Points of colour A richly planted garden in New York’s Catskill Mountains, where detail is gradually coming into its own
In the Catskill Mountains, New York State, adventurous planting is creating a garden with an ever-changing palette
Known for his encyclopaedic knowledge of plants and rich planting schemes suffused with colour, landscape designer Dean Riddle is based in New York State but has clients across the USA. He was the obvious choice of garden designer for Rebecca Robertson. Rebecca is the president and executive producer of the Park Avenue Armoury, a centre for visual and performing arts in New York City and familiar with managing major projects, but after renovating her house nested eight acres on a steeply sloping site in the Catskill Mountains she sought Dean’s advice on developing the garden. Local to the area, Dean has in-depth local knowledge of the Catskill’s sometimes harsh climate and soil.
The garden is now maturing beautifully, but Dean and Rebecca are constantly tweaking and updating the garden to keep it feeling fresh. Today, the fate of a dwarf pink cleome lies in the balance. But, after much discussion, it is gone. Further negotiations decide that additional magenta Petunia integrifolia would bring the vocabulary up a notch, while a lone gentian-coloured delphinium fails to make the grade. “This is part of the fun,” confides Rebecca. “We can constantly adjust.” Not everyone wants to tinker with annuals on a seasonal basis, but Rebecca and Dean rise to the challenge.
The site on a steep, southern slope includes a mature orchard, bedded in lean, gravelly glacial till, that gives the garden its name alongside the billowy cottage garden that is the subject of so much discussion. When Rebecca bought the property her first thoughts were to renovate the house, which was buried beneath a climbing Hydrangea anomala subsp. petiolaris. But once she had freed her home from its vine-burdened captivity and finished a veranda-accented second storey, she contacted Dean.
The brief was twofold: to mask a lacklustre entrance drive and to improve the view from the east side of the house. His driveway-screening solution was a double grove of multistemmed Amelanchier lamarckii underplanted with a plush carpet of ground-covering perennials, including sedges and ferns. A grass pathway winds its way through the trees
creating the feel of a woodland walk and leading you to the flower garden that fills the second half of Dean’s brief.
The flower garden required a little more negotiation. Dean’s initial plans failed to thrill Rebecca who had long harboured dreams to create an overgrown, romantic flower garden. The pair reached stalemate until Rebecca hit on the idea of enclosing the garden with a rustic-style stick fence similar to one Dean had used in one of his previous private gardens. “What I love about the fence is that there’s nothing perfect about it,” explains Rebecca.
The garden leads to a bluestone terrace on which Rebecca has positioned seating and a dining table where her guests can best soak in the magnificent views of the Catskills, although that view now vies for attention with the steps leading back up to the flower-filled cottage garden where flower heads peer out over the rustic fence offering an enticing glimpse of what lies within.
The garden itself combines a calming layout of simple rectangular beds between gravel walkways with a mix of plants that intertwine and tumble over paths. Using a predominant palette of blues, purples and magenta, Dean has filled the garden with familiar cottage garden favourites, such as sweet peas, salvias, alliums, ageratums, phlox and clematis, but used adventurous cultivars that are likely to be new acquaintances. He and Rebecca continue to ensure the garden remains fresh by adding a selection of annuals each year, which makes up around 20 per cent of the planting. “It’s organic,” explains Rebecca. “We move with the design and we don’t get stuck. The garden doesn’t have a fixed end point.”
Rebecca and Dean continue to plan new features. A sunken garden – Rebecca is thinking moon garden – is in the works and Dean has a water feature up his sleeve. Meanwhile, the bluestone terrace is gaining definition and the gem-like garden is constantly tweaked. As Dean says, “It’s one thing for someone to tell you things, it’s another chemistry entirely when you work together. There’s a patina that comes to a garden with age, and you simply can’t rush it. The garden tells its own story and our job is to encourage that evolution.”
Turn the page for 24 plant recommendations
Dean’s driveway-screening solution was a double grove of multi-stemmed Amelanchier lamarckii underplanted with a plush carpet of perennials