The Madoo Conservancy is a garden created over a period of almost forty years by the artist Robert Dash. Located in Sagaponack, New York, at the eastern end of Long Island, it is a destination garden, described as a magical oasis that evokes delight. It is a garden praised by many, including Rosemary Verey, the former doyenne of British gardening who designed gardens for Prince Charles, Elton John and the New York Botanical Garden. I’ve even heard it described as a masterpiece.
So why did I find it a disappointment? More than that, why did I find it so irritating?
Believe me, criticizing the Madoo Conservancy isn’t easy. Going against received wisdom makes you question your own judgement. Did I fail to recognize something significant about Madoo and its design? Or is the Madoo Conservancy’s reputation a case of the emperor’s new clothes?
I visited the garden in June 2015. I was eager to see a place I’d read about in magazines and in Dash’s book, Notes from Madoo: Making a Garden in the Hamptons. I knew I’d see lots of colour. And I did.
Primary colours are used boldly at the Madoo Conservancy.
How could I fail to see it? Colour was everywhere, sprinkled with abandon throughout the 2 acre site, not in plants as much as in painted posts, fences, benches, doors and windows.
The painted post and bench near the entry to the garden told me I was going to like Madoo as much as I expected to.
Don’t get me wrong. I like colour and the primary colours that I greeted me on arrival were exciting. Walking along the pebble path, I knew this garden would go on my list of favourites.
And at first, all my expectations were met. I walked from bright sunshine into shade along a hosta-rich path that led to a grove of ginkgo trees. Underneath boxwood balls were arranged seemingly at random. It was a quirky planting that made me smile.
This grove of fastigiate ginkgoes is considered one of Dash’s most original plantings.
The pond with its Chinese style bridge, one of the most photographed places in the garden, was a delightful place to rest.
Red ovals frame a quiet view. While the colours are at odds with the Chinese style pavilion, they continue the pop-like theme that is a trademark of the colours at Madoo.
But other areas of the garden made me hesitate. The salmony pink and turquoise used on a patio near the house didn’t feel cutting edge. Far from it — the colours felt as out-dated as the decor in an old maid’s living room.
Apart from the colours which felt reminiscent of the 1950s, the untrimmed hedges and weedy, uneven brickwork suggest a lack of funds. A money shortage in the Hamptons? Surely not!
Nearby, glass cloches on metal shelves were arranged around a bust of Beethoven. This wasn’t quirky, it was downright odd, particularly since Beethoven seemed to be rising out of a compost heap.
I’m not a fussy housekeeper but a dirty mirror adds nothing to this mishmash of bits and pieces. Nor do the weeds. And what’s with the woven wood backdrop? It’s not attractive and it relates to nothing, as far as I can tell. Certainly not to the green and yellow fence or the stone fruit baskets.
Poor quality materials and haphazard maintenance were evident throughout the garden. A water feature said to be a tribute to the rill in the Generalife garden at the Alhambra was a crooked, wobbly disaster, with uneven brickwork that was downright dangerous.
I can’t help comparing this rill to ones I’ve seen elsewhere, like the beautiful one at Hestercombe designed by Edward Lutyens. Or the mysterious one at Rousham. Or Geoffrey Jellicoe’s musical rill at Shute House.
The planting beds around the crooked rill were colourful but the plants used were unimaginative and the roses that I expected to see climbing the hoops were barely in sight.
The boxwood in the foreground needs to be pruned or replaced. The undulating hedge in the background is echoed on the opposite side of the rill by an undulating evergreen hedge.
Near the rill was a dogwood (Cornus florida) pruned to mimic the shrubs nearby. In an interview with P. Allen Smith, Dash says the garden “celebrates the art of pruning,” but this is a celebration I can do without.
I acknowledge that I have never before seen a dogwood, pruned like an open umbrella. I hope I never see another. The faux bois stumps are funerary objects. To my eye any appeal they might have is lost because of the crowded space.
The garden as a whole was over-crowded, with plants and people. On the day I visited, a special event was taking place and vendors selling up-market products occupied areas that otherwise would be open space. At the end of the rill a private luncheon was taking place under a large marquee, and waiters pushing past my travel companion and me made us feel like intruders in a garden we’d paid to visit.
