Struttin' With the Peacocks

The Newport Flower Show

One of the pleasures of being married to a serious gardener who also happens to be a Master floral design judge is that you get to tag along to the darnest things.

The Newport Flower Show is held annually toward the end of June.  It’s a wonderful event, held for a worthy cause (the Preservation Society of Newport County), and held in a jaw-dropping setting (Rosecliff, an oceanfront estate owned and maintained by the aforementioned Preservation Society).  I’ve been to the show several times and even once helped to build an exhibit there. 

Betty, Dave, and Sandy at Crane Beach

This year was special:  Betty was invited to judge its flower show, and two good friends were arriving from the Midwest who were also judging.  Being asked to judge at Newport is a big deal; judges fly in in from all over the country.  Sandy, our friend from Kentucky, and Dave, our friend from Illinois, agreed to come a few days early so we could take them to our favorite beach and clam shack, and otherwise show them a small slice of ‘our’ New England.

I thought my role in all of this ended when we had dinner before we dropped them at their hotel on our third evening together.  Instead, they casually asked Betty (and, politely, included me) if she had a few spare hours the next day to, well, assemble a pair of peacocks.  Betty enthusiastically agreed.  The following afternoon, we were on the magnificent grounds of Rosecliff.

Dave directs Sue Redden, our
fellow volunteer

The project seemed simple: here is a four-foot-wide fountain on a pedestal; part of Rosecliff’s original design and, more or less, the centerpiece of its front lawn.  Here are the wire-frame heads and bodies of two over-sized peacocks, ready to be covered with green moss, plus an assortment of additional wire cages.  Here is a box of Oasis, a water-retaining product used by floral designers to keep their material fresh.  Oh, and here are a dozen buckets filled with roses, orchids, sea holly, hydrangea, eucalyptus, thistle, and other materials whose names I can only guess.

Betty puts the finishing touches
on the first peacock

Dave had been given a vague design of what the finished peacocks were supposed to look like.  The design, unfortunately, ignored some basic laws of gravity and physics.  The peacock perched on the edge of the fountain would never stay upright.  Moreover, the wire cages meant to hold the Oasis didn’t include openings large enough to insert blocks of the stuff.  My first job as ‘helper’ was to canvass the estate to cadge wire cutters.

With monumental bags of sand and rocks, plus enough florist and duct tape to wrap a mummy, the first peacock was made to stand at the lip of the fountain, and an assemblage of Oasis-filled cages were ingeniously joined to anchor the bird to the ground.  The peacock’s tail, five feet long and two feet wide, was created.  Dave and Sandy worked together, calling for floral material prepped by Betty and another volunteer, Sue.  I cleared debris and fetched additional flowers from buckets kept under a tent some distance away (did I mention Newport was encased in fog so thick you couldn’t see Rosecliff a hundred yards away? Or that it periodically rained?)

The second peacock takes
shape, as it rains harder

The first peacock was finished and Dave and Sandy set out to create the second one, thankfully located on the ground at the base of the fountain, but with a five-foot-wide fan of floral ‘feathers’.  Sandy worked from the back; Dave from the front.  Betty was ordered into service placing flowers, and I prepped material while keeping the mounting pile of debris in check. 

Meanwhile, people wandered by and many stopped to stare with a sense of awe at what was being conjured up from sleight-of-hand plus a wealth of design knowledge.  Two teams of landscape judges were disappointed they couldn’t give our work an award (this was ‘sponsored art’ for a Newport bank and, thus, ineligible).  

Sandy does a final
inspection, including a
'fountain' from leftovers

After nearly three hours (including several ‘rain delays’), the peacocks were finished.  Although not in the original design, Dave and Betty used leftover flowers to create a ‘fountain’ from which the first peacock was drinking.  The completed vignette was stunning – for which I take no credit – and free of debris (my proud contribution).

