Last summer I visited my hometown of Richmond, Virginia especially to see its iconic Monument Avenue without the infamous Confederate statues, and posted what I found here on the Rant.
(Quick update on the status of the Robert E. Lee statue: Virginia’s Supreme Court cleared the way for it to be dismantled and carted away, which has been done. It’s yet to be determined what to DO with it.)
But I saved for now, mid-way through this dreary winter, to share the garden-related thrill I experienced in Richmond – my visit to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, where I instantly fell in love with its gardens. I had to pull myself away to go inside the much-praised museum. (Scroll down for proof that I did, finally.)
I gathered my museum photos and did the basic googling to find out who had created this magical place and discovered that it’s registered with the Cultural Landscape Foundation, on whose website I learned a bit about the museum and its gardens:
Funded by the Federal Works Administration, the 14-acre Virginia Museum of Fine Arts campus was established in 1936 amidst formal Beaux Arts parterre gardens and a heritage oak grove. Additional classical structures were added in 1954 and again in 1970 to accommodate the growing collection.
In 1976 Lawrence Halprin, working with Angela Danadjieva, designed a sunken sculpture garden that included a geometric water feature inspired by Virginia’s waterfalls. Halprin selected all but one of the sculptures, which he personally sited amidst woodlands and lawns along a serpentine walk meandering across gently undulating topography. In 2010 Halprin’s sculpture garden was replaced by a museum wing designed by architect Rick Mather and a lawn, waterfall, and canted rooftop sculpture garden designed by Laurie Olin of OLIN.
“Well, no wonder!” I proclaimed when I saw the names of two of the most exalted landscape designers in the world, including for their works here in Washington, D.C. (For at least 20 years I attended meetings of D.C.’s design review body, where these two landscape “starchitects” and many others presented their works.)
Here in D.C., Halprin is the only landscape architect to ever design a presidential memorial (the FDR, a favorite of us locals), while Olin is credited with the Washington Monument, the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden and many others. (The Virginia Museum isn’t even listed on their website as a featured project!)
The Foundation listed the styles of the museum’s landscape as Beaux-Arts / Neoclassical and (now) Modernist. Clicking those links for examples of old and new styles sure cemented for me my preference for Modern – or what I’d describe more generally as nontraditional.
These colorful glass tubes by Dale Chihuly DO seem to be everything these days, but they’re super-effective here.
More views from my visit in late June of 2021.
Also on the grounds…
My purpose in going to the museum in the first place was to see Kehinde Wiley’s Rumors of War. It’s located a block or so from Monument Avenue, where statues in this style honored Confederates for so long.
Plants Indoors by Faberge
I offer these Faberge works as proof that I did go inside the (mostly free) museum, though my focus was still on plants. Shown above are Faberge wild rose, Lily of the Valley, and English Hawthorn.
Apparently Faberge’s botanicals are hot items in the auction houses these days.
For some reason the Faberge dandelion was my favorite, though. Maybe because it’s nontraditional?
Dreary winter indeed! Looking at more snow tonight down here in the Tidewater area. My wife calls gardening my “therapy”: I really need some of that “therapy” right now. If nothing else I guess I could get out and cut the old foliage away from all my Hellebores.
Oh my God! Will there ever be any writers or articles on all of the wonderful gardens in California?!?! I am so tired of hearing about Washington DC, Virginia, and everything on the East Coast. There are millions of us on the West Coast that deserve to have some representation on the Rant. What do I grow underneath my kentia palms? How do I propagate bromeliads? Should I leave the mother tree in my redwood grove? How about Plumaria? And the list goes on and on and on… If I have to read one more article about Susan Harris and her neighborhood garden I may lose my mind .
Perhaps your comment is better put to the editors of Rant rather than poor Susan Harris herself. She’s a very lovely gardener who lives local to where she writes about.
If you want to read about West Coast gardens, I’m sure the Internet can help you find many such blogs or websites. Your comment seems unnecessary and just plain mean-spirited.
I love reading Garden Rant specifically because of stories like this, ones that cover gardens far from my location on the West Coast. These are gardens I would never otherwise get the chance to see.
Really? So write one.
As a matter of fact, I hope you are so successful and so busy you never are forced to view an east coast harden again!
Let’s us know, we’ll be happy to troll your site and try to take the joy our of it for you!
