canada. Garden Dialogues has become one of the most popular programs in the foundation’s 16-year history, with most Dialogues sold out weeks in advance. The 2014 Garden Dialogues will begin in March in Houston, TX, Miami, Palm Beach and Florida’s Gulf Coast. Additional sites will be posted mid-March. The program provides a distinct look at gardens and enables participants to hear firsthand about the collaborative process that led to the creation of each garden. Space is limited and nearly all Garden Dialogues are $45.00 each. Seibert & Rice Fine Italian Terra Cotta is the Garden Dialogues National Sponsor. 

How do garden owners and their landscape architects or designers work together to create a great garden? Garden Dialogues brings together patrons and designers to reveal the creative process and the collaboration that yields a great garden. Garden Dialogues provides unique opportunities for small groups to experience some of today’s most beautiful gardens created by some of the most accomplished designers currently in practice.

Detailed Schedule for March 2014:

Houston, TX – tours follow Docomomo’s US National Symposium, March 13-15

• March 16 (Register Today) – Selden Straus House - Keiji Asakura, Asakura Robinson (host) – Nestled within 25 heavily-wooded acres in the heart of the city, this Modernist home is occupied by its original owner, Mrs. Marjorie Selden Milby. In 1951 J.T. Rather, Jr. of Staub and Rather Architects designed the house, grounds and interiors with ample input from Mrs. Milby. Famed Modernist landscape architect Tommy Church visited in the 1950s and paid it a very high compliment –he saw nothing he thought should be changed. Over the years, notable horticulturalists including Lynn Lowery, John Teas and Charles Tapley have been involved with the property, but it retains its original design intent.

• March 16 (Register Today) – River Oaks Modernist Estate – Gail Hartz, Gail Hartz & Associates, Inc. – Hidden behind a privet and azalea hedge on a busy thoroughfare in River Oaks is a remarkable mid-20th century International Style brick home by Houston architect Hugo Victor Neuhaus Jr. and grounds by Houston landscape architect C.C. “Pat” Fleming, in collaboration with Neuhaus. As part of the home’s recent restoration, Gail Hartz is expanding the outdoor living areas and garden, while remaining faithful to the original Fleming design.

• March 16 (Register Today) – Raymond and Susan Brochstein Pavilion at Rice University – Chip Trageser and Andrew Albers, Office of James Burnett, with Stephen Fox, Architectural Historian, Anchorage Foundation of Texas – Rice’s Central Quadrangle has been transformed into the university’s social center, with the addition of 6,000-square-foot Brochstein Pavilion by architect Thomas Phifer & Partners and a 10,000-square-foot covered outdoor terrace and garden by the Office of James Burnett. The terrace is covered with decomposed granite and planted with a grid of 48 Allée lacebark elms. Two low, linear fountains define the space under the canopy and movable seating accommodates impromptu gatherings of students and faculty. Additional plantings of live oaks and improved pedestrian paths reinforce the existing framework of the Quadrangle and the campus’s Beaux Arts plan. 

Miami-Palm Beach, FL

• March 15 (Register Today) – Biscayne Bay Water Garden – Margie Ruddick of Margie Ruddick Landscape Design – Rare and exclusive! We can’t show images because this is a very private residence, but it's amazing. Ruddick, a recent winner of the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt Design Award for landscape design, created an island retreat that begins with a fantastical landscape of royal palms and lush tropical plantings centered on an environmental artwork. There are two wild gardens leading to the bay - and a luxurious swimming pool in a water garden, with floating terraces.  Attendees must adhere to a no photography or video policy for this event.

• March 22 (Register Today) – Palm Beach Residence – Keith Williams of Nievera Williams Landscape Architecture – This elegant and exotic British West Indies style estate was an empty lot just two years ago. The home has three gardens that feature tropical, drought-tolerant plants rich in texture, color and foliage, with an emphasis on sustainability. The front garden has succulents and uses minima instead of lawn, the back garden allows for entertaining, dining and swimming, while the “secret garden” – which the owners consider an intimate work of art – fulfills the quest to see a garden from every first floor window and door.