That night at the judges’ dinner, the peacocks were the talk of the room.  Dave and Sandy shared credit freely, but I think everyone knew who were the artists and who were the worker bees.  Emboldened, though, I asked the Chair of Judges if she might be able to use an extra set of hands the following morning when judges assembled to do the work for which they had traveled from afar.  She gave it some thought and tapped her chin.  “You know,” she said, “we could use another runner.”

But that’s a different story.

I Was a Male Flower Show Runner

It all started with the receipt of an email.  My wife, Betty, was cordially invited to judge at the forthcoming Newport Flower Show in Rhode Island.

An invitation to judge at Newport is a genuine honor. Judges are chosen from around the country and the preponderance of those selected are members of clubs affiliated with the Garden Club of America, or GCA. (Betty’s ‘home club’ is affiliated with National Garden Clubs, or NGC. GCA is older, NGC is larger.)  But Betty is a Master flower show judge known to have a good – and fair – eye.  She, of course, accepted, and promptly blocked off June 20 and 21.

The floral peacocks

Fast-forward two months.  Two friends from the Midwest, also chosen to judge at Newport, came to New England early and Betty and I showed them the sights. On the day before judging, they were tasked with creating floral representations of two, larger-than-life-sized peacocks in a fountain on the grounds of Rosecliff, where the show is held. Somehow, Betty (logically) and I (improbably) were asked to pitch in.  It was a great engineering feat and a fine artistic effort, which would have been a lot more fun were it not for the pea-soup fog that encased Rosecliff’s grounds, plus the periodic bouts of rain the Weather Channel said were not happening anywhere in Rhode Island.

Because I was Betty’s designated driver (all right, because I whined for several days), I also attended the Judges’ Dinner, an annual event held on Rosecliff’s back veranda.  The table at which I was seated was a busy one because many judges had seen the peacocks on the front lawn and wanted to congratulate their creators.  Dave Robson and Sandy Robinson freely shared the credit.

Rosecliff, a 'Gilded Age' mansion. 
The Newport Flower Show helps
support the upkeep of this and other
historic properties in Newport.

Somewhere along the way, I built up my courage to ask the show’s Judges’ Chair, Vera Bowen – who, fortunately, is a fan of my books – if she needed any help the following morning.  Vera thought about it for a moment and then asked Vicki Iannuccillo, the show’s Clerks’ Chair, if she still needed another runner.  Vicki didn’t have to think about it.  ‘Yes,’, she said, obviously not knowing it meant she was getting me.

A few words about the world of standard flower shows.  When, as a visitor, you walk into a show, you see the end product of a process that took, at minimum, several months to create; and, in the case of Newport, a full year. Someone wrote a schedule for the show, someone else trolled for entries, and still another group made certain all the right ribbons and banners were printed.  Others pulled together and painted pedestals and tables (‘staging’ in flower show parlance). 

Rosecliff's back lawn, with its
ocean frontage

Some parts of a flower show unfold in a relatively easy timetable but a few are jammed into a few hours – or even minutes – of work.  There are highly visible roles (docents come to mind), and there are low-profile but very necessary ones.  In a crowded kitchen just steps from the Rosecliff ballroom sits the most necessary of unsung heroes: the computer staff.  At 6 a.m. on the morning of judging, four women, including a mother/daughter team, start with nothing other than the titles of the classes and the fact there are four entries.  And so, they type ‘Fork Tailed Flycatcher, Class 8, Entry 1’ into a data file.  Then, as designers make their appearance, they hand in sheets containing the plant materials they are using.  The computer staff goes feverishly to work, adding the information to the file for Class 8, Entry 1 which will appear on the placards everyone sees when the public is admitted.

Judging starts ten minutes late, at 8:40 a.m. and, for more nearly two hours, nothing whatsoever happens inside the computer room.  Then comes the tsunami as judging panels complete their work and choose who gets which award and what to say about each entry.  The information is reviewed for appropriateness and accuracy.  Oh, and fifty or more placards have to be printed out, letter perfect, and posted by 11:30 a.m.

