Speaker 1: My friend and landscape designer Fernando Wong is known for
Speaker 1: his inspired vision when it comes to outdoor spaces and gardens.
Speaker 1: He fills these gardens with interesting architectural elements and artistic plantings.
Speaker 1: Fernando and his husband Tim Johnson Founded Fernando Wong Outdoor
Speaker 1: Living Design, Inc. In two thousand and five, and since
Speaker 1: then they've created some of the most lush and elaborate
Speaker 1: private and public outdoor rooms across the country. They published
Speaker 1: a book, a beautiful book entitled The young Man and
Speaker 1: the Tree Fernando Wong Landscape Design, and on the cover
Speaker 1: is one of the most beautiful trees I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: And I think I actually saw that tree in real life,
Speaker 1: did I, Fernando.
Speaker 2: I think so.
Speaker 1: Welcome to my podcast. Thank you for Fernando and Tim,
Speaker 1: and thanks for coming all the way to Bedford.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: It's Chili here, Martha.
Speaker 1: And Chili, and the garden looks like hell, but we
Speaker 1: need the cold. Yes, my garden is a perennial garden
Speaker 1: and it needs cold, and it needs snow cover, and
Speaker 1: the plants need to rest and to chill and to
Speaker 1: get ready to grow again next spring.
Speaker 3: Which is why it's so lush when we come in
Speaker 3: the spring. It's always remarkable when you think of how
Speaker 3: long it's dormant.
Speaker 1: And you're living mostly in Florida, mostly in the southern climes,
Speaker 1: and so you're used to a very different kind of
Speaker 1: tropical gardening. And I envy you because it is very
Speaker 1: beautiful what you do and where you are, But I
Speaker 1: would miss the seasons tremendously. Fernando. Yes, do you remember
Speaker 1: when we first met? Why were we together? We were
Speaker 1: there for a very specific reason in Terrytown, New York,
Speaker 1: on the Hudson River, in a beautiful park like setting.
Speaker 1: We were working on a television.
Speaker 2: Program correct that was called clip.
Speaker 1: Clip, Yes, Clipped. It was supposed to be amazing show
Speaker 1: about topiery, Yes, and topiery which has become very popular
Speaker 1: all over the world, and people are practicing the art
Speaker 1: of topiery, which is basically bushes and shrubs that are
Speaker 1: on trees that are clipped into shapes by artistic gardeners
Speaker 1: and landscapers.
Speaker 2: Wonderful, wonderful people that actually participated the contestants. They also
Speaker 2: mentioned other two styles of topiery called pave and what
Speaker 2: was the other one? Mosaic mosaic and pave that's right.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what they were talking about, and they
Speaker 1: really didn't have the opportunity our contestants. You were a judge, yes,
Speaker 1: And we had a couple other How many judges did
Speaker 1: we have?
Speaker 2: Three?
Speaker 1: There was one other person? Was it that nice guy from.
Speaker 3: Boston, Chris Lambert?
Speaker 1: That's right, Chris Lambert from Boston or Cape Cod. I
Speaker 1: think he writes to me, now do you keep in.
Speaker 3: Touch a little bad? Yeah, he's a very nice.
Speaker 1: Guy, charming guy. And and we were all kind of
Speaker 1: scratching our heads because on Tell, for television and for
Speaker 1: working in such a short period of time, we had
Speaker 1: to do a lot of artifice, and the poor contestants,
Speaker 1: you know, had to shape, you know, fully grown you
Speaker 1: bushes into something, and that's not usually the way topiari works.
Speaker 1: It's usually a shrub that's planted in the ground, or
Speaker 1: a box wood or a you or a pretty much
Speaker 1: anything and then shaped year after year after year, so
Speaker 1: it gets full and lush and and becomes whatever the
Speaker 1: artist wants it to become. But I felt sorry for
Speaker 1: the contestants because I know that they didn't have enough
Speaker 1: opportunity to make what they really wanted to make. But
Speaker 1: you were so fun to be with. Frenanda, thank you.
Speaker 3: It was in the middle of COVID, which made it very,
Speaker 3: very che I don't remember that part, but I remember
Speaker 3: it's crazy.
Speaker 2: I remember that you were doing like three more shows
Speaker 2: doing that same time and say where the manth I
Speaker 2: guess that's because by the time of the end of
Speaker 2: the day we were just so tired.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: In fact, you called us once and I think it
Speaker 3: was eight o'clock and we were in bed. He said,
Speaker 3: what are you doing? And we all were up and said,
Speaker 3: what can I come by? And you know, we'll have
Speaker 3: drinks and talk about people in the show. So we
Speaker 3: got up and went down had a martini. But we
Speaker 3: were talking about the Bedford Post Bedford Post, which which
Speaker 3: we love. But your energy is amazing because we were
Speaker 3: wiped out and we were just doing that one little
Speaker 3: show and you had gotten up at four in the morning.
Speaker 2: I was doing my own show.
Speaker 1: Here, Martha knows best. When we were working right on
Speaker 1: my own in my own garden here. Oh, it was
Speaker 1: it was a crazy You were on a cooking show too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we were doing Martha cooks and do all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1: But but you know what that got me through COVID,
Speaker 1: and I know that kind of activity got you guys
Speaker 1: through COVID very nicely too. But we digressed because this
Speaker 1: is not about COVID and it is not about surviving
Speaker 1: the pandemic. It is about the amazing, amazing team work
Speaker 1: that both Fernando and Tim do. They just are amazing
Speaker 1: at how many different places they're working on. These are
Speaker 1: These are elaborate gardens, and these are important gardens. And
Speaker 1: these are large houses with beautiful properties, many of them
Speaker 1: on the intracoastal waterways, in Palm Beach and in Miami,
Speaker 1: in Panama, you're working.
Speaker 2: I'm working in Panama.
