Jim McDaniel recalls watching many visitors to Ladew Topiary Gardens stop at the edge of the overgrown iris garden, peering into thick trees and shrubs that overshadowed the delicate flowers.
Most never got much farther than the rickety steps, said McDaniel, Ladew's head of gardens.
But today, after a $500,000 restoration at the Harford County landmark, the now-sunny garden is filled with people strolling among more than 700 irises planted around a bubbling 200-foot stream. "It's everything I hoped it would be," McDaniel said. "It's a peaceful garden to walk through. I like the sound, the way it flows."
The iris garden was the last to be installed by Harvey S. Ladew, a foxhunter and horticulturist from New York, who designed 22 acres of striking formal gardens and whimsical topiary at his 250-acre estate on Jarrettsville Pike.
His vision for the iris garden was to blend Mediterranean and Asian themes along a stream. However, illness and advancing age prevented him from finishing the project before he died at age 89 in 1976.
Over the years, the stream never evolved beyond a leaky concrete culvert. The irises withered under a canopy of overgrown trees. "It just lost that iris-garden feeling," McDaniel said.
Two years ago, the nonprofit foundation that has run the gardens since the 1970s set out to renew the garden and complete Ladew's vision of "garden rooms," with names such as Yellow, White and Meadow, that grew out of a color or natural theme.
"The initial challenge was to keep in the spirit of Mr. Ladew. He had a great sense of whimsy. He also had an understated elegance in everything he did," said Allan Summers, project manager for Rodney D. Robinson Landscape Architects, the Wilmington, Del., company that designed the garden, stream and raised overlook at the head of the garden.
McDaniel said the design called for keeping original crab apples, magnolias and a Japanese maple. They were fenced off before excavators came in and peeled away the rest of the garden, down to the roots.
For two years, Robinson worked with the garden committee, using photographs and old correspondence as a design guide. He consulted noted iris expert Bruce Hornstein in choosing the iris varieties (there are more than 60), and Hornstein provided about 600 irises for the project.
Nancy Brewster, Ladew's garden committee chairwoman, says the results are terrific.
"I'm absolutely thrilled with it," she said. "I like the layout more. It's a wide vista."