Without doubt this adversely affected my experience of the garden. The marquee blocked a vista and the vendors cluttered the lawn and the path to the potager. Even so, I found Madoo a disappointment. A garden I expected to be a rising star felt like a garden in steep decline.
And then there were the paths. So many different materials and patterns were used that I lost count. Brick was set on edge,
Brick edges a stony path near the entry.
inserted in dotted lines …
Is this an example of abstract painting at ground level or of awkward design?
and cleverly arranged to make walking the path treacherous.
Another abstraction? Definitely awkward underfoot.
Stones of various shapes were used, close-set…
Closely-laid stones created an even surface in this area.
and widely spaced.
Stones arranged at random formed more patterns. I like the different textures seen here.
Dirt paths appeared in some areas, occasionally inset with slices of telephone poles.
Note the crooked brick edging. Was Dash the first one to use slices of telephone poles? We have a Log Terrace at Glen Villa, also made from slices of telephone poles. Did the family who built our house get the idea from Madoo? Our house was built around the same time.
Overall, Madoo feels like a garden that has lost its way, a garden that either lacks money or attention to detail. Yet it appears to be well-loved by the people who know it, and judging from its website, well-integrated into its community.
Madoo is an old Scottish word meaning “my dove,” and while I saw or heard no cooing birds while I was there, I do not doubt that the name encapsulates the love Dash felt for the spot and his place within it. Madoo is a very personal garden, created by an individual with a particular mind-set who lived at a particular time. So I end by asking myself, once again, if I missed something. Is the Madoo Conservancy a garden that needs to visited several times, in different seasons, in order to be appreciated? Or is it simply a period piece that has lost its edge?
Reluctantly, I conclude it is the latter.
You are brave to go against the grain but at the end of the day you have to go with your gut. Based on your photos it looks like it has been neglected. Perhaps they don’t have the staff to keep it fresh and up to date. I’ve never visited the garden but I agree with your take. There doesn’t appear to be much that excites the visual eye other than pops of inserted color.
It’s disappointing when you visit a garden with high expectations, only to have them dashed. If I ever find myself near Madoo again, I’d go back. There are points of interest and I hope the Conservancy is able to restore the garden’s potential.
I love that you have an encyclopedic knowledge of rills, Pat!!
Not encyclopedic but I’ve seen a few.
It is difficult to critique a garden and you have done a good job! The pictures support your take on things. I have been to several gardens over the years that trade on their name but have lost there bloom! This garden needs a lot of TLC. I am sure it is hard on it having so many visitors yearly and maintenance is quite expensive these days. I found it a bit sad!
It is hard to critique a garden, particularly in print. I have never writtne negatively about any private garden created with love by an individual, and I think I never will. So much work goes into it and if the person is happy with results, who am I to criticize? But a public garden is different. I agree, it did look sad.
Needs edging too! It seems like this was one occasion where you have to look through the forest to see the trees and try and see what was, to create the vision of what would be or should be? Another time, definitely!
There were some fine elements in the garden but it definitely seemed to lack tlc. I wish I’d seen the garden when Dash was alive, or even better, when he and the garden were in their prime.
I agree with Laurin that it is hard to critique a garden, especially one so personal as this one clearly is (was?). But your post is convincing.
By the way, I’ve seen a revival of that dusty pink at Target this week in pillows and blankets. A quick online search reveals a dusty pink revival! One example: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/trend-alert-pink-marble-copper-217477. What goes around comes around, and perhaps Madoo’s color scheme is on trend again. 🙂 Pam/Digging: http://www.penick.net
Dusty pink revivals… oh, not sure I can go back to wearing that colour or using Windsor Rose nail polish (if I wore nail polish) that was the rage in my mother’s generation. But who knows, perhaps that colour scheme is on trend. Why not, since this year’s colour picks are blue and pink, with names I’ve forgotten.
Hmmm, after reading your
post, I visited a couple “image” sites and found the garden, as experimental
artistic expression, successful in some areas but only rather odd in others.