Speaker 1: And where else are you working?
Speaker 2: Working in the Bahamas and the Bahamas?
Speaker 1: Yes, and life for.
Speaker 2: Key and life for Key. Also. I have worked in
Speaker 2: several islands, such as Baker's Bay, Harbor Island, which I love.
Speaker 2: My favorite place in the world.
Speaker 1: Isn't that nice?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I had friends who had homes and on Harbor Island
Speaker 1: and it's very beautiful.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, the most beautiful pink beach and the
Speaker 2: world is there. Yeah, and I'm very lucky to be
Speaker 2: working there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, beautiful, And I still don't know how you do
Speaker 1: it because when I go down to it, like something
Speaker 1: like the Bahamas, how do you get the plant material
Speaker 1: that you get to the Bahamas? Everything has to be imported.
Speaker 2: Everything is important.
Speaker 1: And do you have your own boat that you take
Speaker 1: stuff on it a freight boat.
Speaker 2: Well, we streamline all those aspects because we do use
Speaker 2: local people so they they know, they know how how
Speaker 2: to release customs and all of that, the timing of
Speaker 2: when the plants remain on a container, so it's manageable
Speaker 2: and is quite easy to do for us.
Speaker 1: Well, he says it's easy. It's magic actually because because
Speaker 1: what you have to look at the book to understand
Speaker 1: the kind of complex and beautiful architecture that goes into
Speaker 1: the designs of these gardens around very complex houses, around
Speaker 1: existing beautiful trees. Now, tell me about the tree that's
Speaker 1: on the cover of your book, the young Man and
Speaker 1: the Tree.
Speaker 2: The young Man on the Tree the Tidle actually team
Speaker 2: come out with that idea for the title. But the
Speaker 2: tree is a wonderfullest specimen.
Speaker 3: It's a beautiful k pok But it came from the
Speaker 3: Bahamas and where this house was, it's a famous John
Speaker 3: volkhouse and it's called the Dodger State. It's very large.
Speaker 3: It goes all the way from the lake and it's
Speaker 3: three acres and it was originally a hotel and it
Speaker 3: was the Clark family's hotel which is Clark Avenue, and
Speaker 3: one of the Clark sons in the eighteen fifties brought
Speaker 3: this tree back as a sapling.
Speaker 2: And now it's how is it hundreds of I mean
Speaker 2: over two hundred years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this this is actually so I thought that
Speaker 1: was import.
Speaker 3: It just came from, but that's it came. They traced,
Speaker 3: they know, they brought it back and it's very very
Speaker 3: beautiful because every once in a while it will seed
Speaker 3: and it will have these puffs of this beautiful, beautiful floating.
Speaker 1: Cap which they used to stuff pillows.
Speaker 2: With exactly right tilt.
Speaker 1: Yes, my grandma used to show me the k pok
Speaker 1: coming out of the pillows that we slept on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so it really, it really does. It is a
Speaker 1: productive tree, it is.
Speaker 3: But it's a very massive tree. And the homeowner, probably
Speaker 3: like all of our clients and like probably the three
Speaker 3: of us, it's very o.
Speaker 1: CD would like to cut it down.
Speaker 3: Well, she was having a huge party and it did
Speaker 3: this thing and they had all these people out there
Speaker 3: with blowers trying to get the all the little fluffy
Speaker 3: things up. I thought it was beautiful.
Speaker 2: She was so beautiful because it felt like it was snowing.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, that is so funny. Well, Fernando, you came
Speaker 1: to the world of landscape design by studying architecture first.
Speaker 1: How did that influence your work as a as a
Speaker 1: landscape designer.
Speaker 2: I'm very much in love with classical architecture, so I
Speaker 2: use principles that are based on you know, Italian Renaissance
Speaker 2: and French as well as English designs. That allowed me
Speaker 2: to elaborate a theme of plan selections as well, along
Speaker 2: with the geometry that some of these gardens are well
Speaker 2: known for.
Speaker 1: Well, who's your favorite Italian landscape designer from the past.
Speaker 2: Oh God, I think that probably would have been I
Speaker 2: don't know, maybe Leonardo da Vinci, because everything started with
Speaker 2: a drawing.
Speaker 3: Right, and he did design some gardens actually beautiful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was. I was in a couple of garden
Speaker 1: We went to Rome for Thanksgiving and we saw a
Speaker 1: lot of Leonardo da Vinci's work in Rome, and it
Speaker 1: was it was so reminiscent of the beauty that I'd
Speaker 1: seen all over Italy. But oh my gosh, I love
Speaker 1: those gardens so.
Speaker 2: Much, the Renaissance, the incredible work.
Speaker 1: So what happened in France? Was your favorite designer in France?
Speaker 2: Andrea Natron me too, absolutely.
Speaker 1: The favorite landscape of their Si.
Speaker 2: Yes, Volvicon, which I happens to be a designer for
Speaker 2: one of the night galas, not this year but last year, and.
Speaker 1: I missed that. Oh can you imagine designing of a
Speaker 1: party at volivit one of the most beautiful classical French
Speaker 1: chateaus of the that was seventeenth century, right, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: before Versailles was built before. Yes, And when Louis the
Speaker 1: fourteenth saw Volivitconte, he got very angry.
Speaker 2: Very jealous, very jealous.
Speaker 1: He hired all the same designers to build his most
Speaker 1: beautiful place, Versailles, and he imprisoned the owner.
Speaker 2: Of for fifteen years, never to see the house again.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine how awful?
Speaker 2: But I think you've had alis on the Count de Voto.
Speaker 1: So he's a wonderful, wonderful storytelling and he came the
Speaker 1: count from volivitcon He's the family still owns the beautiful property.
Speaker 1: He's told me lots and lots of stories.
