GREEN IS MY FAVORITE COLOR

Gardeners training vine at Sissinghurst, in England

Villa lante, Itlay

Simple tall elegant hedge

Boxwood creates pattern

THINK GREEN!

No this is a rambling Diatribe on the glories of conservation. It's color theory and the overlooked and often under appreciated color GREEN.

A tall elegant six to eight foot hedge enclosing a garden, or a low boxwood hedge used to edge and define areas. Also ground covers use to create drifts of green..and yes even the much maligned turf lawn all use variations of green.

Even our most beloved flowering plants use a base of green from which to contrast there blooms.

So think green. A garden doesn't need to be forty different colors. A garden of all greens is a calm soothing place, when done right is timeless.

Nothing thrills me more than the gardens of Italy that use green architecture to create spaces of unparalleled beauty. Villa Lante, Villa de Este are of course some of the most famous, but Italy is flooded with great gardens that have been time tested.

A few of my favorite ever-green plants for North east america

1. Ilex (Holly) Blue hollys & crenata's like steeds or Ilex opaca 'cheasapeake'

2. Buxus (Boxwood) Lots of varieties to love:

3. Hedra (IVY) many varieties a real classic

4. Taxus (Yew) wonderful for shaping

5. Arborvitae: Great substitute for Italian cypress trees in the north east

6. Pachysandra: Yes I even love this much over used and under appreciated ground cover.
7. Eunoymus: 'Manhattan' for large shiney leaves and fortunei 'emerald gaiety' for a ground cover

HUDSON VALLEY MAGAZINE ARTICLE

Writer Lynn Hazlewood from Hudson Valley Magazine and I had a chat about my garden and the results with photos are published in the July 2009 issue of the Magazine.

Click here for the link:
http://www.hvmag.com/Hudson-Valley-Magazine/Hudson-Valley-Home/Summer-2009/Italian-Lesson/

Below is the opening for the Article.

Italian Lesson
Taking his cues from classic Italian gardens, a landscape designer uses local materials and lush plantings to create his own interpretation
By: Lynn Hazlewood Published June 17, 2009 at 10:25 AM

The kitchen garden, on the upper tier, has a more rustic, casual look than gardens closer to the house, but is laid out symmetrically, with beds edged in box. Michael Schoeller grows the classics: tons of tomatoes, heirloom potatoes, herbs, Swiss chard, lemon grass, and things we can’t get at the local farmer’s stand. Yellow Tagetes marigolds, zinnias, gourds twining over arbors, and trumpet vine trained along the fence give the garden spice, he says

Photographs by Philip Jensen-Carter