The Gardener's Gift of Travel


planned the gardens; and Paul Chalfin was the general artistic supervisor for every phase of the project. Early on in the planning, Deering wrote the following to Chalfin, "My idea about orchids was to have a place where they could be raised for the use of the house. I am very fond of them and would like an ample supply if it's possible to have it." This sort of guidance helped set the elegant tone for the project.

A classical style predominates in the Orchid Pavillon.

The gardens were conceived and planned by Colombian-born Suarez as an extension of the house, as vast garden rooms. However, due to the outbreak of World War I and the resulting shortage of workers and materials, the gardens were not completed until 1921. These gardens provide one of the key focal points from the villa. Nature, with a little help from Vizcaya's creators, shaped the eastern vista, the waters of Biscayne Bay just steps from the house, but the ten acres of constructed formal gardens provide the dominant southern vista. The installation of these Italian-style formal gardens at Vizcaya is thought by some garden historians to represent the introduction of new art to this country.

What makes these formal gardens so interesting and enduring is the effective adaptation of classical European landscaping to the uniquely tropical climate and terrain of south Florida. Florida jasmine replaced the traditional boxwood, Buxus sp., hedges, while live oaks, Quercus virginiana, replaced the plane trees, Platanus sp. found in traditional Italian hill gardens.

Live oaks dripping with Spanish Moss set the tone in Formal Gardens flanking the south side of the villa.

Our next stop is The Mount (Lenox, MA) in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts, home for ten years of American author Edith Wharton (1862-1937). Conceived, as was Vizcaya, in the early 20th century, the house and gardens at The Mount were designed and built by Wharton as her design laboratory.

Here in the classically conceived house with English, French and Italian influences, she implemented the principles expressed in her first major book, The Decoration of Houses (1897). She specified in Italian Villas and Their Gardens (1904) that landscape surrounding a house should be divided into rooms and planned so that the gardens are a gradual transition between the architecture of the house and the natural landscape beyond.

The formal Flower Garden planted mostly with annuals.

The Walled Garden with a central fountain.

At The Mount,

The copyright of the article The Gardener's Gift of Travel in Landscape Design is owned by Georgene A. Bramlage. Permission to republish The Gardener's Gift of Travel in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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