Speaker 3: He's got good ones. And I think you also talked
Speaker 3: to the count the dowager Countess to his mother.
Speaker 1: She makes the most beautiful dessert. She did a dessert
Speaker 1: cookbook which I just envy as the most beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: Some of her desserts are so colorful and so intriguing.
Speaker 1: Those are the kinds of desserts that might have been
Speaker 1: served in the time of Louis Cator's. That's very interesting,
Speaker 1: really something. And what about English gardens? Which which are
Speaker 1: the English designers that you love?
Speaker 2: Well, there's one that I really love is Russell Page.
Speaker 1: But he's contemporary.
Speaker 2: He's contemporary. But until recently we have befriend the Duchess
Speaker 2: of Rutland. So I came across with the knowledge of
Speaker 2: capability Brown.
Speaker 1: Yes, isn't he amazing.
Speaker 2: The beautiful landscape that he created, because we might think
Speaker 2: that the English countryside was natural, but now it was
Speaker 2: also created.
Speaker 1: It was so much created. And I have a lot
Speaker 1: of Sir Humphrey Repton's books with the overlays, and you
Speaker 1: can see he starts with a Humphrey Repton was not
Speaker 1: the most important landscape designer, but he was an important
Speaker 1: one and He did a very beautiful book on which
Speaker 1: a Broadway play Tom Stoppard was based. On the stage,
Speaker 1: they did the overlays where you start with a basic
Speaker 1: landscape and then they peel you peel back and you
Speaker 1: see what finally is designed to be built.
Speaker 3: One of the things about beaver Castle's interesting is that Amma,
Speaker 3: the Duchess of Otland, they found the capability brown plants
Speaker 3: that hadn't been and they're implementing them.
Speaker 1: Which house does she have?
Speaker 3: Well, it's called this is so great. It's called beaver Castle.
Speaker 3: But it's very English because it's spelled b e l
Speaker 3: v io.
Speaker 2: R to belva.
Speaker 3: But they say beaver you know, they not quite as
Speaker 3: that means beautiful exactly right. So the English like to
Speaker 3: trick us with the crazy pronunciation.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. So Fernando's signature design principles and his esthetic
Speaker 1: ideas are wonderful for garden spaces large or small. If
Speaker 1: you look through this book you will get very inspired.
Speaker 1: But what he can do to a space large or small?
Speaker 1: Can you share some of your design tenants with us?
Speaker 1: Fernando just like four things that when you're looking at
Speaker 1: your own property, Four things that you should take into consideration.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, is the architecture style of the
Speaker 2: house is very important. Then how the spaces that you
Speaker 2: are planning to have are going to be interconnected, and
Speaker 2: those lucky enough who have whether water views or mountain views,
Speaker 2: who try to work with those, while we can also
Speaker 2: conceal undesirable views as well, and then always imagine places
Speaker 2: that might be enclosed, such as courtyard, and how to
Speaker 2: use those elements of iconography to your favor. But most
Speaker 2: of the design that I always trying to do is
Speaker 2: elongate these vistas. And I think is important for us to,
Speaker 2: especially in the drop, to perhaps consider there's so much
Speaker 2: landscape and they're surrounding areas of a house, and we
Speaker 2: can actually get benefits from concealing and open vistas by
Speaker 2: incorporating landscape that is in our surroundings.
Speaker 1: Accessing vision right, yes, it's called it's funny. You can
Speaker 1: call it an access of vision or a view, or
Speaker 1: you can call it access axis of vision. The intersections
Speaker 1: of all of your eyes going into the distance. And
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: I love that part of it never gets higher. I
Speaker 2: always bring me peace. So that's probably why it's always
Speaker 2: part of my design.
Speaker 1: And you know when you meet Fernando, He's this really
Speaker 1: cute guy. He's such a friendly, happy, go lucky kind
Speaker 1: of guy. He is really intense when it comes to
Speaker 1: starting to describe the landscape. No, really, I love talking
Speaker 1: to you about landscape and it's really it's really interesting
Speaker 1: and tim of course he uh, do you manage the business?
Speaker 3: I do manage the business.
Speaker 1: I me ya, Fernande, which is management.
Speaker 3: We're very lucky because we've been together for twenty three
Speaker 3: years and we've had the business for twenty years. And
Speaker 3: we never fight about personal things because we have to fight,
Speaker 3: and we fight about business.
Speaker 1: Business, that's it.
Speaker 3: But we haven't had a personal fight. And I don't
Speaker 3: know how nice. Yeah, it's good, but we fight about
Speaker 3: business a lot.
Speaker 1: But you share do you both? Do you share Fernando's view,
Speaker 1: you know, his idea of design.
Speaker 3: The other reason we've been so successful as a partnership
Speaker 3: is that we have very different lanes and very distinct lanes.
Speaker 3: And I do like design, and you know, I'm good
Speaker 3: at interiors and things like that, and I always offer
Speaker 3: my opinion, but it all comes from him. And one
Speaker 3: of the amazing things about Fernando is when we go
Speaker 3: to a garden in Palm Beach or whoever it is, Bahamas, Fernando.
Speaker 3: It's almost immediate, and you could see him think it.
Speaker 3: It'says if he's hovering over the space. But he gets it.
Speaker 3: That's why we're so successful. He gets it right away.
Speaker 3: There's no sort of angst about how he's going to
Speaker 3: do this. He knows in his brain and it just
Speaker 3: comes out and it's just it's magnificent. So that's very wonderful, that.