• March 29 (Register Today) – The Breakers Palm Beach – Gregory Lombardi of Gregory Lombardi Landscape Design with Danny Miller, General Manager – One North Breakers Row – A spectacular resort destination on Florida’s Atlantic coast and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, The Breakers Palm Beach has lured generations of discerning travelers to its idyllic, Italian-Renaissance setting. Gregory Lombardi Design has been honored to work with The Breakers since 2005 on its landscape revitalization and expansion initiative, redesigning key areas and collaborating with The Breakers’ team to preserve, conserve and restore the prevalence of native plants throughout the resort property. 

• March 30 (Register Today) – Coconut Grove – Oak Garden at Silver Bluff –Carlos Somoza of Carlos Somoza Landscape Design – Perched atop an ancient limestone ridge, Oak Garden was created beneath the canopy of two-dozen, mature Southern Live Oak trees. There are three distinct rooms: entrance garden, secret garden and pool terrace, each featuring a distinct plant palette and character, with drifts of native flora and subtropical vegetation. A deep sea colored garden wall clad in slabs of iridescent Macedonian labrodite with Chinese dragon fountainheads designed by the client transforms when illuminated, and the affect suggests sunlight shimmering on peacock feathers.

Florida Gulf Coast

• March 22 (Register Today) – Boca Grande – Shell House Garden with Mrs. Dorrance Hamilton – Mary Ellen Flanagan of MEF Design – In a neighborhood of restored “Cracker” cottages in downtown Boca Grande, Mrs. Dorrance Hamilton, doyenne of the Philadelphia Flower Show and botanical super enthusiast, has an idyllic and lush waterfront hideaway densely planted with large Tree ferns, unique palms, succulents and orchids.  Nestled within are seating areas that offer friends and family places to luxuriate and relax. This Dialogue will also include a visit to the “production garden” at one of the owner's guesthouses. The property, located on the canal, has a low-maintenance landscape with several citrus trees, papaya and avocado trees, as well as a small vegetable garden that she tends herself. This is a special fundraiser and tickets are $100 each.

• March 23 (Register Today) – Boca Grande – Ruettgers Garden – Mary Ellen Flanagan of MEF Design – One block from the ocean on the tree-lined and appropriately named Banyan Street, the luxurious backdrop for photos of newlyweds and family gatherings, is a historic cottage with an exuberant collection of tropical plants.  Though city-sized, the property also includes sculpture, a pergola, a lap pool, and an antique cistern.  Unique to this garden is collection of vines and myriad potted plants the owner selects herself.

• March 29 (Register Today) – Sarasota – Casey Key Pagoda Garden – Michael Gilkey, Jr. of Michael A. Gilkey, Inc. with Joe Jannopoulo of Synergy Building – This enchanting 1.2-acre landscape, surrounded on three sides by water, is both a private retreat and a perfect place to entertain. Pathways meander through thematic gardens – Arbor, Bamboo, Chinese, Conservatory, Edible and Rose – and Moon Gates frame views to Blackburn Bay. This South Florida idyll, a close collaboration between the landscape architect and its world-traveling patrons, allows visitors to experience a beautiful and imaginative Chinese-style garden, without all the jet lag.

About The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF)

The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) is a 15-year-old non-profit foundation that provides people with the ability to see, understand and value landscape architecture and its practitioners, in the way many people have learned to do with buildings and their designers. Through its Web site, lectures, outreach and publishing, TCLF broadens the support and understanding for cultural landscapes nationwide to help safeguard our priceless heritage for future generations. TCLF makes a special effort to heighten the awareness of those who impact cultural landscapes, assist groups and organizations working to increase the appreciation and recognition of cultural landscapes, and develop educational tools for young people to better connect them to their cultural landscape environs.

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