John P. Humes Japanese Stroll Garden

Mill Neck, NY

In many gardener’s minds Japanese gardens are among the most spiritual, evocative expressions of what is capable on the ground with plants. It just comes with the territory. Some people can quiet their thoughts with the mere memory of meditative, inspiration-generating chikurin no oto—the sound of the bamboo grove.

That Japanese gardens are planted around the world in various iterations is testament to the style’s enduring significance and influence. There are more than 300 in the United States alone. The Humes Japanese Stroll Garden in Mill Neck, NY, is one that uniquely integrates ageless Japanese landscape techniques with the woodland terrain of Long Island’s North Shore.

Japanese garden style evokes and symbolizes humanity’s special relationship with nature and the wider universe. The original designer of the Humes garden, Douglas DeFaya, born in Hokkaido as Shoju Mitsuhashi, was not classically trained and used gardening—not strict tradition and styles—and his experience as a Japanese American during World War II, to create his artistry. DeFaya was conscious of the four seasons and endeavored to create a layered garden—with heaven, earth, and sea—an abstraction of nature within the architecture of the place and its tea house. His earliest garden assistant, James Petry, who, as a teenager helped install the garden, understood that “What makes people garden the most is that it’s an escape to another world.”

Ambassador John P. Humes, founder of the garden and its owner for decades, was inspired by a visit to Japan and wanted a semblance of that “other world” within which to escape. He managed to enjoy it briefly before his world took him from it to a post in Austria. Years of benign neglect took their toll, the property bereft of the attention a maintenance-hungry garden needs. Upon his return in the late 70s, restoration efforts began and a foundation to assume ownership of the garden was created.

Preserving gardens is not just about maintenance. It is “constantly tuning the harmony between the elements, and the sky, and the space,” says Belgian landscape architect Francois Goffinet, who completed a restoration of the garden early on in his career. It is this kind of layering and sequencing that brought into alignment long-term plans to ensure the garden’s future.

In the early 1990s the Conservancy became involved, and, from that point on until 2015, provided management support of the garden, offered public programs, restored the tea house, and planned for the garden’s future. The Garden Conservancy was able to serve as a bridge, linking the garden with a larger local effort to protect critical land, when it was purchased by the North Shore Land Alliance (NSLA). Today, the garden completes a 150-acre green corridor that the NSLA tends to protect a local watershed. It’s also been enshrined as one of the charter gardens in the Conservancy’s Documentation Program, a collection of archival written and visual materials as well as original film footage to keep gardens alive in a new way.

“There is the way we touch and shape the world. And the way it touches and shapes us,” notes garden designer Marc Peter Keane in his book, Japanese Garden Notes: A Visual Guide to Elements and Design (Stone Bridge Press, Berkeley, CA, 2017). The soft, irenic clacking of bamboo on bamboo; each stone telling its own story on the path; light dripping through leaves of every shade of green; water, and people; this is how the Humes Japanese Stroll Garden touches its visitors and lifts them to another reality.

Like the best gardens, the Humes Japanese Stroll Garden is transformative. It is the way. It is a place to restore and nourish the human spirit.

McLaughlin

Garden South Paris, ME

A nineteenth-century Maine farmstead known for its collection of more than 200 lilacs, the McLaughlin Garden & Homestead was created single-handedly over six decades by Bernard McLaughlin, starting in 1936. In 1996, the Garden Conservancy supported the McLaughlin Foundation’s preservation efforts by facilitating its plans to purchase the garden. In 1998, Garden Conservancy staff participated in a charrette to develop a master plan. In 2013, the Conservancy also helped raise awareness of the McLaughlin Foundation’s and the community’s efforts to purchase the adjacent property and prevent development that threatened the character of the garden.

Meadowburn Farm Vernon, NJ

The gardens at Meadowburn Farm were created by Helena Rutherfurd Ely (1858 – 1920), an American author, gardener, and founding member of the Garden Club of America. Meadowburn Farm’s gardens served as the basis for a series of three books on concerning her practical approach to hardy gardening. In 2011, heirs to the estate contacted the Garden Conservancy regarding possible preservation of the gardens and opening it for public visitation. The Conservancy connected them with a Fellow in the Longwood Graduate Program in Public Horticulture, who spent the next two years researching Helena Rutherfurd Ely and options for preserving the garden.