Speaker 1: Kind of intuition, immediate intuition about a place. So many
Speaker 1: people really struggle with that so much. And I struggle
Speaker 1: with it because I came here to a farm. No
Speaker 1: landscape architect helped me, and I probably would have done
Speaker 1: very well to have some advice, because I came to
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty acres and the first thing I
Speaker 1: did was build a road, and I didn't even think
Speaker 1: about the views from the houses. All I wanted was
Speaker 1: a way to get around this whole property. There were
Speaker 1: no real roads, so I built the road, and then
Speaker 1: I built the paddocks for the horses. They needed, they
Speaker 1: needed their home, and then I started to think about
Speaker 1: trees and where they should go, and I really didn't
Speaker 1: focus at all on can I see anything from the house?
Speaker 1: And I should have paid attention to that. But I'm
Speaker 1: happy here.
Speaker 3: But it's interesting. I think you're like Fernando in the
Speaker 3: sense that when we go to a project like the
Speaker 3: ones you've seen, and they're so beautiful, but for Nanda
Speaker 3: only focuses on what he should have done better than flaws.
Speaker 3: But when you're here, it is one of the most
Speaker 3: beautiful places in the world, and you've done such a
Speaker 3: magnificent job. But it's when you when you go around there.
Speaker 3: You don't maybe necessarily have us in the house, but
Speaker 3: you do have those view corridors, those beautiful views as
Speaker 3: you see them.
Speaker 1: A few things the properties, but it could have been
Speaker 1: so much better a place I was. I was trying
Speaker 1: when I did this place. I thought, oh, this is
Speaker 1: my last big garden. But who knows? You never know,
Speaker 1: do you know? So how do you use water to
Speaker 1: define spaces, Fernando, because you your properties, many of them
Speaker 1: that you design are surrounded by water or facing water.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I'm lucky enough, like in the surf Club for
Speaker 2: Seasons in Miami. I did that hotel and there were
Speaker 2: nine acres on the ocean. They were emerging of a
Speaker 2: historical structure with the richer Meyer towers, and then all
Speaker 2: what we have at that time was just sand. So
Speaker 2: my experience by being in Palm Beach, it just opened
Speaker 2: up a whole set of rules that were not necessarily
Speaker 2: applied in Floord in Miami, per se, but it just
Speaker 2: brought so much elegant to that particular spot. In other cases,
Speaker 2: where I have intercoastal waterways, sometimes I use pleached trees
Speaker 2: to block maybe a non desirable house across the inter
Speaker 2: coastal and then be able to see the water from
Speaker 2: their lower portion.
Speaker 1: Of a pleach tree is a tree that who has
Speaker 1: a trunk and oftentimes a tall trunk, and then a
Speaker 1: shape lease top of the tree right correct, usually a
Speaker 1: square or rectangle or a pyramid, kind of a round
Speaker 1: pyramid or something. But I love pleach trees me too.
Speaker 1: I love polared trees even better, do you Pollard?
Speaker 2: We do that in Florida, not for winter, but we
Speaker 2: are we actually do it for managing the canopy of
Speaker 2: the trees. That way. I think that probably a lot
Speaker 2: of people who start having gardens in Florida used a
Speaker 2: lot of English designers, and that actually helps to bring
Speaker 2: more character to the tree, especially seagrets, which is a
Speaker 2: Florida native and it makes a beautiful silhouette during the summertime.
Speaker 2: And you sea grape, We actually pull out some that
Speaker 2: also picus aria orbanions also. They get benefits from that
Speaker 2: because they have very shallow root system and on a
Speaker 2: sandy soil. It's very important to try to manage not
Speaker 2: to lose an specimen tree by lowering or making the
Speaker 2: canopy smaller.
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to Polari is really stunting the growth
Speaker 1: of the branches of a shapely tree like a linden.
Speaker 1: Linden trees take to pollarding, as do sometimes sycamore. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm doing a sycamore polarted sycamore la.
Speaker 2: Now, yes, I remember saying that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm starting it. We have to do some a
Speaker 1: lot of pruning this winter to try to start getting
Speaker 1: the They have nubs on them. I call them nubby
Speaker 1: trees because each branch ends up in a big cluster
Speaker 1: of nubbins, yes, and then all the little branches sprout out.
Speaker 1: You know. It's kind of fun. But if you are
Speaker 1: interested in shaping your trees, there's so many many wonderful
Speaker 1: books talking about pollarding and bleaching and pruning. Pruning is
Speaker 1: an art, it's such an art form. Do you have
Speaker 1: good pruners?
Speaker 2: Well, I work with several companies, so all of them
Speaker 2: are incredibly talented. I think that they should have been
Speaker 2: in the show if you were to ask me, I agree, yes,
Speaker 2: I think that you also have a beautiful cloud a
Speaker 2: box with outside these windows. Oh yes, it's quite beautiful.
Speaker 2: So you have very good people working here.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, we like to we like to clip you go,
Speaker 1: and we have very good clippers, both both human clippers
Speaker 1: and middle clippers, and we do mostly by hand. All
Speaker 1: this what box. A few years ago, I figured out
Speaker 1: a new way to cover them. We use the steel
Speaker 1: tubing or aluminum tubing from the plastic greenhouses, so those
Speaker 1: those temporary kinds of greenhouses, and we use that and
Speaker 1: then cover that with burlap. So it works well instead
Speaker 1: of bamboo, because bamboo just rots every year and so
Speaker 1: you have to and it's harder to insertain the frozen ground.
Speaker 1: These middle the middle.
Speaker 2: Do you have them install on sleeves? So yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, we.
Speaker 1: Put them in sleeves and pull them out every year.
Speaker 1: It works. I'll show you there's all kinds of things
Speaker 1: to learn from each other. When you're talking about gardening.
Speaker 1: When I visited you in Palm Beach, you showed us
Speaker 1: a beautiful garden where you incorporated a real What is
Speaker 1: a real.
