Mondi Designs - Your Landscape Professionals

The Rutgers Gardens annual Spring Flower Fair is scheduled for May 7, 8 and 9, 2010.  Please come out and support this "living classroom". 

The sale will be open to the public on:
Friday, May 7 from 10 am - 3 pm
Saturday, May 8 from 9"30 am - 4pm
Sunday, May 9 from 9:30 am - 4pm

The Flower Fair features an extensive landscape plant sale, lively and informative tours of the Rutgers Gardens, the sale will feature unusual trees, shrubs, perennials and native plants; rare azaleas, rhododendrons and annual bedding and vegetable plants, all reasonably priced. 

In keeping with this year's theme, we will feature “Now and Then” heirloom plants from the 1930’s as well the latest and greatest for 2010.

In addition to our normal selection of unusual annuals and vegetables, we are pleased to offer some of these new and unusual plants for your garden.

The Spring Flower Fair is our largest fundraising event for the year. Rutgers Gardens is a self sustaining operation and relies on your support for maintaining the Gardens, purchasing equipment and materials, supporting salaries, and providing public programs are raised through facility rental fees, special events, membership dues and donations from our generous supporters.  We are one of the few botanical gardens in the country that does not charge a visitor’s fee and is open 365 days a year

It is really hard to believe, but the New Jersey Flower and Garden Show that we have been discussing and planning for for months now is only a few short weeks away! Two weeks from today we will be at the show beginning the set up for this years garden display, 'the Great Outdoors'.

The design of this garden has evolved to include many unique and interesting features created by some very talented individuals.  For starters, you will be welcomed by beautiful stone sculptures and facinating water features created by sculptor Dave Spencer.  Next, you will see the main walk, as well as several smaller walks, paved with some of the new products available from Techo-Bloc precious stones.  For most people, this will be thier first chance to see some of these products.  Finally, careful placement of Bonsai plants from the collection of Chris Anderson grace your journey through this creative display. 

Oh, and did I mention that the entire garden is going to be illuminated with a low voltage landscape lights by Unique Lighting?

With all this, not to mention the beautiful flowering plants, we are very excited about this show, and hope to see you all in Edison Feb 18-21.

Happy Gardening!

Even though we are just entering the winter months, and the snow forecasts are just starting to roll in, Spring will still be here before we know it.  For those of us that are garden enthusiasts, the first three months of the year are spend reading nursery catalogs, starting seeds, and maybe taking a class or two.  Oh yea, and of course, day dreaming of the warm weather to come!

Something you can do this fall, even now as long as the ground is not completely frozen, is prepare your garden beds.  If you like to keep a vegetable garden, or plan on starting a new perennial bed, this is a great time to cover those beds with a nice, 4" or so, blanket of organic matter.  This could be leaf compost from your yard or municipality, or maybe some mushroom soil from a local nursery.

If conditions permit, turn it into the soil a little, then go inside, have some hot cocoa, and let nature take its course!  Next spring you will have better soil composition, higher nutrient content (without using chemical fertilizers!) and easier planting conditions.

Happy Gardening!

Preparing flowers for a show like the New Jersey Flower Show in February takes some work, and some timing!  The prcess of getting plants to produce flowers at a time of year when they otherwise wouldn't invloves changing the environment that plants are in for weeks, sometimes months, prior to the show.  The flowers bulbs that are going to fill the New Jersey Convention Center this spring are potted and being stored in large, building sized coolers to approximate thier dormant period even thought the outdoor temps were not quite in the 40's when storage began.  In a few weeks, those thousands of bulbs will be removed from the coolers and placed in the massive glass houses at Hionis Greenhouses in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey.  In these houses, even if there is snow on the ground outside, there will be plenty of spring on the inside!

Check out this video we shot at on site at Hionis an be prepared to be impressed with this massive floral enterprise!

Even though the flower show only last for a few days, the planning begins months in advance.  For those of us preparing garden displays, there is a lot of fore thought that must go into the plantings and construction of these indoor floral presentations.

Each garden needs to be ready for the show in about three days.  When you realize that garden spaces the size of many of the displays in the show would take weeks to build in the landscape, you can truly appeciate the planning and staging that must be executed for everything to come together in time! 

