Charleston on My Mind – Middleton Place & Cypress Swamp

Just about this time last year, I decided to splurge on a photography workshop in Charleston, South Carolina. For the first time ever I entrusted my tripod to checked baggage, packed all my other gear in a  carry-on bag, and headed off.

The day I arrived, I reached Charleston mid-day but I wasn’t scheduled to meet up with the group until around dinner time. So I decided to head to Middleton Place Plantation, which wasn’t on the group itinerary. The grand photo you see on their website must have been taken from an airplane – it’s stunning but I soon realized there was no way to replicate it as an earth-bound mortal. The mid-day sun was also a challenge. I finally settled for a shot or two of the garden areas not far from the house, where classic statuary dotted glades loaded with azaleas and Spanish moss-covered live oaks.

Live oaks provide shade to a garden area at Middleton Place Plantation.

The next day, we set off early (by 6:30 for a stop at the local Dunkin’ Donuts, which seemed to be on every other corner, practically) for Cypress Gardens. Blessed with 3-1/2 miles of nature trails and what is called a “swamparium” on its website, Cypress Gardens offered lots of gorgeous azaleas in bloom and a chance to try out some abstract approaches to shooting the water (a challenge for me, who is the Queen of Realism when given a camera).

Morning light on the side of a live oak in Cypress Gardens

Pink hose-in-hose azaleas along the nature trail.

Early morning light on a nature trail at Cypress Gardens

Boat wake patterns

Our instructor, Tony Sweet, is a whiz at getting you to think outside the box a little. The photo above is one I probably never would have thought to take on my own. As I said, I’m a bit of a literalist when it comes to photographing gardens. But  even though I would never frame it or enter it into a competition, I like this image.

Next stop for the tripod-toting group: Magnolia Plantation – look for it in the next post.

Related posts: Less Becomes More

Conquering the Hill

I live at the top of a hill that causes anyone with a lawnmower to shudder. My family moved into the house in the summer of 1988, when I had no interest in gardening or landscape design. The front yard was something to be moved through as quickly as possible, to get to the house – no mean feat given the length of the set of concrete ramp and steps that took you from the street to the front door. Here’s an old photo (bad quality, but you get the picture).

My house in 1988 or so, complete with lovely concrete steps up to a yew-covered facade. Charming.

When I set about redesigning this area in 2000, I was most of the way through my training as a landscape designer and eager to start from scratch in terms of plant palette, with the exception of my two magnificent trees and a few interesting, mature shrubs. But tackling the steps was more challenging, and had to come first. I wanted a more direct approach to the house but knew I would need landings, retaining walls – and lots of steps. One experienced designer, a friend and my part-time employer, consulted on the concept for the new steps. Another friend was kind enough to shoot grades for me, and eventually I came up with a plan:

The plan for my new steps and front yard plantings.

Then I hired a wonderful stonemason to bring the plan to reality, and watched as the design came to life.

The hillside resembled a battle zone at times.

Because of the scale of the pillars at the landings, I decided to use 3″ flagstone caps rather than the 2″ ones I had originally planned for. It increased the price but made the structures look just right rather than wimpy on top.

The steps and walls, awaiting only final mortaring and lighting fixtures.

The landings are edged in brick, to tie them to the brick on the house.

Brick-edged landing areas help the flagstone and fieldstone steps and walls relate to the brick house.

The planting phase, after the steps were done, was icing on the  cake (although since I did most of it myself, my back still hurts to think about it). Out came the oversized yews and non-blooming azaleas. On the north-facing slope, I planted a small ‘Crimson Queen’ dissectum Japanese maple, ‘Halcyon’ hostas, skimmia, cherry laurels, ferns, hellebores and dwarf azaleas. Next to the house, there are more cherry laurel (I was trying to avoid the predictable palette in our area of too many azaleas) and hydrangeas, along with some old pieris; Solomon’s seal and hostas which I spray against the maurading deer; and fothergilla and Itea virginica. A weeping yew spills over the top retaining wall and I planted a Schizophragma hydrangeoides (Japanese hydrangea) on the wall next to the front door.