Montrose Garden Hillsborough, NC

The gardens at Montrose were begun in 1842 while William Alexander Graham, then governor of North Carolina, and his wife, Susan Washington, lived on the property. The 61-acre property was purchased in 1977 by plantswoman and author Nancy Goodwin and her late husband, Craufurd, who used the remains of the historic gardens to create a landscape that has greatly influenced and expanded the palette of plants for Southern gardens. The garden was added to the National Register of Historic Gardens in 2001 and recognized by the Garden Conservancy as a significant American garden.

Moore-Turner Heritage Garden Spokane, WA

Built between 1889 and 1932 as a residential garden for Frank Rockwood Moore, the property was later acquired by US Senator George Turner in 1896. In 1945, the Spokane Park Board bought the property and combined it with the D.C. Corbin property to the east to form Pioneer Park. The Garden Conservancy provided technical assistance from 2002-03, including guidance in fundraising, volunteer management, landscape preservation, and program development.

Morgan Library & Museum New York, NY

The Morgan Library & Museum, formerly the Pierpont Morgan Library, is a landmarked Italian Renaissance-style structure built between 1903 and 1906 and designed by Charles McKim of the firm of McKim, Mead and White. In 2019, the library proposed a comprehensive exterior restoration that included a new garden, improved lighting and new signage. The Garden Conservancy submitted a letter in support of this proposal to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Morven Museum & Garden Princeton, NJ

A historic eighteenth-century house, Morven was first the residence of Robert Wood Johnson, head of Johnson & Johnson, and then served as the New Jersey governor’s mansion for nearly four decades in the twentieth century. The site is a National Historic Landmark. In 1996, the Garden Conservancy supported and guided the initial phase of the restoration of the Colonial Revival style garden at Morven and continued in an advisory role for several years. Morven reopened as a museum and garden in 2004.

Mukai Farm & Garden Vashon, WA

Mukai was founded by first-generation Japanese immigrant B.D. Mukai in 1926 as a strawberry farm. The formal stroll garden was designed in the 1930s by Kuni Mukai, making it a rare early example of a traditional Japanese garden designed by a Japanese woman. In 1996, the Garden Conservancy assisted Island Landmarks in acquiring the property and restoring both the house and garden. Restoration was largely completed by 2020 by the Friends of Mukai. Mukai Farm & Garden is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a member of the Garden Conservancy Northwest Network.

National Geographic Society Headquarters Plaza Sculpture Garden Washington, DC

In 1984, the National Geographic Society commissioned Elyn Zimmerman, an award-winning environmental artist, to create an installation for their headquarters in Washington, DC. Zimmerman’s design, Marabar, is an excellent example of the use of art and landscape design to integrate a building with its surroundings. In 2020, the Garden Conservancy joined scholars and other organizations in opposition to a planned renovation of the plaza that proposed to remove Marabar. As of this writing, National Geographic plans to relocate Marabar to a public park in Washington, DC, saving it from destruction, but removing it from the site for which it was created.

Nehrling Gardens Gotha, FL

Dr. Henry Nehrling (1853 – 1929), one of Florida’s pioneer horticulturists and naturalists, developed an experimental botanical garden, Palm Cottage Gardens, on 25 acres of his land in central Florida between 1885 and 1896. In 1998, the Garden Conservancy was contacted for guidance when a new ownership structure was needed, and advised the formation of a Henry Nehrling Society to save, restore, and operate the gardens. Over several years, the Garden Conservancy assisted with fundraising and provided other organizational guidance. The Nehrling Society was ultimately able to purchase the property in 2009 and operates it as an educational botanical garden. Nehrling Gardens is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

New Orleans Botanical Garden New Orleans, LA

The New Orleans Botanical Garden, part of New Orleans City Park, was developed during the Depression by the Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) in the 1930s. It is one of the oldest urban parks in the country. In 2006, the Garden Conservancy and the New York Botanical Garden raised funds to assist both the New Orleans Botanical Garden and Longue Vue Garden following the substantial damage of Hurricane Katrina. The botanical garden used the proceeds to procure plants to replace those lost to storm damage.

