The Italian Villa I Tatti sits in the foothills east of Florence in a stony landscape pockmarked by quarries that supplied the pietra serena for Renaissance Florence. Built in the 16th century and renovated in the early 1900s for the American art dealer Bernard Berenson and his wife Mary Pearsall Smith, the villa and garden located…
It’s a commonplace to say that a garden is different each time you see it, but my most recent visit to Villa d’Este at Tivoli confirmed that some truisms really are true: you can’t step in the same water twice. Not that I was stepping in water. I was surrounded by it, however, since water…
Last year, Michael Gordon, a gardener in New Hampshire, wrote about a book called Go With Me: 50 Steps to Landscape Thinking. In his blog post he described how he used the book to enrich a tour he was leading through gardens in England. His description intrigued me and I immediately ordered the book on…
Success comes from three things, Pearl Fryar told me the other day — from work, passion and marketing. Fryar has them all. Pearl Fryar knows what he’s good at and cheerfully shares his knowledge with even a casual visitor like me who stopped by unannounced on a Saturday afternoon. I found him working in the garden but he stopped to…
I’m a big fan of ThinkinGardens, the British website edited by Anne Wareham. While the bulk of the posts relate to gardening and gardens in England, posts also cover topics of wider interest. As the website itself says, it’s a website “for people who want more than gardening from gardens.” ThinkinGardens isn’t modest or retiring, and…
Middleton Place is described as America’s oldest landscaped garden. Laid out in 1741 with romantic additions dating from the 19th and 20th century, it is a fascinating example of international style with a southern accent. A bit of history: First settled in the late 17th century, Middleton Place was acquired by Henry Middleton…
Are gardens intellectual endeavours or places to soothe the spirits? If a garden is intended to be a conceptual work of art, does it succeed if it has to be explained? And what responsibility rests on the person viewing the garden to understand the ideas that shaped it? Make the questions personal: should I have…
Don’t you hate reminding yourself of resolutions made and forgotten? Yesterday, as a gloomy December began, I re-read a blog post I wrote in January. I was looking ahead then to what I wanted to accomplish in 2014. There were loose ends I planned to tie up, and new projects I hoped to start. I’m sad to say…
Not long ago I spent some time going through old gardening magazines. I was looking for photos to use for an art project but the articles and ads I came across proved more diverting than I expected. Magazines used to be ubiquitous. No longer. At least two of the magazines I was thumbing through have gone out…
Et, voila! Welcome to the new Glen Villa Gardens website, Site and Insight: Reflecting on Art and Landscape. The new Site and Insight merges my old website and my weekly blog, and adds new features with more information about gardens, landscape and art. I’m delighted with the appearance and the ease with which readers can move through the various…