The front yard in 2003, three years after the steps were replaced.

The only hardscape left untouched in this project is about to get its own makeover now. The front steps and stoop next to the front door are concrete and brick. I didn’t face them with flagstone in 2000 because the veneer sizes available weren’t workable. Now I’m glad I didn’t, because unfortunately the concrete stoop is cracking, causing moisture problems in the basement. So some time in the next few months, my great stonemason will return, demolish the stoop, and for a price that is about 1/3 of what I paid for all the stonework you see here, build a new set of brick and flagstone steps and stoop. Lemonade from lemons, I guess, even though my pocketbook is protesting. But it will finally tie everything together – and then I will get to replace all the snow-damaged plants next to the steps. I’ve already started thinking about that part!

Tulips for A Shutterbug

As a landscape designer, I tend to plant daffodils for clients who have deer problems, or who prefer bulbs that can be depended upon to return for many years, if the site is right (mostly in terms of adequate sun and not too much ground moisture).

But as a photographer, my heart belongs primarily to tulips. Here is one of my first images of a tulip taken just for the pure joy of the color. I was trying out my new macro lens at the Cylburn Arboretum, near Baltimore. I have to say the composition isn’t great – your eye doesn’t really know where to rest. But the color probably made me a little crazy.

Parrot tulips at the Cylburn Arboretum near Baltimore, MD.

Brookside Gardens is a great place to photograph daffodils in the spring (my next header, going up in April, is a “slice” of tulips from one of their beds a couple of years ago).  In this shot, I went for the repeating line of the bulb heads. I think this is probably ‘Princes Irene,’ one of the most fabulous of the orange tulips. Wish I’d gotten a little more of the stem in the shot.

Orange tulips at Brookside Gardens

Another great place to photograph different varieties of tulips is the Tulip Library in downtown DC,  near the Tidal Basin in view of the Jefferson Memorial. You have to catch it just right, but if you do there are countless varieties to enjoy, all of them labeled.  Here’s ‘Banja Luka’ from an early-morning visit several years ago. This time, I went for a cropped profile shot, close up to capture the dew still on the petals.

Tulip 'Banja Luka' at the National Tulip Library can't be checked out except visually.

Finally, here are two more recent photos, both taken at my house with the tulips in vases, so I was able to control lighting and was able to get shots without contorting my body or groveling in the dirt. Special thanks to Brent and Becky Heath, whose bulb company sent me (as a member of the Garden Writers Association) some extra bulbs to trial. So here is ‘Perestroyka’, followed by a closeup of an unknown pink tulip.

A clutch of Tulip Perestroyka, their stems bending over the side of a vase.

This shape on the side of the tulip is what caught my eye as a photographer.

One final note: if you love tulips and want some that do come back (unlike the Darwin hybrids and the other stunners shown above), try some species tulips, like the Kaufmanniana or Greigii cultivars. I have a small group of  ‘Stresa’ tulips (yellow and red) that have been blooming reliably for me for over six years in a sunny, well-drained site. More on these another time!

Worth Quoting

As a garden photographer, I like to believe in the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words. Sometimes, however – just sometimes – I discover I can be proven wrong.

My “real job” is heating up as the snow melts, so beginning with this coming weekend I will have to cut back to one post a week. But one of the many hats I wear in the landscape design firm where I work is newsletter editor. Every issue  I try to include a quotation about gardens, or seasons, or plants. Sometimes they are well-known (like Pope’s “genius of the place” phrase). But I especially love finding gardening-related quotations I’ve never come across before, that resonate and make me smile. Here are a few I especially like, paired with photographs that seem to match. Hope you enjoy them. And let me know if you have a good quote to share.

First a howling blizzard woke us,
Then the rain came down to soak us,
And now before the eye can focus –
Crocus.

– Lilja Rogers

April prepares her green traffic light  and the world thinks Go.
– Christopher Morley, John Mistletoe

As sense-bludgeoning as a rose.
– Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses