Forgive me for thinking Toto and I had crossed into Kansas . But how to explain what appeared dead ahead in my windshield – a massive whitened picket fence , sorely twisting like so much tormented fusilli pasta , go up into a drizzly March sky . I checked my GPS : Sonoma , in the heart of northern California wine-coloured area . Perhaps this aberration was my destination .
I had heard so many tremendous things aboutCornerstone : Festival of Gardens . It was one of those breathlessly spoken , Oh , youhaveto go there , places my designer friend insisted I visit . They portrayed the nine - acre complex as a pilgrimage require of every garden interior decorator , that they might experience the melding of art , landscape computer architecture , gardening , sense of place , playful imagination , and play . The flying fence was this maneuver ’s opening number .
Cornerstone Sonomawas think and nurtured by the hubby and married woman squad Teresa Raffo ( figure at right ) and Chris Hougie . Their inspiration for this challenging venture grow during their 1996 honeymoon sojourn to Frances ’s Loire Valley , where the Festival Gardens of Chaumont put a trance on their imaginations . Eight years later , in collaborationism with world - renowned landscape painting architectPeter Walker , they open up the doors and Bill Gates to a twenty - two garden wonderland . Cornerstone is an out-of-door gallery - meet - laboratory , house the works of acclaimed landscape architect and garden designers . There is a special event garden for weddings and company , a café with locally sourced fair , vino tasting chance , art galleries , and garden shop .
Where does one go to experience the cutting bound of garden design ? We have museums for picture and sculpture , runway prove for fashion , and concert lobby for euphony . But where do artist who create beautiful , sometimes challenging , outdoor environments express themselves ?
Chris Hogue resume the centre of Cornerstone : “ More than plants , paths , and crap , gardens live in our mind and hearts . They are often how we experience place and issue forth to attach meaning to our heavy environment . They occupy our childhood retention and inform our own environmental autobiography . They are often the most important places in our lives . ”
Allow me to show you a sampling of gardens that , calendar month after my visit , continue make my pulse pump a few pulsation faster . Some are art for fine art ’s sake , merge coloration and form to create moments of born and structured beauty . Others exist as studies in define place , using built and instinctive element . Some are the material of childlike sport , while a few carry our visual sense beyond the boundaries of the garden , linking the visitant with the subtle beauty of the born landscape .
The first labor Teresa showed me was design and construct by five landscape computer architecture educatee from University of California Davis . It is a bold , yet minimise garden , search quad and monastic order . Though this is probably not a design that fits neatly into most residential gardens , there ’s a object lesson here : The boundaries of a garden room can be subtly defined with the simplest materials .
Roger Raiche and David McCrory founded their design and construction caller , Planet Horticulture , in 1977 , after working together at the Botanical Gardens in Berkeley , CA . This botanically brilliant duo combined their encyclopedic knowledge of plants to createRise , a garden key by Hogue as , “ so abundant and so neat that it barely seems real . ”
For a conversion between two rooms of this 1600 square - foot space , they apply an enormous drainage culvert – part echo chamber and , like a Chinese Sun Myung Moon gate , part ikon frame , drawing the eye to the circumvent looker of the Sonoma Valley .
By far , the most remarkable and memorable garden wasGarden Play(pictured above , with item below ) , by San Francisco environmental artistTopher Delaney . I was selfishly grateful I arrived before the crowds , letting me have this room to myself . As I write these word , I ’m commemorate the big grinning that overwhelm my face when I behold the simple elegance of the risque and dim , hoarding - size measure codification and white birch trunks . The three stay bound of the quad were bounded by panels of white shade material that “ borrowed ” the silhouettes of plant in adjacent garden .
As usual , I have far too many effigy and speech to fit into one blog post . So I ’ll dock off for the consequence and seek to fulfill in the space in my next place . But before I go , I ’m queer if there are other magical places like fundament you ’d like to share with other reader ? Where are the adventurous artists of your domain testing the limit and making their statement ?
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Teresa Raffo
At Potter’s Green & Company, earthy panels show off sculptor John Lamos’ mastery of ceramics and concrete to create durable, natural-looking pieces.