Enter the clerks.  Each judging panel – usually three people – is accompanied by a clerk, whose job it is to write down what the judges are saying about each entry.  Not verbatim, of course, but within those critiques will come the nuggets of thought that convey to the general public (as well as to the designers) what caused Entry 2 to get third and Entry 3 to get Honorable Mention.  Clerks get run ragged for three hours.  They race back and forth between the panel to which they were assigned and the Powers That Be who are allowed to question anything that seems out of place.  Clerking is definitely not a glamor position but, in the flower show world, being a clerk can be necessary to becoming a judge.

Speaking of non-glamorous positions, I was one of two runners.  My job was to do whatever Vicki told me to do.  I twice ran through a driving rainstorm to fetch an extra box of ribbons from a trailer.  I got copies made of something important.  I kept out people who ‘just wanted a peek’.

The placard, in place, for the Fork-
tailed Flycatcher winning entry

And I also helped place those placards.  This is nerve-wracking.  As judges examine designs, they see only a yellow sheet of paper with hand-written information about materials used.  They know only this is Class 8, entry 1.  In the computer room, names and results are attached and, now, there is a placard saying ‘Fork-Tailed Flycatcher, Entry 1, First Place, Janice Gardner and Julie Mather. Green Fingers Garden Club, Greenwich, CT.’ I and my co-runner were handed stacks of placards and we dashed from one end of the room to the other, matching those yellow sheets to the final placard.  When it was done, Vicki went back and checked to verify we did it right. 

At one point, one of the judges on Betty’s panel apparently noticed me on one of my missions, wearing a blue apron.  “Who is he and why is he here?” she asked, apparently miffed that a man was wearing the cherished blue apron.

“Well,” Betty explained with a smile, “he’s my husband and he knows something about flower shows. He ran the Boston Flower and Garden Show for three years. Oh, and one of his books is called, A Murder at the Flower Show.”

The woman gave Betty an odd look.  Maybe she believed Betty, maybe she didn’t.  But she didn’t ask again.

Garden Season

June is all about gardens.  Everything blooms, everything is verdant, nothing looks tired.  It is the perfect month to show off your own garden or to see someone else’s.  It’s also the perfect month for a flower show.  Which is why I’ve spent so much of the past month (when not moving compost), looking at other people’s blooms and other people’s gardens.

Rosecliff is more than just a backdrop
for the Newport Flower Show: it is
intrinsic to its success

I’ll start with the Newport Flower Show.  It is held every year at Rosecliff, one of the grandest of the oceanfront Newport ‘cottages’.  The multi-acre ‘front lawn’ is given over to display gardens and horticultural vendors.  The cottage (including porches and a formal garden immediately adjacent to the front entrance) provides the backdrop for floral design, photography, and other specialty competitions.  The rear lawn has tents for amateur horticulture and lectures; the balance of the magnificent sweep that goes down to Sheep Point Cove and the ocean beyond is given over to food and vendors. 

Vendors by the sea...

Newport is closer in spirit to the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Garden Show in London than to the late winter flower shows in Boston and Philadelphia.  Because so much of the venue is outdoors, nature is always underfoot, overhead, and all around you.  And, because it is Rosecliff and Newport, you don’t go to the show wearing jeans or tee shirts.  I know of no formal dress code, but I saw no one who did not look as though they had dressed for the occasion.

Roses judged for perfection

Finally, the Newport Flower Show has a Brigadoon-type existence.  The show runs just three days (Friday through Sunday); exhibits come into being in just two days.  (I know because I helped build one.)  Then it disappears as completely as that magical village.

There are more garden tours in June than I can keep track of.  I had the pleasure to attend one last Saturday for the Rockport Garden Club on Cape Ann.  Garden tours are both a summer mainstay for clubs as well as the principal fund-raising event for many.  Tours typically comprise six to ten gardens with a mixture of ones designed and maintained by professionals, and those that are the product of the imagination of dedicated amateurs.

