Walking down a shaded street of brick rowhouses in Brooklyn in June, no special perceptual gifts are required to identify the house occupied by a skillful gardener. Judi Dumont’s house announces itself through sheer profusion of bloom, abundant, effusive, overwhelming. Further investigation reveals the stellar cast of this curbside production and the perfection of their maintenance. Rosa ‘Spirit of Freedom’ arches over the garage door, each cane already pruned in anticipation of a second flush of bloom. A range of cast stone containers, chosen to harmonize with the warm golden brick, spill over with Daphne x hendersonii ‘Fritz Kummert’, D. x thauma ‘Reginald Farrer’, D. cneorum var. pygmaea, D. cneorum x arbuscula, various choice penstemons, including Penstemon nitidus, several smaller campanulas, sedums, Houstonia caerulea, and a small sampling of dwarf annuals to extend the bloom season. Spring annuals have been traded out for summer annuals, with careful consideration of color and scale.
Troughs were added shortly after Judi joined NARGS, just before the Manhattan chapter hosted the 2006 Eastern Winter Study Weekend. There is a discreet drip irrigation system, but plants are checked daily and hand-watered as required. Everything rewards the eye and speaks to the gardener’s skill, devotion, and rigorous aesthetic ideals.
I have arranged to meet fellow Manhattan chapter member Abbie Zabar here on a sunny Thursday afternoon. Judi and Abbie are already outside when I arrive, engaged in a contented exchange of information. Abbie has seen the garden, awarded the NARGS Millstream Garden Award for a Special Garden this year, before but this is my first visit. We linger in front a few minutes, admiring well-considered plant combinations and requesting the identities of many unfamiliars. “Would you like to see the back garden?” she asks.
Judi’s affinity for the Arts and Crafts movement is evident from the wall colors, decorative objects, and pictures on the walls as we proceed through the house, but the real evidence of her obsession greets us
at the threshold to the deck where we can survey the garden from an elevated vantage. The garden is small, perhaps 20 feet x 40 feet, including the paved areas, but generous by Brooklyn standards.
The first impression is of sheer floral profusion. Colors are generally restricted to cool blues, pinks, garnet reds, lavenders, and deeper purples, with some warm salmons. Yellow is primarily represented
by foliage and seasonal floral interest is extended through the careful use of glaucous, maroon, golden, and variegated foliage, and contrasts in foliar textures. It is the height of the rose, clematis, and campanula season and each genus is represented by several species, hybrids, and cultivars, particularly the latter. Garnet-red Clematis viticella ‘Madame Julia Correvon’ is juxtaposed with similarly colored, but slightly smaller flowered C. viticella ‘Kermesina’, the narrow-petaled pink flowers of C. integrifolia ‘Savannah’, and the deep, almost navy blue bells of C. ‘Roguchi’. Astilbe ‘Rheinland’ in peak bloom reinforces the cool color theme. Contrast is provided by the pink-shaded glaucous foliage of Sedum cauticola ‘Lidakense’ and silver-variegated foliage of Phlox paniculata ‘Norah Leigh’. Bright coral-red Lonicera sempervirens ‘Major Wheeler’ climbs the open lattice fence and a variety of purple-leaved Eucomis species and cultivars, including E. ‘Tiny Piny’, E. ‘Dark Star’, and E. ‘Twinkle Stars’ enliven the picture. Rich blue-purple Campanula ‘Kent Belle’ and C. punctata ‘Sarastro’ provide an additional color jolt. Copper-colored Solenostemon cultivars fill the space recently occupied by an assortment of Allium species and cultivars and other spring- flowering bulbs whose foliage has matured and died back. The density of planting and the skill of the gardener assure horticultural interest from earliest spring to late fall. We have chosen to visit at a particularly profuse bloom moment, but it is clear several such moments occur throughout the growing season.
The raised beds are fronted with horizontal boards stained a pale blue-green approximating the color of oxidized copper, a color that beautifully complements the floral and foliar colors and is repeated
in the concrete paving stones. Woody plants are pruned high to admit light, permit dense underplanting, and serve as support for clematis. Shrubs include yellow-fruited Viburnum dilatatum ‘Michael Dodge’,
the red-fruited variety V. dilatatum ‘Asian Beauty’, V. plicatum ‘Summer Snowflake’, Rosa ‘Aloha’ and R. ‘Parade’. Syringa ‘Josee’ was removed after suffering damage in Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and a number of Hydrangea macrophylla cultivars left when it became clear there was a severe space crunch and something had to go. The woody plant palette is necessarily restricted to small plants like the pale yellow-flowered Rhododendron ‘Wren’, a hybrid between R. ludlowii and R. keiskei ‘Yaku Fairy’.
Seats are provided for rest and admiration, but clearly Judi rarely allows herself lengthy period of downtime. The results of constant pruning, weeding, and evaluation are very apparent. Holes and openings resulting from the removal of ripening bulb foliage or pruning faded bloom stalks are quickly filled with new plants. The result is a highly staged display garden composed of a number of carefully composed vignettes, garden pictures to pause over, inventory the rich diversity of contributing plants, and admire the subtle juxtapositions of color, texture, and form that create strong impressions. The garden
is quite obviously in a near-constant state of flux and it is evident that plants are frequently moved, discarded if they don’t perform to a high standard, or retired in favor of new floral acquaintances, evolving garden themes, and a spirit of experimentation. A pervasive calm on the surface, characteristic of most well-maintained, horticulturally adventurous gardens, barely conceals the gardener’s restlessness in her quest for knowledge and aesthetic improvement.
Several pots of various sizes are clustered on the paving stones below the raised bed. There are a number of bog plants including several sarracenias, Gentiana autumnalis ‘Caroline County’, Salix repens ‘Iona’, Helonias bullata, and tender Pinguicula moctezumae.
