Home designed and built around an organ

From where? Anywhere. When? Any time. What? Anything. This past Sunday, I was lucky enough to be invited to attend a gala concert benefit for Chamberfest Cleveland in a house designed around an organ. This organ is huge, larger even than the one in St.Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. The design of the organ is very modernistic as is the house.

The musicians were of the highest caliber: Franklin Cohen, first clarinetist of the Cleveland Orchestra, his daughter Diana who is the concertmaster of the Calgary Philharmonic, Roman Rabinovich who is a pianist, and David von Behren, a young but extremely organist who studies at CIM. The music left us all dancing in our seats. 

Organ pipes that look like birdhouses

Organ pipes that look like a sculpture

As I looked around at the organ while listening to the music, some of the organ pipes suddenly started to look like birdhouses while the arrangement of another grouping reminded me of a starburst-like sculpture I had seen in a small Paris park. 

White slats on the right are open but can close

During the organ recital, I noticed that there were vertical slats that opened or closed to expose or hide some of the pipes and mute the sound. That made me think of landscapes as a journey on which you see some of the landscape part of the time but not all of the time. How can that be accomplished?

Fritillaria meleagris is lovely in mid-April but will disappear by the end of the month

Epimedium rubrum is a lovely shade groundcover that blooms in April

Anemone blanda white and blue will disappear by the end of the month. Arabis will continue to bloom into the beginning of May and then be a fuzzy green groundcover. There is one Tulipa ‘Waterlily’ that the deer haven’t eaten yet. Later in the year this area will be covered with sedums.

When I design twelve month landscapes for Cleveland properties, I like to play hide and seek by using so many different types of plants that there is always something of interest to see. Bulbs can be planted for spring, summer, or fall bloom; so can perennials and flowering shrubs. Right now, in bloom in my garden, are hyacinths, species tulips, Narcissus, Anemone blanda, Scilla sibirica, two species of Fritillaria, Arabis, Epimedium, hellebores, Lathyrus vernus, and Sanguinaria canadensis (Bloodroot).

Helictotrichon sempervirens is a grass for sunny dry sites that keeps its color year round.

Ornamental grasses can provide foliage color, form, and flower for at least ten months; some provide it for all twelve months. Conifers, of course, known also as evergreens, come in an amazing variety of colors, textures, and forms. 

Annuals in hayrack are Angelonia purple, Ipomoea bronze, Calibrachoa ‘Sweet Tart’, and Verbena tapiens echoed on the right with Clematis ‘Venosa Violacea’.

Although the permanent plants in my landscape provide ever-changing interest throughout the year, I like to enhance them with brushstrokes of annuals for extra color, form, or texture. Don’t forget to visit Plant Sale on my website and place your order by April 29. 

What has inspired you lately? What enhancements can you add?