A professionally designed garden
on the Rockport tour

I have nothing against professionally designed gardens.  I have seen many that stopped me dead in my tracks and caused me to pull out my camera to try to capture the essence of what a talented designer had accomplished.  More often though, I see ‘safe’ landscapes that bespeak large budgets that echo conservative tastes.  Every garden tour has two or three such gardens.  I can’t begrudge the tour planners; such gardens tend to be crowd pleasers.

Nancy Johnson's small garden was
the highlight of the tour.

The garden that stopped me in my tracks last Saturday belonged to Nancy Johnson.  Hers is not an oceanfront estate or a ten-acre preserve.  Rather, it is a small colonial on what is probably half an acre of land.  The genius of what she has accomplished over an eight year period is to think through every square foot of her available land and to make use of it accordingly.  The overarching reality of the site is an outcropping of granite – this is Cape Ann, after all. From this granite she has created a rock garden filled with perennials, shrubs and ground covers that flow together seamlessly.

It is a whimsical garden with a home for chickens (where an ash tree fell in a storm), some beautiful specimen trees, a small vegetable plot, and a row of fruit trees.  The overall effect was nothing short of magic.  Ms. Johnson was on hand to answer questions and also to ask in a low voice how her garden compared to the others on the tour.  She need not have concerned herself: it was head and shoulders above the competition, and worth the price of the tour ticket all by itself.

(Incidentally, if you missed this tour but enjoy Cape Ann, the Generous Gardeners tour covering Gloucester’s Eastern Point will be held July 9^th).

The entry to Jill's garden

My final notable garden visit of the month came when I tagged along with Betty as she attended the annual meeting of the Garden Study Group, one of the Councils of the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts.  It was held at the home of Jill Sczepanski.  I first saw Jill’s garden eight years ago when it was part of the “Mass Gardens on Tour” project Betty headed for the Federation. Back then, it was stunning.  It has only gotten better with time.

You could be forgiven for thinking
you were in the Cotswolds

What Jill and her husband have accomplished on their two-acre property is nothing short of transporting a corner of a great Cotswold estate to a town adjacent to Cape Ann.  There are meticulous stone paths with cobble borders, fountains, hidden vistas, glorious sweeps of color, trellises, and places to pause, sit and enjoy.  It is a garden that you have to walk twice; once in each direction, because the garden changes so dramatically from a different perspective.  I have never seen a more enchanting garden.

Formality segues to informality...
effortlessly...

When I first saw the garden, Jill was immersed in a biotechnology career and her garden was an avocation.  With her kids out of college and out in the world, she has embarked on a second career: as a garden designer.  If the sketches I saw in her studio are any indication, she is going to be a very busy lady.

That's What Friends Are For

When last I wrote of Paul Miskovsky, Betty and I were pulling plastic for a greenhouse in Falmouth – in the middle of January, with a wind chill down around zero degrees Kelvin.  We recovered and went on to live a more or less normal life.  This past week, I was again helping out Paul with a ‘little’ garden project.

The venue for this garden is the Newport Flower Show in Newport, Rhode Island.  The Boston Flower & Garden Show (or, for that matter, the old New England Spring Flower Show) draws throngs of winter-weary visitors with the promise of a day’s worth of ersatz spring in the middle of March.  In late June, by contrast, everything that can possibly be in bloom is in bloom.  Why pay $25 to see flowers when they’re all around you?

One reason is that Newport is, well, Newport.  The Vanderbilts and Astors may have decamped for other climes in some diaspora of the wealthy, but their mansions still line Bellevue Avenue, and it is the Newport Preservation Society that maintains that tangible legacy of the Gilded Age.  All proceeds from the show go toward the ongoing restoration and maintenance of those mansions’ grounds.

