The Greensman Cometh In a world of cinematic illusion, Tim Taylor’s custom-made landscapes are beguilingly real — sometimes By Barbara Sullivan
I
f you’re a movie enthusiast who also happens
to be an avid gardener, you may have trouble keeping your mouth shut. Just as the ax murderer is sneaking around the corner of the house, getting ready to chop up the babysitter, you lean over to your friend and whisper, “How could those lilacs be blooming in the backyard now? That’s ridiculous. It’s supposed to be September.” Who knew there was an entire profession that takes care of these things so the rest of us can sit back and enjoy the movie? They’re called greensmen, and Tim Taylor is a lead greensman, plant wrangler and imaginary garden creator extraordinaire. He calls New Orleans home, but he travels the country creating what he calls “fakescapes” for the movies. This past November he spoke with Salt magazine while he was working in Wilmington for the Fox series Sleepy Hollow. A tall, fit man who dresses in sturdy work clothes suitable for shoveling mulch and digging in the dirt, he’s perhaps most recognizable by his neatly trimmed goatee and handlebar mustache. 64
Salt • Februar y 2014
Tim fell into this 70-hour-a-week, all-consuming passion almost by accident. One day, staring out an attic window in the upscale River Oaks section of Houston, bored with his job installing home insulation, he watched as a landscaping crew turned a neighboring yard from ordinary into magical. With zero prior experience, he applied for a job with the landscaper that day and learned enough over time to eventually set up his own eight-man team. For seventeen years he designed, installed and maintained serious gardens in New Orleans, Houston and Austin — everything from formal French style parterres, to English cottage gardens, children’s gardens, kitchen gardens, and interpretive landscapes for historical buildings. One day in 2007, when The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was filming in New Orleans and needed an access road built across a swamp, Tim and his bulldozer obliged. Within two years, he’d done enough work for the movies to transition to a fulltime job as a greensman. He now has twenty-seven
Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison) searches a colonial-era house which holds secrets in the “Sanctuary” episode of SLEEPY HOLLOW. Photograph © 20th. Century Fox Television/Brownie Harris The Art & Soul of Wilmington