Garden Design

It seems possible that turn-of-the-century style -- the one design historians in the next millennium will look back on -- will be something no one would have guessed a decade ago. Call it nature-inspired design, or eco-decorating. Call it interiorscaping.Call it garden style. It's so pervasive that people are using it to decorate their houses without even thinking about it as a distinct style. "Simple touches such as a kitchen window filled with plants or flowers from your garden make a difference in how your home feels," says Linda Hallam in her book "Garden Style" (Better Homes and Garden Books, 1999)

Dolores C. Hoover, a retired floral designer and avid gardener, died of congestive heart failure Thursday at Good Samaritan Hospital. She was 76 and lived in Monkton. Born Dolores Marie Clayton in High Point near Forest Hill, she grew up on a family farm in Kingsville. While attending a neighborhood party, she met her future husband, Charles Dennis Hoover, who was entertaining guests as he played guitar. As a senior at Towson High School, she married him the day before her graduation in 1952.

Columbia business wins blue ribbon for garden design Grandfather's Garden Center in Columbia has won an award for innovative garden design. The company was awarded a blue ribbon for Best Specialty Garden last month at the 2004 Washington Home and Garden Show at the Washington Convention Center. Its winning garden was modest in size - 20 feet by 40 feet - and included flowering trees, shrubs and annuals, an artificial golf green and two small ponds. The garden was designed by Lynn Mason and built under the direction of landscape manager Ron Milam.

About four years ago, Jeanne Rowell decided she wanted to create a formal Christmas tree decorated entirely with Maryland-themed ornaments for the holiday showroom at Homestead Gardens. She visited various sites that sell ornaments throughout the region, and found that the selection of Maryland-themed decorations was slim. She said she decided that if she couldn't find ornaments to decorate the tree, she would design her own. "I already buy ornaments in Europe every year," she said. "And if you give the glass factories the designs, they will make anything that you want."

Call it "The Big Till," a magazine for baby boomers who at this stage in life are going, if not totally to seed, then to bulbs and compost and all those other earthly delights.Actually, the stylish new magazine is called Garden Design, and it seeks to put a uniquely boomer spin on the subject of gardening. If that's reminiscent of what Metropolitan Home did with interior design, there's a reason: Dorothy Kalins, who left Met Home last year when it was sold and now heads the new gardening bimonthly.

Some of our greatest gardens are built exclusively around native plants and home-grown traditions, but American gardeners have always looked far and wide for ideas for their back yards. For gardeners around the world, whether they're novices or experienced old hands, the deepest and most fascinating well of outside inspiration is the annual Chelsea Flower Show in London. The spectacular display of the ideas, skills and showmanship of world-renowned English garden designers helps set the direction for garden design.

In a recent item on MacKenzie-Childs Inc.'s new paper products, I said that a majolica mug from the designers could cost as much as $75. A company representative was quick to let me know that would be the cost of a mug and saucer. Mugs alone are no more than $50.Paper napkins made elegantDevotees of MacKenzie-Childs will be delighted to learn that they can soon get a bit of disposable joy in their lives with the firm's latest designs: paper plates and napkins. Considering that a MacKenzie-Childs' handcrafted majolica mug retails for as much as $75 -- don't even ask how much the painted furniture costs -- these pretty paper products are also affordable ephemera.

The Historical Society of Carroll County will offer a series of "In the Garden" seminars in conjunction with the Designer Showhouse 2002. Programs will be held in a climate-controlled tent next to Atlee House on Water Street, New Windsor. Seminars are free with an Atlee House Tour Ticket, except for the vintage tea. Seminars are at 1 p.m. unless noted. Seminars are: Tuesday: Birds by Lynn Walter, Silver Fancy Garden Club; followed by Vegetable Gardening by Marilyn Potter, Mount Airy Garden Club.

Apple Annie's has a little bit of everything, from Victorian to Southwestern, country to contemporary. "And 95 percent of it is made by local hand crafters," says owner Mary Anne Dunn. The new Cockeysville craft and gift store also sells some antiques.Here are baskets, handmade oak and pine furniture, gifts and decorative accessories reasonably priced between $5 and $500.If the name sounds familiar, Apple Annie's was at Towson Town Center for a year, but it's more at home among the craft and antiques shops in Cockeysville than in a mall.

