FLOWER MARCH•APRIL 2023
HOUSE l GARDEN l LIFESTYLE
FASHION in BLOOM A TIMELESS LONG ISLAND
Family Home WOMEN AND THEIR GARDENS WITH
CHARLOTTE MOSS
PHOTOS: MICHAEL MUNDY (RIGHT); BRIAN BIEDER (TOP RIGHT)
MARCH• APRIL 2023
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FEATURES
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A Perfect Match
Maggie Griffin creates a colorful, cozy house that hits a sweet spot for both designer and client.
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Collaborative Nature
For this Washington State garden, a homeowner passionate about plants partners with a horticultural professional to exciting and exuberant effect.
62 PHOTOS: MICHAEL MUNDY (RIGHT); BRIAN BIEDER (TOP RIGHT)
Memories in the Making A home in Bellport, New York, gets a head-to-toe reboot to fit the current needs of the family as well as those of generations to come.
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“Just living is not enough,” said the butterfly. “One must also have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.” –HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
ON THE COVER: Refresh your spring wardrobe with our favorite floral-themed pieces from some of the top fashion designers.
Photographed by David Hillegas
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Contents
13
DEPARTMENTS
IN BLOOM
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Fashion
It’s springtime, and everything is in bloom— including the latest styles from top designers. Renew your own wardrobe with our bouquet of inspiration.
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Garden
Restored to its former glory, England’s once-private Eythrope Gardens lifts the curtain on its intensely secret realm.
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Travel
Weave your way through the English countryside to discover the charm and hospitality of these local pubs and inns.
As someone who faced adversities with fearlessness, Lee Miller viewed gardening, which she discovered later in life, as a welcome distraction that gave her great pleasure.
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Decorate: Flowers
Floral design duo Molly Copa and Hattie Sloane of Austin-based Flora Fetish pair a passion for flowers with an artful eye to create living masterpieces.
IN EVERY ISSUE Watering Can What’s Online Sources
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PHOTOS: (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) BY DAVID HILLEGAS; BY TOM HATTON; BY FERNANDA VALERA
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Women in the Garden
PHOTOS: (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) BY DAVID HILLEGAS; BY TOM HATTON; BY FERNANDA VALERA
“There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again.” — Elizabeth Lawrence 20th-century gardener, designer, and garden writer
I KNOW THAT THIS QUOTE can be interpreted symbolically or
as a poetic device, but it can also be accepted at face value. I accept it at face value. When I first read this passage in Lawrence’s writings, I was transported to a place from my childhood that haunts me, in a good way. We lived in Lausanne, Switzerland, when I was in early grammar school. My parents were travelers not tourists. They were always immersed in the cultural and social landscape of wherever we were. My brother and I accepted this lifestyle with the equanimity of six- and eightyear-old children who were open to adventure, as we hadn’t yet established our friend tribes back home in the states or the ties that would bind and distract. There is an album of beautiful, scenic images in my memory bank from those years, but the most powerful and evocative is the one that, as I said, still haunts me. It is as follows: I am riding in the backseat of my father’s Mediterranean blue convertible Mercedes 220 SE, which in ’62 was a rare thing for an American to be driving. I can smell the seat leather and glimpse the green blur of the allée of trees in the dappled sunlight overhead. I can hear the pea gravel crackle and the purr of the engine. Then up ahead I see a maize-colored stucco house with dark green
shutters and graceful scrolls of ironwork covering the glass front door. I’d like to say I remember the varieties of flowers in the planters and the plan of the gardens, but I do not. I only recall the enchantment of the hour and the feel of otherworldliness that accompanied the experience. I don’t even remember the fortunate homeowners—only the home, the lush gardens, the beauty, the feeling ... paradise. I have never been able to access any information about this magical manoir, and there are times when I long to know so that I could perhaps return. But on rereading Lawrence’s quote, I sense that the air would not be as soft nor the morning as fragrant as the garden of my childhood. So I’ll content myself to leave it there and to continue to read and write and explore houses and gardens in the present. One of FLOWER’s favorite people in the present, contributing editor Charlotte Moss, is now penning for us a column about fascinating women from assorted genres and eras and their gardens and garden interests—everyone from Empress Josephine to Bette Midler. In her inaugural piece found in these pages, she features the late Lee Miller, an American fashion-model-turned-photo-journalist during World War II who later became a passionate gardener at her English home, Farleys House. Let us relish the knowing and remembering of beautiful houses and gardens and the people who love them. Love and SDG,
Margot Shaw EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Please send your comments, triumphs, challenges & questions to: wateringcan@flowermag.com OR: Letters to the Editor Flower magazine I P.O. Box 530645 I Birmingham, AL 35253 Get the Flower email newsletter! Sign up at flowermag.com/news
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March•April 2023
PORTRAIT BY BECKY LUIGART-STAYNER
Watering can
A Note from the Editor
PORTRAIT BY BECKY LUIGART-STAYNER
FLOWERS PROVIDED BY GAIA FLOWERS. LOCATION AND PROPS PROVIDED BY DESIGN SUPPLY, BIRMINGHAM, AL.