Speaker 2: There's a small channel where water will travel. And this
Speaker 2: particular case, I have a sitting area with a beautiful
Speaker 2: diamond shaped traillers on top of it. So I install
Speaker 2: some boogambilias on either side of that trailers so they
Speaker 2: can eventually give us some shade. But I felt that
Speaker 2: that particular spot needed some interest, so the design was
Speaker 2: created to actually take anybody who sits in that area
Speaker 2: and look across the yard and a connection of three
Speaker 2: little fountains, one that is very tranquil, the one in
Speaker 2: the middle that has the spout, and at the very
Speaker 2: end is a wall fountain that with a beautiful phase,
Speaker 2: kind of very classical in style, and that pours water
Speaker 2: into it.
Speaker 1: Oh oh great, yeah, I have to I'll come down
Speaker 1: and look at that again. Someday. I really want to
Speaker 1: do some water features and on this property. And we
Speaker 1: have streams, but this summer everything dried up. What do
Speaker 1: you do when a stream dries up?
Speaker 3: Just wait, cry, wait for next season for the rain
Speaker 3: we had.
Speaker 1: We had quite a drought here this or we didn't
Speaker 1: have We didn't have rain for more than twelve weeks,
Speaker 1: and so we were watering and watering and water to
Speaker 1: have deep wells so the well water. And I lived
Speaker 1: right near a reservoir which has water all the time.
Speaker 1: But boy, it was it was tough. So when you're
Speaker 1: doing a landscape job, do you do you always include
Speaker 1: in your designs.
Speaker 3: Irrigation correct, always, that's very important.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I I installed water lines with hydrants, but not
Speaker 1: irrigation because I always found that irrigation on such a
Speaker 1: big such a big area, when it breaks, it causes
Speaker 1: a lot of flooding and a lot of problems. So
Speaker 1: do we use hose and hydrants? Oh, that's smart. Well,
Speaker 1: it's hard because you're moving hoses and sprinklers everywhere, but
Speaker 1: at least you can control what you're watering.
Speaker 3: Well, it's very difficult. And on these biggest states we
Speaker 3: do where they have very complex irrigation systems and we'll
Speaker 3: have twelve zones and then when something breaks and you
Speaker 3: get the call, we have a ten thousand dollars water
Speaker 3: about what we're going to do, and they have to
Speaker 3: find the break so that your ways is much better.
Speaker 3: It works, It does.
Speaker 2: Work, but.
Speaker 1: It is labor intensive, it really is. It's hard. So
Speaker 1: how do you utilize pools as a design element?
Speaker 2: Oh, those are a wonderful item to design. I typically
Speaker 2: like rectangular pools. I also adventure out in other or
Speaker 2: more classicals such as ovals or chevrons. I don't explore
Speaker 2: it too much on kidney shaped pools because I think
Speaker 2: I need a lot of land to be able to
Speaker 2: accommodate something that beautiful.
Speaker 1: When I think of a kidney shaped pool, I think
Speaker 1: of palm springs, correct, you know, with the boomerangs and
Speaker 1: kidney shape. It fits the architecture out there. But here,
Speaker 1: when you when you see a kidney stay cool, it
Speaker 1: just doesn't work at all. And this farm is very
Speaker 1: reck de linear, So I try to keep it. I
Speaker 1: try to keep it your pool.
Speaker 3: Here, pool here. But one of your favorite things are
Speaker 3: the round pools. And and that project that you filmed
Speaker 3: from Martha's Gardens, it has a round pool. It was beautiful,
Speaker 3: which is very pretty. And Fernanda also did that. There's
Speaker 3: ever been to the the gas Marilla in on Boca
Speaker 3: Grand in Florida. It's one of the few remaining wood
Speaker 3: kind of grand hotels. Forna did this remarkable pool there
Speaker 3: and it's round and it's called the moon pool and
Speaker 3: it's very cool.
Speaker 2: Well, they were layers to that, so that round pool
Speaker 2: I wanted. I saw the idea of the round pool
Speaker 2: because I was calling it the moon pool. So it
Speaker 2: has pity it at the time when the design was
Speaker 2: have perimeter walls raised so you can have advantaging edge.
Speaker 2: And then the idea was to have the walls dark,
Speaker 2: and then you have a tile design of the pool,
Speaker 2: so all of the wall it should have been black
Speaker 2: and then the moon would have been tons of white.
Speaker 2: But you know, you have to comply on commercial properties
Speaker 2: with some regulations of you know, safety for those who
Speaker 2: say dark.
Speaker 1: Dark bottom is dangerous because someone might dive in the
Speaker 1: shallow end and hit the bottom right, something like.
Speaker 2: That, something like that, or a child needs to be
Speaker 2: able to see is brown.
Speaker 3: Which is why commercial projects are so tough. And it's
Speaker 3: sort of like during a movie, because it's a miracle
Speaker 3: when a movie there's so many details when you have
Speaker 3: a great movie. When you do a commercial property, and
Speaker 3: like the four seasons we've done, we've done a couple
Speaker 3: of hotels in Savannah, and we're doing a hotel the Panandle.
Speaker 3: It's a big resort, but you have to go through
Speaker 3: value engineering, you have to go through a committee, and
Speaker 3: then the killer is life safety because you have to
Speaker 3: think about things kind of fire truck turn around and
Speaker 3: not go over any bushes. It's really hard. So when
Speaker 3: you see good hotels, it's remarkable how talented people that.
Speaker 2: Are that do that.
Speaker 1: So how do you choose pool colors? Because that people
Speaker 1: are always asking me, you know, how do you choose
Speaker 1: a color for a pool.
Speaker 3: We like it dark because the reflection not only the moon,
Speaker 3: but it reflects the in Florida, the night, the light,
Speaker 3: but you reflect the trees, the sky, and so we
Speaker 3: love dark poles. We try to push those, but a
Speaker 3: lot of people don't like them.