The trend blossomed last fall with the introduction of Cher's "Sanctuary" catalog. Now Gothic-style designs are widely available in stores, from reproduction furniture to tapestry fabrics.For those interested in accents rather than the complete medieval look, Papier Interiors is carrying a new line of Gothic reproduction drapery rods and hardware by Robert Allen. It's called the Heraldry Collection and includes valance embellishments, rods, tiebacks, finials and brackets. They come finishes like antique rust, bronze medallion and Renaissance gold.

Although it has been proposed as a place to bring prayer, peace and healing to Baltimore, the John Paul II Memorial Prayer Garden project will have to first overcome a turbulent beginning. Enter landscape architect Scott Rykiel, a self-described "Polish kid from Baltimore" who has worked on projects around the world but retains a soft spot for his hometown and its precious public green spaces. Rykiel, 51, has designed the memorial garden planned for the site of the Rochambeau apartment building at Charles and Franklin streets.

Except for a couple of shorn pools of grass, the front lawn at Pam White's Glyndon home is virtually all garden. Sculpted Japanese maples anchor one side of the slate walk, which is banked by broad, undulating beds of perennials and shrubs. A small conifer -- a dwarfed "natural bonsai" rescued from years of crowding -- now holds pride of place in a little mulched lay-by. Bronze fennel, planted for the swallowtail butterflies, and cleome, for the Baltimore Checkerspot butterflies, wave beside the breezeway.

Lots of things can spark horticultural inspiration, but there's nothing like visiting gardens to really get your creative juices going. Luckily, here in the Mid-Atlantic we have public gardens of all stripes from which to draw ideas. Some have year-round interest. Others, like the William Paca Garden in the heart of historic Annapolis, are at their best early in the season. "The garden is in full bloom in spring," says Molly Rideout, director of the Paca Garden. Columbine, fringe tree, rose campion, pot marigold, native azaleas and flowering dogwood all froth through the walled, 2-acre space.

Gardeners don't take the winter off. The gardens may be dormant, but those who tend them never are. If they are not outside on a mild day, gardeners are indoors, reading their seed catalogs or making entries in their journals and garden diagrams -- the homework of gardening. So, it makes sense to remember the gardener at Christmas, because she hasn't forgotten her garden. Here are some suggestions. For the gardener who finds any excuse to work outdoors, even in winter, Bionic Gloves ($40)

Mother Nature is smart. She knows how to keep our spirits up even when the nights are closing in. Just as the colors fade from the garden, she cranks up the volume on the trees. First the dogwoods (Cornus) begin to tinge crimson. Then the maples (Acer) glow peach and tangerine, as though washed in sunset. Then practically overnight, the Ginkgoes (Ginkgo biloba) switch from kelly green to flawless saffron. "Ginkgo's awesome," says Rob Ditmars, manager of Tuckahoe Nursery in Centreville.

Columbia business wins blue ribbon for garden design Grandfather's Garden Center in Columbia has won an award for innovative garden design. The company was awarded a blue ribbon for Best Specialty Garden last month at the 2004 Washington Home and Garden Show at the Washington Convention Center. Its winning garden was modest in size - 20 feet by 40 feet - and included flowering trees, shrubs and annuals, an artificial golf green and two small ponds. The garden was designed by Lynn Mason and built under the direction of landscape manager Ron Milam.

Not so long ago, when everyday gardeners thought of annuals, what came to mind was impatiens, petunias, geraniums, marigolds and zinnias -- and maybe the occasional cosmos or cleome. That has changed as gardeners have grown more sophisticated and demanding. Ordinary backyard gardens today are likely to feature favorites from Granny's day, such as love-lies-bleeding, as well as newcomers imported from Australia or South Africa. But even the most determined gardener could never grow all the annuals Allan M. Armitage covers in his new book, Armitage's Manual of Annuals, Biennials, and Half-Hardy Perennials (Timber Press, $39.95)

Though English poet William Wordsworth was wandering "lonely as a cloud" when he spied "a host of golden daffodils," he never mentioned their fragrance. Must have been too high up to smell them, because daffodils (Narcissus) fill the air with sweet perfume.Although they've been in cultivation for thousands of years, there were only 24 varieties of daffodil listed in Britain in Wordsworth's day (1800). Today, thanks to the busy hands of hybridizers, there are thousands, including hosts of not only golden, but white, cream, and salmon-cupped daffodils, with fragrances that range from spring rain to elusive sweetness to the rich musk of gardenia.