And as you note, much of the hardscape is shabby to the point of being
dangerous. It’s hard, though, to get a sense of a place from just
photographs and I hope it has a spirit that transcends its defects, at least on
another day when hospitality is more warmly expressed.
Seeing a garden only through photos is not seeing it at all. As you say, there’s no sense of place. And despite my criticisms of Madoo, there was a sense of place and a strong personality to the garden. I wish I’d seen it when Dash was alive and actively creating it. I bet I would have loved it.
Marian, I really like your phrase “when hospitality is more warmly expressed.” It’s nicely southern. Certainly at Madoo hospitality could have been more warmly expressed, and I wish it had been.
Very interesting post and comments. It’s funny that I grew up on Long Island and this is the first I have heard of Madoo (though I grew up on the opposite end of LI, where it was pronounced Long Guyland). I like the brightly painted hardscape items but that clipped flowering dogwood made me cringe. Why would you do that to a plant with such a beautiful natural form? Seeing all these disjointed elements I can imagine different gardeners over the years being inspired to go in different directions, with no one keeping the whole in mind.
That clipped dogwood made me want to leave the garden. Who cares if its clipped form echoes the clipped boxwood? It’s terrible to ruin the natural shape. As far as I know, there was only one gardener, the artist Robert Dash himself. His paintings went in many directions, so perhaps his garden is a fair reflection of that.
Interesting. There are sections that seemed OK, but maybe needed a little extra TLC as you describe. But that area with the Beethoven bust is surprising, indeed. I’m not sure how I’d describe it, but you’re review is thorough and helpful.
There was a lot more I could have shown and said about the garden, some good, some bad. The Beethoven compost pile was a highlight of strange, at least for me.
I have never been crazy about this garden even though I only know it from photos. For me, too much color and objects that distract from the plants. In your photos it looks like a private garden that is going downhill as the gardener ages. This is OK in our own gardens but not in one that you are paying to visit or is being hyped for its design. I am concluding — based on your photos — the reason that the Chinese waiting bench or the Ginkgos with box balls are iconic is because that is all we are typically shown. There is obviously much more to see but not of the same design quality and certainly not maintenance quality. You are right abut it being dangerous with some of those paths etc. I think your criticism is well justified.
I’ve heard from several people who visited the garden when Dash was alive and it seemed to be better then, with a personal rather than a ‘let’s preserve it as much as we can afford’ touch. I like strong colours and enjoyed seeing them at Madoo but without the support of good maintenance and excellent design, they felt unanchored. I like your observation about some designs becoming iconic because that is all we are shown.. good point, Linda.
Thank you for this very truthful and honest description of Madoo. As the Director of Madoo for the past six years I can attest to many of your points.
Firstly I am sorry that you were there during Much Ado About Madoo our annual fundraiser. As you point our we are in need of funds and this sort of event is necessary. It is a paid event so yes you did have to pay for entrance that day and have to put up with our event.
We have been working very hard on the garden and those in the gardening world who have seen the transformation over the past two years have been marveled by it. Yet there is much to do.
The paths do change from area to area; some like that some do not. And they almost all certainly do need repair. The Beethoven pit for want of a better word is getting an overhaul. The buxus you refer to has already been removed. You may not like dusky pink and teal but Bob did choose those colors and on the very morning you were there Marco Polo Stufano complemented me on the color scheme. Even so it may change as that sunken terrace is renovated. The Cornus kousa you so dislike is a seldom seen naturally weeping variety–they are in fact one of the glories of the garden. In fact the golden Chamaecyparis are to be removed to highlight the dogwoods.
Much remains to be done but we must go about it with the funds on hand and with great care to truly find the essence of what Bob was trying to do.
Another view of Madoo weeds, uneven paths et al is here: http://www.gardenista.com/posts/a-painters-legacy-madoo-garden-lives-on-robert-dash-sagaponack
Thank you.
I appreciate that you took the time to respond to my review of the Madoo Conservancy with such care and thoroughness. I hope to return to the garden one day and look forward to seeing the changes you mention. In the meantime I send warm wishes for the garden’s future and continuing success as a much used and much loved community resource.