New York City Community Garden Coalition New York, NY

In 1999, the Garden Conservancy joined many other advocacy groups, including the Parks Council, the Trust for Public Land, and the Green Guerillas, in petitioning New York City to protect more than 100 community gardens which were under threat of being auctioned. The gardens were saved in the eleventh hour as the result of negotiations and a $3 million fundraising effort led by the Trust for Public Land. Founded in 1996, New York City Community Garden Coalition’s mission is to promote the preservation, creation, and empowerment of community gardens through education, advocacy, and grassroots organizing.

Oakland Museum of California Oakland, CA

The Oakland Museum is a mid-century brutalist landmark designed by architects Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo, with the distinctive, tiered gardens by the modernist landscape architect Dan Kiley (1912 – 2004). It serves as an urban museum campus and gathering place for the Oakland community. In 2020, the Garden Conservancy began a five-year partnership in support of

Garden Conservancy Northwest Network

the renovation of the museum’s campus, which is being designed by award-winning landscape architect Walter Hood. The garden revitalization will feature sustainable and native California plantings and will open up the campus to neighboring communities. See also Walter Hood’s essay on page 21.

Olana Hudson, NY

A 250-acre naturalistic landscape and former residence of Frederic Edwin Church (1826 – 1900), one of the major figures in the Hudson River School of landscape painting, Olana is a New York State Historic Park and has remarkable views of the Hudson River Valley, Catskill Mountains, and Taconic Range. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and a National Historic Landmark. From 2008 to 2009, the Garden Conservancy partnered in raising awareness for the need to preserve the site and vistas.

Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden Bishopville, SC

Self-taught and equipped with a hedge trimmer, Pearl Fryar worked for more than twenty years to create and maintain topiaries from plants that were often salvaged from a local nursery. In 2007, the Garden Conservancy helped form a Friends group. For the next ten years, the Garden Conservancy provided technical assistance to the Friends, promoted the garden to the public, and helped plan for the garden’s preservation, including hiring a project manager for the garden in 2010 who documented Pearl’s gardening techniques. Garden Conservancy board members also presented him with a cherry picker in 2008. In 2021, the Garden Conservancy contributed a Gardens for Good grant to a new effort to secure the future of the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden. The Conservancy is partnering with the McKissick Museum of the University of South Carolina, the Atlanta Botanical Garden, and WeGOJA (formerly the South Carolina African American Heritage Commission) to help build community consensus around a plan for the long-term preservation of the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden.

Planting Fields Arboretum Oyster Bay, NY

Planting Fields Arboretum is more than 400 acres and includes a landscape designed by the Olmsted Brothers firm. In the late 1990s, the Garden Conservancy provided preservation planning and resources to the arboretum. In 2018, the Conservancy interviewed Henry Joyce, then executive director of the arboretum, for the Garden Documentation program.

A collective of small public gardens, botanical gardens, city parks, and plant societies, the Garden Conservancy Northwest Network (GCNN) promotes resource-sharing, networking, and professional education for members throughout Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia. First formed in 2003 by the Garden Conservancy as the Pacific Northwest Garden Conservancy Forum, the group was renamed in 2010. The GCNN has grown to 30 member organizations who meet twice yearly for workshops tailored to member-garden needs and who also connect throughout the year for peer-to-peer support and information-sharing.

2021 GCNN members include:

Albers Vista Gardens Bremerton, WA

Bellevue Botanical Garden Bellevue, WA

Bloedel Reserve Bainbridge Island, WA

Dunn Gardens Seattle, WA

Elisabeth C. Miller Botanical Garden Seattle, WA

Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy

Port Townsend, WA

Gaiety Hollow Salem, OR

Hardy Plant Society of Oregon Portland, OR

Highline SeaTac Botanical Garden SeaTac, WA

Kruckeberg Botanic Garden Shoreline, WA

Lake Wilderness Arboretum Maple Valley, WA

Lakewold Gardens Lakewood, WA

Leach Botanical Garden Portland, OR

Meerkerk Gardens Greenbank, WA

Milner Gardens and Woodland Qualicum Beach, BC

Mukai Farm & Garden Vashon, WA

Peninsula Park Rose Garden Portland, OR

Plant Amnesty Seattle, WA

PowellsWood Garden Federal Way, WA

Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden Federal Way, WA

Rogerson Clematis Garden West Linn, OR

Soos Creek Botanical Garden & Heritage Center Auburn, WA

Streissguth Gardens Seattle, WA