David, great idea to start a blog about California, but whoops there are quite a few. Nobody ever said that Garden Rant would be able to give equal opportunity to green across the country.
Well there are the guest rants, of which I’ve submitted a few about things growing in my neck of the woods … Illinois. I would like to hear from Ranters anywhere. The logical place to start is where you know best … your own place.
David, we understand your desire to see West Coast Rants (we like to see them ourselves from our Guest Ranters), but we are not a ‘how to’ site and never have been. We take on topics and tell stories relating either directly or tangentially to gardening and do so to provide readers with something in direct contrast to the 943 million garden blogs out there (including the personal blogs of many of our writers). We also like to share gardens and great gardening books when we can.
Sometimes you’ll get a how-to in the midst of why-to, but it is not our focus. Nor is towing the line when it comes to popular opinion. We’re thankful to have thoughtful readers that come from all over the world specifically to add a bit of GardenRant salt to their average daily fare, catch their favorite voices, and comment to us and to each other. I certainly hope you’ll continue to join us, even if you can’t find a lick of information on your plumeria. Mind you, I know a great book that can help you with that…. – MW
While perhaps GardenRant should be pleased that, apparently, you loyally source it for the entirety of your garden reading, to attack Susan, who is a passionate, enthusiastic, and excellent garden writer and an all-around nice person, for writing about the horticulture she lives near, loves, and knows is just asinine. Nothing but a jackass move so stereotypical of yet another flaccid anonymous internet troll. Next time, consider spending the time you wasted on your comment by doing something positive. For instance, you could do a search for blogs by California garden writers (and hope like hell that they’re not writing about D.C.). I bet there are some. Or, hey, maybe even be a brave boy and put yourself out there with some writing of your own.
I imagine Gardener Google will help you with “What do I grow underneath my kentia palms? How do I propagate bromeliads? Should I leave the mother tree in my redwood grove? How about Plumaria? ” if you ask nicely….?
As a life long flyover state resident it gives me a giggle to hear a Californian whine about being slighted. That said, submit a rant about California gardens!
Then don’t read them.
Great article! Definitely makes me want to plan a trip to Richmond.
Love those glass tubes, which remind me of the wonderful Blue Stick Garden. https://www.claudecormier.com/en/projet/jardin-de-batons-bleus/
You seem to suggest such things have become ordinary, but they haven’t in the UK. I have often tried to work out how to replicate such a thing affordably. (The joy of the Blue Stick Garden is how it changes as you move round.) Suggestions welcome!
I think I saw one of those installations at Hestercombe in 2004.
You did. That’s where we saw it too. We contemplated using the idea but didn’t in the end
Perhaps you might be interested in a classic Southern blue bottle tree (I’ve been told there is only 1 South, and it is self-explanatory)
They do catch the light beautifully. In one of my favorite colors.
And less tiresome than planting beautiful pale blue flowers that just fade into the background from 2 meters away.
Oh WOW, I love that blue stick installation. And the blue cowboy hats walking thru! Love the Jardin de Metis as well. It is a must visit in the Gasped Bay region of Quebec. Thank you so much for the link, Anne.
Gaspe Bay.
Anne, I haven’t seen much of Chihuly’s work either, but have gone online to see some of his exhibits and creations. I recently watched a YouTube video of a talk he did w/Google in 2008. He said that in 1976 he was in England with a friend and they got into a bad car accident on their way to Wales. He was hospitalized for 3 weeks and lost one of his eyes. As a result, he as no peripheral vision or depth perception. He still designs, but I’m not sure how much he blows glass anymore.
I am so over Chihuly, but otherwise, I’d love to visit this.
Ditto on the Chihuly, but I love this. Would love to be sitting on that outdoor patio now!
I’m also a Richmond native and although I moved to Canada many years ago, I often visited the Va Museum of Fine Arts when I returned to the city to visit my parents. I was last at the museum in 2011 and didn’t see these fabulous new sections of the garden. I also am tired of Chihuly but like the red rods as used here — very effective. The museum website has no information about the garden which is a shame. Of your photos, I thought the classical sculpture of Poseidon/Neptune in the pool was perfectly positioned. Seeing these images makes me want to return to Richmond and to enjoy, again, a very fine museum.
This is my own rant, if that’s actually permitted from a mere reader of Garden Rant.
