With his original digital Canon Rebel, landscape designer Duncan Brine makes images that share the design principles of his garden, “how it works.”

© gardenlarge.com

Duncan’s wife, Julia Brine, his partner in their landscape design firm, Horticultural Design, Inc., depicts botanical and natural subjects in watercolor and pencil.

© Julia Brine

Learn more at gardenlarge.com.

October 22, 11am-5pm and October 23, 1pm-4pm, at the Frances Ryan Thomas Memorial Center of Christ Church on Quaker Hill in Pawling, NY.

Join the Brines and other FrOGS to celebrate the diverse beauty of our local, majestic wetland. Enjoy work by local artists and artisans, educational displays, food, and activities.

© Constance Duhamel

FrOGS (Friends of the Great Swamp) is an active voice for the protection of the Great Swamp, one of the largest freshwater wetlands in New York State.

The New England Wild Flower Society to visit the Brine Garden

The Brine Design:
Landscape and Garden Principles in Practice

Join an on-site seminar at landscape designer Duncan Brine’s own six-acre garden. The Brine Garden – now in its 21st year – resembles a public garden, with multiple areas, each with its own character.

© gardenlarge

America’s first native plant group, The New England Wild Flower Society of Framingham, Massachusetts is to visit the Brine Garden this fall.

Native plants from Horticultural Design’s nursery help the Brine Garden blend with adjacent naturalistic areas and preserved lands. Anne Raver of The New York Times recently described the garden as a “dream-like landscape.” Author Ruah Donnelly describes The Brine Garden as “a naturalistic display garden of remarkable artistry and diversity.” Prolific garden book author, Tovah Martin, writes that at the Brine Garden, “elements of concealment and surprise are written into the landscape.” This roaming seminar will include a discussion of Duncan Brine’s landscape design process, and respond to your observations and questions.

Leader: Duncan Brine is the Principal of Horticultural Design, Inc., Pawling, NY, as well as an instructor for the New York Botanical Garden.

Fall 2011

Saturday, October 1, from 1pm to 4p

Registration

Anne’s Favorites:

If you’re starting a new garden or contemplating a redesign, consider a naturalistic approach, which has renewed relevance in today’s environment.

© 2011 Rob Cardillo

TWENTY YEARS AGO, I left New York City with my future wife to make a garden and a new life in the country, north of the city. There I found inspiration in moving away from the status quo of traditional gardens and toward a career creating naturalistic gardens….

Read the full article

For more information please check out our Brine Garden page

The Brine Garden is a chapter of this beautiful new book.

“The line between art and nature has never seemed so blurred as it is in the Brine Garden.”
— Gardens of the Hudson Valley
Nancy Berner and Susan Lowry

Gardens of the Hudson Valley, by co-writers Susan Lowry and Nancy Berner,  is the topic of this spring 2011 Rocky Hills Lecture.  Photography of some of the valley’s iconic and historic gardens, both public and private, by Sue Daley and Steve Gross, will be featured.

Rocky Hills, the garden of Henriette and William Suhr, is a Garden Conservancy Preservation Project in Mount Kisco, New York. The Rocky Hills Lecture Series is presented by the Friends of Rocky Hills.

Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 7:30 p.m.
Chappaqua Public Library
195 South Greeley Avenue
Chappaqua, New York
Free admission

Brine Garden is a chapter of this beautiful new book.

The majesty of the Hudson River has captivated both artists and visitors for generations, and the gardens along its banks have a unique character. From the early gardens of riverfront estates like Clermont and Montgomery Place, with their sweeping lawns and spectacular views of the river and far-off mountains, to the Beaux Arts masterpiece Kykuit and the 1950s gardens at Manitoga, the historic gardens highlight the significant r…ole of the Hudson Valley in the development of American landscape design. Many of the major figures worked here, including Andrew Jackson Downing, Frederick Law Olmsted, Beatrix Farrand, and Fletcher Steele, and their ideas continue to resonate in the 21st century. Included are a number of private, contemporary gardens that are informed by both the history and topography of the valley; the grand themes evoked in the larger historic properties are echoed in these smaller, more modest landscapes.

Hort members $10; non-members $15

Register online at: www.hsny.org/programs_workshops_talks_tours.html#gardens_hudsonvalley

For more information please check out our Brine Garden page

Discover a contextual approach to shaping landscape and garden space. A design method
is outlined which bases decision-making on the characteristics of the site, not conventional
style or structure. Topics include connecting spaces, the relationship between background and foreground, transparency, and framing views. The instructor illustrates his talk with images of his 6-acre naturalistic garden.

Instructor: Duncan Brine

Friday, February 25, 2011 from 10 am -12 pm.

Registration

If you’re able to get to this class, consider following it with lunch on Arthur Ave. or a stroll through the garden (weather permitting).