The Influence of China on West Coast Gardens:
connecting to a strong cultural heritage

Cosponsored by Pacific Horticulture, GARDEN DESIGN Magazine and MONROVIA GROWERS

Last minute registration special! New registrants for this event will receive a complimentary year’s subscription to Garden Design Magazine!

This is the Fifth Season for the Garden Conservancy’s landscape design and history series entitled Gardens to Match Your Architecture. The Influence of China on West Coast Gardens is part of this series.

Capturing the idea of the Influence of China on West Coast Gardens:
A subtle richness of design that reflects China often pops up in gardens made on the West Coast. Spatial arrangement (scale, perspective, and connection to the greater landscape), architecture, fence and gate detail, rock alignment, ponds, paving patterns, choice of plantings and their sequence (a careful combination of under-story and over-story), and the ideas behind a “contemplative garden” borrow from Chinese and other Asian aesthetics. (See a list of public Chinese gardens on the west coast)

SEE OUR LIST OF SPEAKERS

Have you looked in your closet at the floral designs on your clothes or on your walls or studied your horticultural bookcase recently? Being attracted to Chinese art and culture is both a recent phenomenon and a 19th Century interest. Both the British and the French, including Monet, had intense periods of “Chinoiserie,” which also found its way to American interior design, architecture, and artifacts in our gardens.

In the last 10 years three public Chinese Scholar Gardens have been built in major West Coast Cities—Vancouver, Portland, and Los Angeles. One of the largest populations of Chinese and others of Asian descent lives in Monterey Park near the Huntington. The challenge is to connect to this cultural heritage through understanding and appreciating its garden tradition. The Huntington’s new Garden of Flowing Fragrance leads the way. People fall in love with this garden without understanding why.

The new Huntington Garden is built in the Chinese tradition by Chinese artisans, using building materials from China, but it also carries the imprint of the understated that is traditional to the Huntington Garden’s own style.

This program is not about China and its historic gardens, so much as the subtle influence of China and its culture on people with other cultural backgrounds.

Click here to see the preliminary program and don't forget to check back for more details.

Seminar: Friday, April 3, 2009, 8:30 am to 5 pm
The Log Cabin, The Presidio, San Francisco

Study Tour: Saturday, April 4, 8 am to 6 pm (Does not include travel times)
(includes lunch/wine reception)
Meet at the Presidio, San Francisco or in Oakland for carpools.

The study tour includes an Oakland garden; the Live Edge and Joinery Structures mill, which uses green and salvaged urban wood; the Bardessono Inn and Spa, an Asian fusion designed site in the Napa Valley; Quarryhill Botanic Garden, an Asian woodland in Glen Ellen; and Paul Discoe’s private garden in West Sonoma County. A special feature of the tour is a talk by William McNamara before guiding us through Quarryhill Botanic Garden.

Registration

**Special offer!! New registrants will receive a complimentary year’s subscription to Garden Design magazine!**

Fee for both Seminar & Study Tour (includes lunches):
Carpools for San Francisco and East Bay will be arranged prior to the tour.
$245 Garden Conservancy members
$260 Pacific Horticulture subscribers & Quarryhill Botanical Garden members
$275 general admission

Tickets for Seminar Only (includes lunch):
Subject to availability.
$135 Garden Conservancy members
$145 Pacific Horticulture subscribers & Quarryhill Botanical Garden members
$155 general admission

CEU credits from APLD pending. Special seminar bookstore by The Arboretum Bookstore.

Register Online, or
Download Registration Form, or
call 415/441-4300, or email the west coast office

Preview of Speakers:
We are interested in generating some excitement by including some designers who work in other design venues, such as interior design or fashion design.

Liu Fang Yuan Garden (the Garden of Flowing Fragrance): Jim Folsom, director, Huntington Botanical Garden

Paul Discoe, Zen builder, coauthor of a new book entitled: Zen Architecture: The Building Process as Practice (2008 Gibbs Smith)

Sean Hogan, co-founder, Cistus Nursery, Portland, OR, author of Trees for All Seasons: Broadleaved Evergreens for Temperate Climates (2008)

Martin Mosko, landscape architect, Marpa Design Studio, Boulder, CO, coauthor of Landscape as Spirit: Creating a Contemplative Garden (2003)

Dr. Charles Wu, Chinese Scholar, Portland Classical Chinese Garden

William McNamara, director, Quarryhill Botanical Garden, Glen Ellen, CA. William McNamara will speak on Satuday’s tour.

Logistics:
Directions to The Log Cabin, The Presidio
Click here for directions
Click here for a map of The Presidio

Suggested Lodging

La Luna Inn: 2599 Lombard Street (at Broderick), San Francisco / Toll-free 866-900-0157 / Local 415-346-4664

Hotel San Remo: 2237 Mason Street (between Chestnut & Francisco), San Francisco / Toll-free 800-352-7366 / Local 415-776-8688

Columbus Motor Inn: 1075 Columbus Avenue (at Francisco, Northbeach), San Francisco / Local 415-885-1492

Laurel Inn: 444 Presidio Avenue (at California), San Francisco / Toll-free 800-552-8735 / Local 415-567-8467