I enjoy Susan’s posts but see them as mostly puff pieces, as quickly forgotten as read. They definitely have a peculiarly self-satisfied DCish flavor that is rather disconnected from the real ecological world in which our gardens and landscapes are embedded in. All the eye candy and plant lust leaves me mostly feeling hungry, kind of like the day after Halloween or Thanksgiving over indulgence. Or maybe it feels like the metaverse, designed by and for humans of a certain bent. I miss a feel for the realities of dirt and soil . . . or the marvellous holes in leaves that show our gardens feed bugs that birds need to raise successful nestlings each year.
It’s a rant we’ve heard many, many times from preservationists, conservationists and other ecological advocates, criticizing garden writers and bloggers for not having the same focus they do. Per your About page, you’re “dedicated to ecological protection through education.” https://www.wynnefarm.org/about-us
Sorry, but we have a different focus – on gardens and gardening – and we can’t be shamed into becoming clones of you guys. I’m glad you’re doing your thing but we’re doing something different. I’ve always maintained that exciting readers with the beauty and wonder of plants growing around their homes is a GOOD and productive thing for the planet and for the gardeners themselves. It’s okay that we don’t focus mainly on the gardener’s responsibilities – you guys are carrying that message.
I’m pretty sure that won’t be the last word on this topic, though. Whenever we get a comment like yours there are always others following quickly. It’s almost as if they’re communicating with each other!
Oh wow, this comment is a real doozy. Is the art INSIDE the building just lustful, “eye candy” also? A container of summer annuals is now part of some sinister “metaverse” designed by “humans of a certain bent”? What does that even mean?
Excellent comment and thank you. To some, art is elitist.
Thank you for a wonderful column. I am looking forward to visiting the museum.
After looking at the many wonderful places on Instagram, we are trying to get out and visit the many wonderful locations within a days drive.
Love your columns! No need to change a thing.
Have a beautiful day!
I am very surprised at the number of sour and self-serving responses, written in reaction to this post. I have never seen a Faberge flower, Kehinde Wiley’s” Rumors of War” stirs, Beaux Art, Neoclassical and Modern – history lesson right there. Just enjoy and participate constructively.
Maybe we should chalk it up to irritability over too much cold winter weather and Covid. It does keep the comments section lively, at least. I’m glad Susan has a thick skin.
Yes to thick skin! I didn’t lose any sleep over either of the attacks. They’re clearly not even familiar with my writing.
I think I got more entertainment reading the comments than the column.
I’m NOT the owner of WynneFarm blog thank you so very much. (Inadequate research is really annoying). I just hope y’all will spare whoever that actually is from one of those nasty internet troll pile-ons.
I love and steward flowers, trees, shrubs, perennials, moss, birds, butterflies, spiders, water, pollinators, etc for themselves and also because …no Them, no Us.
I’m enthusiastic & knowledgeable about Fabrege and other glass artist flowers, botanical paintings and other such cultural wonders. Great that the VA museum is displaying them! I there being wowed the first time I saw such things. In a museum, of course
While I’m sure there are wonderful gardens at the VA museum, the posted photos are mostly of stark, boring SOP outdoor architecture with a few plants & colored glass rods added – architecturally – to relieve the beige boredom.
I’ve been reading and watching landscape architecture, garden design etc for 50 years now. I’ve developed and tended 3 small home gardens- first three, long sold, still exist because they’ve brought joy to subsequent owners.
I’m glad some people find concrete jungle gardens ‘exciting’ & impressive. Obviously such monuments are far easier to stroll in without soiling one’s shoes – and much easier to maintain than plant centered gardens. I do not apologize in the least for saying those mostly bore me to tears. Good on y’all for enjoying them so much. Chacun a son gout, eh?
Feel free to not post my last comment. I’m sure it’s way too … something … for most of your readers, who seem like a really sweet bunch.
Thank you for sharing your visit to VMFA. I haven’t seen any Chihuly exhibits, but love seeing blown glass art incorporated into the landscape. I’ve discovered that in Colorado we have a piece of his art on permanent display at the Denver Botanic Gardens. Your post inspired me to look into more of Chihuly and his work; sand + fire + human breath = some amazing creations. BTW, he says his widowed mother inspired his work because she loved gardening, and from a young age he grew up with gardens in his yard. He originally studied interior design before learning the art of glass blowing.