A narrow passage to a basement door is flanked by a series of large pots containing select Hosta varieties and a substantial Arisaema sikokianum in peak bloom. Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’ adds textural contrast and additional bright foliar color to a dark narrow walk.
The represented taxa must number well into the hundreds and dormant bulbs and geophytes could swell that number substantially. In spite of the great density of planting, there is visual unity and no serious disease or insect infestations are evident. Developing problems are clearly identified and dispatched at their onset, seen and dealt with on Judi’s daily rounds. Until a couple of years ago, two large Norway Maples, the bane of many gardeners, cast an increasingly dense shade and their roots competed for limited growing space in the raised beds, but now their decomposing roots have provided a boost of fertility to the sunny garden.
Twenty years of gardening in Brooklyn have been a challenge, especially after considering the near-blank canvas that met her on moving to the house. Judi was initially inspired by a Heronswood Nursery catalog she acquired that made her wonder “What are all of the Latin names, anyway?” Twenty years of investigation have satisfied many of her original queries, but begged countless others. Future experiments and refinements are being considered.
Lola Lloyd Horwitz
I have made more than a few visits to Judi Dumont’s brownstone garden, during which time it has undergone changes and additions, all at Judi’s hand with the help of her husband Bob. I recall during the first few visits that there were two neighboring Norway maples immediately beside her small backyard which caused Judi no end of frustration and started her on the path of gardening in raised wooden containers although even those were not impervious to the unstoppable roots of the maples.
However, during those years of fighting with the maples, she developed the art of layering, succession planting, and vertical gardening. In addition, in 2006, she joined the Manhattan Chapter of NARGS which opened up new possibilities for her limited garden space: troughs and all the wonderful plants that could be grown in them. My guess is that her years of growing plants in large wooden containers gave her an edge when she moved on to troughs.
Her house, like the majority of those on her block, has a large front porch and no soil between the sidewalk and house. Yet the architecture is such that it affords her several levels of display for her troughs and different-sized containers. She estimates she has 20 troughs, but if you include strawberry pots, ceramic pots, and Larry Thomas long toms in front and behind the house, then the number would be well over 30. The troughs suit the stoop-porch-entryway area due to their color and stone-like construction. Also, the small plants can be examined from very close up as one mounts the steps to the front door or approaches the garage which is below the porch. This is not a display that calls out to the average passerby. Their eyes would light first on the rose billowing from a container just below the porch, but for rock gardeners it is a singular use of surfaces to display the plants we love.
Among her NARGS seed-grown plants are Aquilegia flabellata, A. saximontana, A. chaplinei, Degenia velebitica, Gentiana acaulis, Pulsatilla halleri, Penstemon nitidus and Cyclamen purpurascens, some of which are grown behind her house. She is fond of campanulas and has acquired quite a number in addition to sempervivums, a few lewisias, arenarias, and various additions from our chapter sales, and many mail-ordered treasures. (As I write this, we are both looking for assurances that our trough plants are alive after the bitter early months of 2014.) Judi’s own comment about her front area is: “I’m always on the lookout for alpines that are not impossible to keep alive in our climate without too much coddling, and can take sun or dappled sun and will actually flower.”
After entering and passing through the beautiful interior, the visitor exits the kitchen onto a small deck where the mix of containers, vines and miniature bogs occupies one’s attention, unless it is summer and the colorful plantings in the raised beds below grab one's eye first. This garden is such a contrast to
the troughs out front. Only a very serious gardener (meaning a rock gardener), takes on such a varied collection of plants each with their parti cular needs. Happily, parallel with her increasing interest in rock gardening was the demise and removal of the neighbor’s aggressive Norway maples in 2010
and 2012. The containers for her rear garden were rebuilt, staged for better viewing (lots of help from Bob) and painted a lovely blue. Her deck off the kitchen was rebuilt with the aim of extending her container garden and affording an intimate space for people to sit (not the gardener, from what I observe) while admiring the show below, only six steps down.
These raised beds catch the most sun and hold bulbs, perennials, vines and plenty of annuals to carry the garden from spring through fall. They vary in depth from 12 to 20 inches deep, have no bottoms, and are lined on the sides and bottoms with weed blocking fabric. A lovely combination in late summer is Phlox ‘Norah Leigh’ intertwined with Gentiana ‘True Blue’. In front of the beds is a collection of mixed containers and a few troughs. She has managed to fit a bench in a shady corner below the deck for visitors as they view the scene.
Brownstones come in different configurations. Judi and Bob’s has a long corridor of increasing shade next to the extension that houses the kitchen and the chilly winter plant-storage room above. If this weren’t an urban garden we would call it the woodland due to the prevalence of woodland plants minus the trees. Judi’s choices feature those with beautiful foliage, whether they are ephemerals, early flowering shrubs, perennials or annuals for summer and fall. Despite it being a narrow space, there are plenty of vines twining all over the fence, one being the native honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens ‘Major Wheeler’), a favorite of hummingbirds. My favorite is Clematis viorna growing on one side of the deck.
My last visit was the first when I experienced her early spring flowers, so I observed Judi’s method of succession planting in the rear garden: many of the bulbs are grown in plastic pots (hidden below soil level) so that they can be lifted for the addition of summer annuals. Others are ephemerals like Corydalis solida which will give way of their own accord. I could also see more construction detail than at any other time of year. The larger viburnums and rose at the back are in ground level soil while 95% of the other plants are in raised wooden containers with a little walk way between. By June most of these details disappear from sight
with the abundance of growth. All the visitor sees is a delightful and interesting space tended by someone
who will rise quite early in order to have a few hours in her garden before heading out to her full-time corporate job in Manhattan.