Speaker 2: Most of my gardens actually are green and green just
Speaker 2: because the light in Floyida I saw intense. But I
Speaker 2: just enjoy that so much because you notice other things
Speaker 2: within the garden, the shine of the leaves, the shapes.
Speaker 2: And then when you have a dark bottom pool, then
Speaker 2: you capture the reflection of the sky and sometimes we
Speaker 2: have beautiful afternoons or beautiful mornings, and that bring a
Speaker 2: whole different dimension to a backyard.
Speaker 1: And what's the service of the pool that's black is
Speaker 1: that is the concrete pourd black.
Speaker 2: Is Actually we can do it with tiles. You can
Speaker 2: do it with a material called pebble tech or wet
Speaker 2: jet industry, similar to what could it be a plaster pool,
Speaker 2: but it has pebbles in it and the pebbles do
Speaker 2: not change color.
Speaker 1: So my first pool was black in Westport, Connecticut, and
Speaker 1: I called it the black hole because it was very
Speaker 1: deep and it was fifty feet long and twenty feet wide.
Speaker 1: And I was the painter because it was at that
Speaker 1: time we painted pools and it's the most horrible thing
Speaker 1: to do in the early spring. You drain your pool
Speaker 1: and you paint it. And I was down there with
Speaker 1: rollers and gallon on some paint painting at black every
Speaker 1: every single year. It was the most horrible job. That's
Speaker 1: before they had gunn I think it was in an
Speaker 1: old concrete pool. It was a horrible job, but we
Speaker 1: laughed about it, but it was a beautiful. I loved
Speaker 1: the blackpool. Since then, I'm going for much more like
Speaker 1: almost natural concrete color.
Speaker 2: Which you inspire me because when you buye me over
Speaker 2: and we were talking about your pool, and at that
Speaker 2: time you were installing the granite patio from But these
Speaker 2: granite pieces were giant and they were restored or.
Speaker 1: They came from a they came from a Catholic church
Speaker 1: parking lot in Boston about that and they are big,
Speaker 1: thick pieces of granite and they're sort of a pinkish brown.
Speaker 2: But the one thing that it just sort of like
Speaker 2: surprised me that most was the bottom of your pool.
Speaker 2: It felt like you were on a creek. So it
Speaker 2: was supernatural and I absolutely love it. And actually I
Speaker 2: applied in one of my projects. I was so shocked
Speaker 2: when the color was applied because it was occre It
Speaker 2: was ok. It was not until they actually do the
Speaker 2: pressure wash to explore the aggreg Oh my god, I
Speaker 2: have such.
Speaker 1: A yellow mustard color.
Speaker 2: Yes, I was so afraid. Oh my god, what I
Speaker 2: have done.
Speaker 1: So you must have lots and lots of tricks to
Speaker 1: draw people into your landscapes. Yes, a little entry or
Speaker 1: a big entry.
Speaker 2: It depends on the property. Once again. Sometimes we can
Speaker 2: create mystery by winding a dryway to the property. Sometimes
Speaker 2: we use shadows so larger trees will be part of
Speaker 2: the front entrance and then you let the house kind
Speaker 2: of be revealed by the sunlight. It depends on where
Speaker 2: I am, because I could be in Coconut Grove and
Speaker 2: core Gables, or I could be on the beach. It
Speaker 2: depends on the house.
Speaker 1: Oh I had, I had a favorite house and Coral Gables,
Speaker 1: the one right next door to Viskaya. Oh, there's a
Speaker 1: beautiful old white house. Yes, and I told every realator
Speaker 1: down there that if the owner ever died, please call
Speaker 1: me because I would buy that house. I love this Skaya,
Speaker 1: don't you. Yes, Viscaya has A is a beautiful place,
Speaker 1: and it's a It was a Venetian house with a
Speaker 1: Venetian kind of landscape right on the waterway there. It
Speaker 1: was what what body of order is that same bag? Yeah,
Speaker 1: what a beautiful place. If you have not been to Viscaya,
Speaker 1: please it's it's open to the public. It is a
Speaker 1: it is a public garden and mansion in the Venetian style.
Speaker 1: Please try to see.
Speaker 2: That house was as remarkable as yours because they used
Speaker 2: to have a sue. They used to have like.
Speaker 3: Originally it was thousands of acres. It was from John
Speaker 3: Dee or Cormack. That's right, and they used it for
Speaker 3: two years or two months out of the year, and
Speaker 3: it is one of the most remarkable houses in America.
Speaker 3: It feels like you're in Italy.
Speaker 1: Oh it's so beautiful there, then feels.
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, it really does. So that's a good one.
Speaker 1: What inspires you, Fernando and your outdoor designs? Besides history, of.
Speaker 2: Course, yes, recently, I just really enjoy going to resorts,
Speaker 2: sort of like my splurgs of marketing research and find
Speaker 2: out what's new, and I always trying to be inspired
Speaker 2: by that. Hotels. Hotels are a great source of inspiration
Speaker 2: for me. Also historical homes. We are members of these
Speaker 2: wonderful organization called the Garden Conservancy. So every time that
Speaker 2: we go to a tour of these gardens, which happens
Speaker 2: to be in the garden, your house happens to be
Speaker 2: in the garden tour as well. You get so inspired
Speaker 2: by what other people do. So it's quite nice.
Speaker 3: It's really important that there's a great dyna reallying quote
Speaker 3: that needs to travel. Wh's in paraphrasing, but basically you
Speaker 3: have to see things if you're a designer to be inspired,
Speaker 3: and so we travel quite a bit, and we were
Speaker 3: very lucky we.
Speaker 1: Were doing a bit.
Speaker 2: You are never home, Well, we need that I to
Speaker 2: be inspired, I know, but.
Speaker 1: Isn't it fabulous to be able to and and once
Speaker 1: once you're known as a landscape designers as as these
Speaker 1: two guys are, you get invited to all these other
Speaker 1: places too, and you can just call up and say,
Speaker 1: I'm for an end while I would like to see
Speaker 1: your property. But it is wonderful to see all these places, really.