But as a designer this can be the fun part.  It is where the conceptual ideas all come together.  The theme for this years show is 'Glorious Gardens Great and Small'.  The title of the Mondi Designs/Precisionscapes garden is going to be 'The Great Outdors, A Walk in the Woods".  This wooded walk brings a piece of nature indoors.  Form, foliage and flower combine for a unique and colorful experience.  From great trees to small details, this garden is glorious for all who enter!

Of course, I don't want to spill the beans on our garden, you will need to see it for yourself, but here is a preliminary model that will give you an idea what goes into the design phase of a garden like this.

Happy Gardening!

Each week, over the next 12 weeks, I am going to be bringing you a unique behind the scenes look at what goes into creating the New Jersey Flower Show each February.  Much of what you will see is similar to what goes into other shows, from the design preparation to greenhouse prep of nursery stock and the coordination of the Garden Club judging.

Every year tens of thousands of people decend upon the New Jersey Convention Center in Edison, New Jersey, hoping to get thier first glimpse of spring blooms.  The vast convention center is trasformed into a garden lovers paradise, complete with all the fragrances you would expect from your own garden each spring!

Tune in each week, and sign up for our mailing list to recieve this great video series sent to you each Tuesday.  Enjoy, and as always, Happy Gardening!

For many gardeners, flowers are the prime source of visual satisfaction.  I, on the other hand, have always been partial to the Autumn season and the wonderful array of ambers, yellows, tans, and oranges (especially the oranges!) that can be seen all around.  This large shrub, Hammamelis x intermedia 'Jelena', has some of the most striking color I have seen.  This hybrid Witchhazel has other benifits as well of course, most notably its bloom time (flowers in February anyone?) and its very structural upright habit, but it is the fall color that stikes my attention.  In the morning sun the plant absolutley looks like it is on fire!  Plant in a protected spot so the leaves are not stripped with the winds and you can enjoy this display for weeks in October each year!

Happy Gardening!

When planning most landscape projects, I find there is always certain view that need to be enhanced, and others that need to be minimized or eliminated.  There are lots of ways screening a poor view can be accomplished.  Most commonly, an planting of evergreens is utilized.  This solution may work, but generally takes some time to get established and becomes less effective with age.  A fence can be used, but sometimes redgid boundry these structures create are stark and overwhelming.

A interesting alternative is to combine the two elements to create a filtered view, stronger than evergreens alone yet softer than a complete fence.  In the photo above you can see we used lattice panels rather than fence panels creating a more open and airy feel in the garden.  The view is managed, but the aesthetic integrity of the space is maintained.

Happy Gardening!

I just added this photo to another part of the website, which made me think that the plant itself deserved its due on the blog!  This tough guy has been added to my arsenal this year for several reasons.  Spiny Bears Breeches (Acanthus spinosa) brings multiple pleasing attributes to the garden.  For starters, the folliage is very interesting.  It is a dark and lustrous green with deep lobes.  It is a little finer textured than its relative, Acanthus mollis, whose leaves are featured atop Corinthian columns.  Spiny Bears Breeches is much hardier than A. mollis which helps it survive in our unpredictable winter weather.  The textural contrast of the foliage is great, but the flower spikes are very impressive as well!  I planted 1 gallon container grown plants early this spring that barely had signs of new growth, and in June I had full size leaves and 24" flower spikes!  As the picture illustrates, the spikes have multiple purple and white flowers.

Mainenance is fairly simple.  I have read that these plants can be difficult to establish, but I have not had any problems to date.  Remove any leaves that go yellow, and the flower stalks can be cut back to the foliage once they have lost thier blooms.  They will not reflower with deadheading.

Mine are growing in a site with irrigation, but well drained, and recieve moderate sun, but are protected from the late afternoon rays.

Happy Gardening!

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A must consider with any landscape  project is drainage, but it is especially important when working with hard scapes, like patios and walks.  The easiest way to remove water from a site is to have it drain across the surface, but sometimes this not possible, and the use of a drain may become necessary.

Often drains can be viewed as eye sores, but if the right grate is selected, and the installation is precise, it simply becomes another element of the design.

Recently I designed a multi-tiered patio that required just such a drain.  As shown in the photo above, we selected a drain cover from NDS with a polished brass finish that matched the finish on the light fixtures.  The installation (Precisionscapes - www.precisionscape.com) was perfect, siting the grate in the paving pattern so there was no need for awkward cuts.