I hadn’t paid much attention to what the clipped plant was. But now that it’s blooming, it’s clear that the plant is Raphiolepis indica, the Indian hawthorn that’s turning every third yard in this part of town either pink or white with its flowers. There’s definitely something to be said for growing plants that nobody else grows, but there’s also something cool about having your plants participate in a city-wide explosion of color.

Well, there may be a few million of these plants blooming in town, but no one has one that’s shaped quite like my neighbor’s…

I’m not sure what I was expecting out of Chicago’s Lurie Garden in the middle of February.

The core of the garden is a space concentrating on perennials planted by Piet Oudolf, and the winter garden was defined by what perennials do in the winter. Even though Oudolf has selected plants that maintain strong profiles into the winter, the garden looks like it’s seen better days. But really, that’s the outlook that the designer brings to the garden: Things change. Plants grow, bloom, die back. (Oudolf’s book Designing with Plants, after all, even has a chapter called “Death.” What feel-good garden book would even dare to acknowledge such a thing?)

The path through the heart of the garden was off-limits—I guess they were worried about people slipping and falling on the frozen walkways. Still, you can experience the garden’s perimeter with the Chicago skyline behind it. There you see the died back remains of last year’s growth: tall, dark spires of foxglove relatives (probably Digitalis ferruginea or parviflora); light brown clumps of various grasses; delicate, expressive curtains of burnet (Sanguisorba officianalis alba).

No gardener can begin to know every plant on earth, so I’m depending on my identification on the garden’s terrific plant list that you can find online and on what I know from Oudolf’s books to be some of his favorite plants. (Actually, the Plant Life of the Lurie Garden pages have not only plant lists, but photos and cultural tips on most of the plants in the garden. It got to be one of the most impressive online guides to a garden.)

Although probably most famous in the garden community for the perennial plantings, the Lurie Garden was actually overseen by Kathryn Gustafson (with other members of her firm, Gustafson, Guthrie, Nicholand) with input from artist/set designer Robert Israel. Gustafson contributed the overall landscape design, while Israel is credited with the “conceptual review,” signalling that this is a garden of ideas as much as it is a garden of plantings.

The central garden features two sections, a “light plate” and a “dark plate,” representing tectonic geological forces. (Kustafson’s office is in Portland, Israel is based in Los Angeles. Both are locations where people think more about geological movement than they do here in Chicago.) Protecting the garden on two sides is this giant armature that will mature into a hedge that represents Chicago as the city of “broad shoulders,” as made famous in Carl Sandburg’s 1916 poem, “Chicago.”

With Oudolf’s plants now retreating into the ground or only defined by ghosts of themselves, it’s Gustafson’s contribution that you notice most in the middle of winter. The curious structure of dark steel with dark metal cables looks like a zoo pen containing tightly planted alternating blocks of different arborvitae varieties and deciduous hornbeam and European beech. One of the deciduous trees is interesting in that it that holds on to its leaves through the winter. As the year progresses, I can see the deciduous plants leafing out at different times, reducing the contrast between the evergreens and the broadleaf trees.

The effect of the caged greenery is an odd effect, for sure. Any clipped hedge talks about the control of nature, and to put nature in a cage like this, like a botanical zoo, reinforces that almost violent act. It’s not a “pretty” effect, and I’m not sure I love it. But it catches my interest and reinforces this as a garden of ideas.

In the end I guess my reaction to the Lurie Garden in February is similar to what I feel when I hold a dormant bulb. I can appreciate the thing in its current state, but it’s the hope and knowledge of what it can do that really keeps me interested. It’s not really fair to try to give it a fair read in the middle of winter. Too bad I won’t be back every couple of months to check on its progress.

If staring at died-down perennials and caged shrubbery isn’t your cup of java, all you need to do to cross the street to the Art Institute of Chicago. There you’ll find all sorts of amazing artwork celebrating warm, green landscapes, including this lily pond by Monet…

…and this Tahitian landscape by Gaughin.

Paintings and so much of what humans do is all about permanence and things not changing. We purposefully make things that resist change, whether it’s paint that doesn’t fade or Twinkies that will probably remain as edible in three decades as they are today. The garden across the street celebrates what does change.

Give the garden just a few months. The perennials will be spectacular once spring gets going. And the “hedge” will fill in over the next decade and read more like a hedge than a zoo exhibit.