Another reason is that the Preservation Society puts on a heck of a good show.  I know a little bit about how flower shows are run, and Newport does a first-class job (except for the photography display, which is decidedly sub-par).  If entertainment value is the ultimate pricing arbiter, Newport definitely delivers.  

10 a.m. Wednesday.  That's
Paul in the green shirt.

At the aforementioned Boston flower shows, garden vignettes are the big draw (that first whiff of spring).  At Newport, they’re a relatively recent addition and the gardens I remember from previous years tended to be heavy on cut stone and topiary and light on, well, ‘wow’ factor.  Enter Paul Miskovsky.  Paul is an über-landscaper, a guy who can take a kettle hole on Cape Cod and turn it into a horticultural fantasy land.  Add David Haskell.  Dave’s late father, Alan Haskell, was widely considered to be one of New England’s great horticulturalists.  David is filling those large shoes quite admirably.  Neither one had ever exhibited at Newport.  This year, they did a joint entry.

The stone wall goes up...

... and gets a lavender garden

There are three problems with doing a landscape garden at Newport.  The first is time pressure.  Trucks were allowed on the grounds mid-day Tuesday.  The exhibits had to be ready for judging Friday morning.  The Boston Flower & Garden Show provides a full four days for garden ‘builds’.  Two and a half days isn’t a lot of time.  The second problem is footprint.  The Miskovsky/Haskell exhibit was allocated a 20’x40’ space.  By the time I got to the build site on Wednesday morning, the dimension had already been ‘cheated’ out to 25’x50 feet.  So, an 800 square foot vignette had been summarily enlarged to 1250 square feet, yet it still had to be built in the same time frame.  The first photo shows what I saw when I arrived at 10 a.m. on Wednesday (except that the rocks were still in skids).  To see these photos in greater detail, just double-click on them.

Which illustrates the third problem with Newport… the garden vignettes are all outdoors.  Which means working at night is problematic.  And, if it rains, things can really get messed up.

Thursday, 2 p.m., just before
the deluge...

Thursday, 4 p.m.  The garden wasn't
finished, but I was.

Paul is a friend and working on his projects is very educational.  Let me be very clear that no money changes hands in this, although I do get to eat as much pizza as I want.  On Wednesday, we unloaded rocks, built a handsome rock wall around the perimeter of a massive purple beech, laid plywood to define the shape of the garden, mulched it all to a depth of two inches, positioned four lemon trees around the corners of the garden and then added bluestone to form the ‘patio’ of the exhibit.  That was a full day’s work for eight people.  I went home with a very sore back.

On Thursday, a crew of about 15 was on hand to build the garden.  There were Master Gardeners eager to learn from two top-notch professionals, two knowledgeable crews blessed with terrific upper body strength... and me.  We installed a wonderfully scented circle of lavender and cleome around the base of the beech and unloaded a 26-foot-long box truck filled to the brim with plant material.  We spread yet more mulch.  We built a kickboard.

Then, the heavens opened up (that third drawback to Newport).  I’m not talking about a little rain.  I’m talking Weather Channel red with spots of purple surrounded by yellow and deep, deep green.

Paul Miskovsky's and David Haskell's
completed garden.

We, of course, kept building.  Plants were moved in and re-arranged.  I lifted, carried, arranged furniture and shoveled mulch.  At 4 p.m., though, I was soaked to the skin.  The exhibit was mostly built, but I was down for the count.  I left with profound apologies and the offer of a dry towel from Paul.

The flower show opened to the public on Friday at noon, a photo of the finished garden is at left.  Betty and I visited Paul's and David's garden Friday evening, where we found it being admired by a large crowd.  Perhaps more telling, the exhibit was crowded inside.  People were seated on the couches, engaged in animated conversations while the other exhibits with their formal gardens and metal chairs were deserted. 

Working with Paul and David is an education, even if it will take a few weeks for my back to fully recover.