Fashion • Garden • Travel • Women in the Garden • Decorate: Flowers
in Bloom Floral Fashion IT’S SPRINGTIME, AND EVERYTHING IS IN BLOOM—INCLUDING THE LATEST STYLES FROM TOP DESIGNERS. RENEW YOUR OWN WARDROBE WITH OUR BOUQUET OF INSPIRATION.
FLOWERS PROVIDED BY GAIA FLOWERS. LOCATION AND PROPS PROVIDED BY DESIGN SUPPLY, BIRMINGHAM, AL.
Produced and styled by Missie Neville Crawford and Sutton Ward Photography by David Hillegas
Hair and makeup by Celine Russell; Modeling by Alice Callahan Thompson
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in Bloom GARDEN
Behind the Gates RESTORED TO ITS FORMER GLORY, ENGLAND’S ONCE-PRIVATE EYTHROPE GARDEN LIFTS THE CURTAIN ON ITS INTENSELY SECRET REALM. By Marion Laffey Fox • Photography by Tom Hatton
T
he thrill of being welcomed into the famously secret garden of Lord Jacob Rothschild’s Eythrope is a sublime experience, akin to inhaling the intoxicating scent of Confederate jasmine for the first time. Whether embarking on an in-person tour or flipping through the pages of Paradise and Plenty, a luscious book about the magical walled garden, the public has access to this enchanted world once only available to a privileged few. First conceived in the 19th century, the gardens supplied produce and flowers for many generations of the Rothschild family before falling into disrepair. When Lord Jacob Rothschild inherited the neighboring 5,000-acre Waddesdon Estate in 1988, he began a lavish reimagining of
ABOVE: An aerial view
TOP RIGHT PHOTO BY MAT SUNDERLAND
reveals the scope of Eythrope’s property and the attention to detail it enjoys. LEFT: The gracefully-curved pear tunnel, draped in heirloom varieties of pears, initially appears as a dreamy vision of frothy pink and white buds.
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TOP RIGHT PHOTO BY MAT SUNDERLAND
its surroundings and enlisted Lady Mary Keen to redesign the smaller, former showplace at Eythrope. Two wars and a stint as a rental property had taken a toll on the landscape, and Keen was the perfect choice to reignite its magic. “I had worked on several other projects for Lord Rothschild before this and was thrilled with the prospect of resurrecting the 19th-century garden,” she says. She joined with experienced gardener Sue Dickinson to tackle the assignment. “The tradition of four squares divided by paths was reinstated for vegetable growing,” says Keen. “Areas were designated for herbs, cutting flowers, and special plant collections. And an orchard that would eventually produce 36 varieties of apples was added, as well as two fanciful herbaceous borders and a few arbors for pears and roses.” Keen’s lofty goals were tailored to the family’s storied past, starting in 1874 when adjoining Waddesdon Estate was acquired by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild. The young widower, whose wife tragically died
ABOVE AND LEFT: In the topiary garden, whimsicality runs free amid clipped boxwoods, yew, and ivy. Golden Lonicera nitida adds color and texture. Crushed bricks with grass-banded edges contrast with the otherwise muted palette. A sculpture collection and animal-shaped wire frames complete the fantastical scene.
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