When you’re visiting the Lurie Garden you’ll be just a few dozen steps from Frank Gehry’s brawny new shell for pops concerts on a lawn covered by this lattice trellis structure.

And then there’s this sculpture by Anish Kapoor titled “The Cloud Gate”–which the locals have dubbed “the bean.” It’s major fun to walk around its concave and convex surfaces that give you this cool, distorted reflection of the skyline.

With its convex exterior and concave interior, this is artwork that will make you look fat, a fact that this self-portrait can attest to…

I’m not sure whether it was intentional, but the Gehry bandshell and the Kapoor sculpture and the shoulder hedge of the garden all feature steel–a material that makes possible the skyline that rises around them. Chicago without steel? Unthinkable.

And now, Chicago without the Lurie Garden, the Gehry bandshell and the Kapoor Cloud Gate? Unthinkable, as well.

Well, now that you mention it…

But then I ran into the work of the Belgian landscape designer Jacques Wirtz who uses hedges in surprising, interesting ways. He’s a major figure in Europe, but isn’t well documented in general garden books. The image to the left is from, as you might imagine, a book called The Wirtz Gardens, which appears to be the only work currently out devoted to his work. The current bookseller prices start over $150 and quickly go up to several times that–At this point this is probably a book for collectors only!

The cover image here shows hedgework that flutters somewhere between typical hard-edged pruning and more asymmetrical Japanese styles (like “cloud pruning”). For an even better example, if you have access to Making the Modern Garden by Christopher Bradley-Hoyle with Mark Griffiths, check out page 174 for a drop-dead gorgeous double hedge. In case you don’t have a copy nearby, let me do my best to describe it: A curving brick walkway steps gently down a slope; immediately on either side of the walkway are evergreen cloud-pruned evergreen boxwoods that look bulbous and deliciously amoeba-like; behind the box hedge is a small space, and then behind it is a taller hedge of deciduous beech that’s been clipped in a more traditional, hard-edged style, with the edges mirroring the curve of the walkway. The contrast of the organic shapes against the geometric, and the perky light green of the boxwood against the twiggy green-and-brown background of the beech is amazing. This is one hedge design that plays up contrasts between plants rather than aiming for a typical hedge hegemony of making every plant give up its individuality and conform to some master gardener’s plan.

And finally, a hedge from a private residence [ source ] that’s featured on the master’s website. A hedge that isn’t all about order and conformity–Sign me up!

Rather than ponying up the fees and filling up the gas tank this past weekend I decided to make up my own garden tour. Online.

I’m not especially smitten with Hollywood celebrities, but thought that might be an interesting starting point. I randomly pulled up one of the pile of websites with addresses of celebrities, then went to Google Maps with the address in hand. And Google Maps has that controversial feature to actually view at street level what you find on a map. The street view isn’t implemented for much of the country, but it happens to be in place for practically all of Beverly Hills. How convenient.

So…what does Madonna’s front yard look like? What might that tell me about her as a person and about celebrity in general?

First off, let me say that the Google feature indicates that the addresses shown on the screen are only approximate. So this might not actually be Madonna’s front yard. But assuming that it is, I guess I felt a little let down. The yard is really green. Lots of green. Somehow I thought the garden would be a little more…exotic? Out of control shrubberies and lurid statuary maybe? But it does say she likes her privacy. No surprise there.

Then I went over to Mia Farrow’s.

More of the privacy thing, again. But the yard seemed a little more welcoming–probably something to do with the steps leading up to the front wall. And I felt really good that she recycles.

Next was the late Charleton Heston’s pad, which didn’t look like the one in Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine. Either he’d down-sized or I was knocking at the neighbor’s.

Nice, conservative landscaping. Private, but not hostile. You know that trespassers would be shot, so there’s no need for higher hedges.

And on to Jay Leno’s:

Walls again. And more hedges. These neighborhoods have abnormally high hedge counts for Southern California.

Then over to Bette Midler’s.

It’s a little hard to see the yard, but it looks like it’d be a nice place to unwind with the divine Ms. M and some martinis.

Maybe the most surprising was Harrison Ford’s.

Like, where’s the killer fence and the yard for the guard dog? And the birch trees make the house look like it’s on the wrong coast. It’s nice enough, but makes me think he’s not much of a gardener. Or maybe this one’s for sure the wrong house. Dunno. Unfortunately, online, you can’t be the obnoxious stalker fan and go knocking on the front door. I might just have to leave these people to themselves.