Speaker 3: And it's also nice with gardeners because all gardeners like
Speaker 3: to show your garden. You like to show your work.
Speaker 3: You're you're very generous about letting people see things and
Speaker 3: opening up to different organizations like the Garden Conservatives.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's important too. Once you do the amount
Speaker 1: of work that one does to make a garden, to
Speaker 1: share it is also a very nice thing. I love
Speaker 1: having garden chores here. Not only do people learn, they
Speaker 1: can ask questions. Ryan is very knowledgeable and I try
Speaker 1: to try to be here usually on a garden tour
Speaker 1: and let people in. You have visited so so many gardens.
Speaker 1: Tell us three of your favorites.
Speaker 2: Well, if you are find yourself in Florida, come to Miami.
Speaker 2: There's several beautiful examples, and one of my favorite is Viscaya.
Speaker 2: The other one is the fair Child Tropical Garden, which
Speaker 2: is completely different than the one I just mentioned. And
Speaker 2: there's one more is the Compound, and the Compound is
Speaker 2: in Coconut Groau and has all kinds of examples of
Speaker 2: tropical free trees. So and also is Mbiscay Bay and
Speaker 2: tim my favorite.
Speaker 3: I think Versailles is one of the most remarkable things
Speaker 3: I've ever seen in my life. I also think the
Speaker 3: interesting one is bucking and Palace if you can do
Speaker 3: tours there, and that has a really beautiful garden. Just
Speaker 3: because of the fact you're in the middle of London,
Speaker 3: you have this giant expanse.
Speaker 1: My favorite partners well the Orangerie at Versailles, which I
Speaker 1: had a private tour of during the Olympics this year
Speaker 1: because I was there because that's where the equestrian events.
Speaker 2: We saw you snoop, Yeah, I was a snoop dogg.
Speaker 1: But what a beautiful, beautiful place. And the Orangerie is
Speaker 1: one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.
Speaker 1: And the gorgeous, gorgeous citrus trees. I love that place.
Speaker 1: I also love Mount Vernon because I live in old
Speaker 1: American houses and I just think Mount Vernon is a
Speaker 1: very beautiful place. I also love the gardens of Jens Jensen.
Speaker 1: He did a lot of gardens in gross Point. He
Speaker 1: did the like the Chicago Parks. Jens Jensen. It was
Speaker 1: called the Prairie Architect. And I love the the serenity
Speaker 1: and the and the openness of his designs. He's a
Speaker 1: really fine landscape designer. And I own a Jens Jensen
Speaker 1: garden up in Maine. My house has the only East
Speaker 1: Coast gens and garden. That's great. That's Skylands. That's amazing,
Speaker 1: really lucky to have that place and try to maintain
Speaker 1: it so it's basically a forest. Fernando, you've been called
Speaker 1: one of the most important landscape designers in America by
Speaker 1: Architectural Digests. What does that mean to you and how
Speaker 1: does that raise the bar for projects that you take on.
Speaker 2: Well, it's really nice to beat.
Speaker 1: In a short period of time. You are really, I
Speaker 1: mean fabulous. It's so wonderful to see that your success
Speaker 1: and your accolades for the work that you've done. People
Speaker 1: love your work.
Speaker 2: Well, we tried to make it really fun, so I
Speaker 2: think that we are quite a pair. So we make
Speaker 2: things interesting and fun. But I think that we do
Speaker 2: it with such a joy. And when we were talking
Speaker 2: just early on about how is my process when I
Speaker 2: design something, I do it, I don't know, three or
Speaker 2: five different options, sometimes just just for the pure joy
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's great. So you give your customers an option yes,
Speaker 1: or two or three and they can choose and discuss.
Speaker 1: And how long does it take to design, say, say
Speaker 1: a three acre property in a fancy neighborhood like Palm Beach.
Speaker 1: How long does it take you to design a garden
Speaker 1: like that property?
Speaker 2: In my mind, I can design it instantly. Is just
Speaker 2: the aspect of putting into a drawing and then work
Speaker 2: with geometry and you know, line of sights in that
Speaker 2: kind of condition, I probably will say maybe two months.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And how long does it take to build a
Speaker 1: garden like that?
Speaker 2: It depends because then we.
Speaker 1: Can plan to something that looks good.
Speaker 2: So if you are just doing planting, for example, you
Speaker 2: can put together a garden maybe in six or eight months.
Speaker 2: And then if there is a house that is not
Speaker 2: being built yet, there's about eighteen months to two years
Speaker 2: where the house needs to be built for all of
Speaker 2: the planting to take place.
Speaker 3: But usually it's years, and most of our projects it's
Speaker 3: two to three years, whether it's a big renovation or
Speaker 3: new construction.
Speaker 1: What are some of your most memorable projects?
Speaker 2: Memorable?
Speaker 1: Your favorite?
Speaker 2: My favorite? I definitely like a Sally Trail, which happens
Speaker 2: to be the cover of the book because many many
Speaker 2: years ago, probably in two thousand and two, his parents
Speaker 2: gave me a book called Gardens by the Sea, and
Speaker 2: I used to admire those pages, and little that I
Speaker 2: know that project will fall into my desk as a
Speaker 2: potential client. So it's sort of like you know that
Speaker 2: sometimes life will give you and send you a whisper
Speaker 2: who knew that I will have a chance to restore
Speaker 2: these wonderful historical home and the garden and the other one,
Speaker 2: which actually is when you went to in Palm Beach,
Speaker 2: which was a house. We lived further south, so we
Speaker 2: drove by it every day. That just sat rotting for
Speaker 2: ten years, and we loved the house.
Speaker 1: And then those two guys.
Speaker 3: Two guys took it over. It's a beautiful Regency.
Speaker 1: Persian casts, the biggest Persian casts you have ever seen.
Speaker 1: I've been in touch with the reader, Oh God, sending
Speaker 1: me pictures of these amazing casts that she has.
Speaker 2: They're so big.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can I don't know if
Speaker 1: I can handle how big these You.
Speaker 2: Got a lot of her.
Speaker 3: But that project was so great because the two guys
Speaker 3: who've met, who we'd done things with them in Miami,
Speaker 3: were the nicest people in the world. But it was
Speaker 3: sort of a unicorn project in the sense they hired Fernando,
Speaker 3: they hired Miles Red and Sharon and boys and Sharon.
Speaker 3: What's a great architecture from New York classical architects And
Speaker 3: they we did our presentation and we did we do
Speaker 3: these three D movies. We show them the three D movie.
Speaker 3: They said, we love it. Let's get going. They just
Speaker 3: kept sending money. There were no meetings and they did,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, it doesn't happen very often.
Speaker 1: And how long did it take?
Speaker 3: It took a couple of years, but there were no meetings,
Speaker 3: and they thrilled with it. They're thrilled and they let
Speaker 3: Miles do it. It's the best thing, Miles ad It's
Speaker 3: coming out in Architectual Digest, and it's on your show,
Speaker 3: Martha's Gardens. So to be an a d but that
Speaker 3: wasn't credible, that whole process, and it's one of the
Speaker 3: best things Fernando's ever done. And this is an interesting
Speaker 3: a little bit of gossip. It just went on the market.
Speaker 3: They're selling it furnished, completely furnished for forty nine million,
Speaker 3: so definitely million.
Speaker 1: How big is the property I forgot him.
Speaker 3: It's almost an acre, almost an acre.
Speaker 1: It's quite an extraordinary place and lots and lots of room.
Speaker 1: So if you have forty nine million lying around, So
Speaker 1: if you want to design, say a homeowner just wants
Speaker 1: to redesign quickly a garden, or you give me three
Speaker 1: or five pointers.
Speaker 2: Well, work always with get a tree survey so you
Speaker 2: will know the inventory of what you have. Then working
Speaker 2: your pedimitter of planting for privacy, and then you can
Speaker 2: bil upon stages. If you get those two things done,
Speaker 2: you'll be in your way to create something that we
Speaker 2: I also.
Speaker 3: Think it really does help to hire a professional and
Speaker 3: there's there's different there's a professional landscape designer for every budget,
Speaker 3: and even there's there's landscape designers that do small projects.
Speaker 3: But one of the great things is even if you
Speaker 3: can't afford to install the whole thing, get a plan,
Speaker 3: and then you can do it in stages slowly if
Speaker 3: you just want to do something on your own. I
Speaker 3: think one of the biggest things, and if you'll notice
Speaker 3: about all the Fernando's gardens is he does little rooms.
Speaker 3: And it's sort of counterintuitive because you would think that
Speaker 3: by breaking up the space it makes it seem smaller.
Speaker 3: But in the same way that when you go into
Speaker 3: a room and a room seems smaller and there's nothing
Speaker 3: in it and you put the furniture in, I guess
Speaker 3: this was really a big room. The way your mind
Speaker 3: reacts to different spaces is it actually thinks it's bigger
Speaker 3: than if it was just one big open space. We
Speaker 3: try to break it up and make little rooms and
Speaker 3: do a few corridors and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that helps. I have that my favorite saying for gardening.
Speaker 1: When you want to be happy for a year, take
Speaker 1: a wife, or you can say take a husband. If
Speaker 1: you want to be happy for a decade, get a dog.
Speaker 1: But if you want to be happy for the rest
Speaker 1: of your life, make a garden. Isn't that nice?
Speaker 2: It's really beautiful.
Speaker 1: Written by a sourpuss old man, probably who already builds
Speaker 1: a fabulous garden is engraved in his in the stairs
Speaker 1: to his property down. I think it's in Maryland.
Speaker 3: Oh, I wondered where that came from because you said
Speaker 3: that I'm pump Beach. And then I think it's on
Speaker 3: that that documentary.
Speaker 2: Yes, and now it's everywhere.
Speaker 3: It's kind of it's become a cultural PHENOMENA six year old.
Speaker 1: Nephew of mine is walking in through the garden and
Speaker 1: he's quoting that he loved the idea. There's so much
Speaker 1: more to talk about, and but I just want everybody
Speaker 1: to know that Fernando Wong and and Tim Johnson have
Speaker 1: created some of the most beautiful gardens in America and elsewhere.
Speaker 1: And you can access a lot of the visuals by
Speaker 1: getting the book The young Man and the Tree. It's
Speaker 1: available on Amazon. Who published this book. Von Dome published
Speaker 1: the book and uh And you can watch Fernando on YouTube.
Speaker 1: There's some some pieces from shows and things with with
Speaker 1: Fernando on the YouTube, and you'll see how how much,
Speaker 1: how lively, and how intuitive these two guys are about
Speaker 1: garden design and about the implication of these garden designs
Speaker 1: on a person's property. This is it's so nice to
Speaker 1: be talking to both of you about all of this.
Speaker 1: Just keep doing your great work, and I applaud all
Speaker 1: your efforts and and your success in a field that
Speaker 1: needs good taste and beautiful plants and wonderful gardens, and
Speaker 1: you do all of that.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Martha, thank you, thank you, Martha, and thank
Speaker 3: you for writing the forward to the book, which I
Speaker 3: appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I forgot it says right on right on the cover,
Speaker 1: and I love writing forwards to books that I really like.
Speaker 3: Well, we really appreciate.
Speaker 1: For writers that really do things, and so both of
Speaker 1: you do that.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Thank you. M. H.