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The Opening Party

I have devoted a lot of ink on and off over the past 5 years to the story of how my shop came to be.  Why is this?  As important as it was to me personally, I  think it is an interesting story. The bel’occio gene-I think both Rob and I have that.  When I look at these pictures of our opening night, I am struck by how sparsely furnished the space was.  It was a giant expenditure to get the building ready for company.

March-1996.jpgWhat I had to spend left over to furnish it was 1/4 of what it cost to make the space habitable. We did as much of the work as we could ourselves. And we bought a few great things.  Beautiful handmade pots.  An antique iron sculpture from Paris that took the lions share of what we had to spend on ornament.  So we had lots more that opening night in the way of excitement and good will than ornament for the garden.  A place where people would feel welcome came first.

Two of my oldest landscape clients sprung for this opening party-I still work for them both, and love them dearly.  They saw to entertaining my guests. Forging relationships over the landscape is one of the best parts of my job.  They encouraged me to persist in transforming a dream into a reality.  Though that night was many years ago, I still recall it vividly.

I was excited beyond all belief to have Detroit Garden Works full of people for the first time.  No landscape I have designed and installed gets my seal of approval until I see how people interact with it.  Do the spaces work?  Are they comfortable?  Are they on occasion provocative?  Is there a natural and easy flow?  Does it handle traffic, kids, entertaining, reflection and family?  Would you smile, or study what you saw?  This particular landscape was near and dear to my heart.  As it turned out, there was no need to be nervous.  Landscape clients and friends were all about expressing their good will.

March 29, 1996This night was not about making a passing grade. Or who we had been. It was a beginning.  An opening statement. All these years later, it only takes the first signs of spring to bring out the garden in us.

All of the food was served in Italian pots.  Pots from Crete.  Pots from England.  Pots from France.  The big idea here-a garden can nourish.


We had an idea about gardens.  We made that come to life.  This was one of my most favorite gardening moments ever.

Posted on: March 29, 2011 12 Comments
Filed Under: Garden Stories, Detroit Garden Works Tagged With:

Getting It All Together

Rob was instrumental in getting it all together.  When he wasn’t shovelling out old asphalt tiles, old records and debris, he was putting together a trip to Europe to shop. Though he may seem very low key, he has a fire burning for anything garden related.  That first trip to Europe, he was nervous.  Not nervous to go, not nervous about not having regular hotel reservations.  How could he make hotel reservations, when it was not clear where he would go?  He was nervous he wouldn’t find anything to buy.  I was nervous about the plane, and the big fluid travel situation, but I knew he would find great things.  He has a superlative eye, and endless energy for what interests him.     

Since we would be bringing terra cotta from Italy, it only seemed appropriate that we find a way to put our logo on a terra cotta pot.  A printing place that specialized in sandblasting patterns into glass made 25 of these pots for us-I still have one.

The finishing of the shop was well under way.  Don Taylor supervised the installation of a new bank of windows, a new window sill, dry wall mudding; of course we painted for days. We learned first hand what the phrase brick and mortar means. In this room, the first floor painting on the concrete-a tangle of grape vines and grapes.  I remember it all being very exciting, challenging, and loads of fun.   

Some things that came in required assembly-Rob did that too.  His schnauzers took to living on cardboard boxes as if they had done so their entire lives.   

Ann Berg was Rob’s grandmother; he persuaded her to come for a visit, and help out.  The plywood letters that spell out the name of the shop on our sign in front was carved in exterior plywood by Rob’s Aunt Esther and Uncle Ken.  Rob sent them the logo, which they blew up by 300 percent, and used as a template.  All of the letters, among a lot of other things, got painted by Ann.  My Mom-doing this kind of thing was not her forte.  But she did loan me 14,000.00 when I was about to run out of money.  3 years later when I had the money saved to pay her back, she waved me off.     

The day the first container arrived was a magical moment for all of us-but more so for Rob.  Communications 15 years ago were not like they are now-I really did not have a very good idea of what was in that box.  But even Rob had not seen everything he bought all together at once.  Would there be lots of objects all singing different tunes,, or would there be a collection?
No one deserved that day more than Rob-he had worked so hard.  In many ways, this 15th anniversary is really Rob’s day.  I had every confidence that his voice would make the shop different than any other place devoted to gardens.  I think this is still true today, and I am very appreciative of that.  I am much more involved in the buying now, as I can instantly see objects in other places and other countries via his I-phone.  But back then, he had to go it alone.   

At one point the entire garage was awash in excelsior.  Everything fragile was packed in those coarse wood shavings.  We recycled every bit of it-over the following 5 years.  Having in my possession, however briefly, what other people had made for the garden in places far away-everything that got unpacked felt like a gift. 

There would be many more containers to come.  Each ocean going packing container is locked once it is fully packed.  That lock can only be cut off once it is delivered to the person to whom it is sent.  I have all of those container locks-this most recent one is number 43. But this first container unpacking was a perfect moment.  


We were very close to putting away the paint sprayer, and sending out invitations to the opening.

Posted on: March 29, 2011 2 Comments
Filed Under: Garden Stories, Detroit Garden Works, Garden Ornament

A Special Birthday

Tomorrow is the fifteenth anniversary of the opening of Detroit Garden Works.  I had been in the landscape design and construction business for ten years, when I decided to buy this building, and open a shop devoted to fine ornament and furnishings for gardens.  Though I hardly knew it at the time, it was a very big move for me. Shops such as this were few and far between in the US, and not all that common in Europe. I wanted to be able to offer my landscape clients greater depth.  Great  landscapes imply a site, a collaboration, a gorgeous and arranged collection of plants-and some architecture.  No plant or collection of plants fully represents a landscape.  But those objects I place in a garden name names-they go on to evoke memories, create an atmosphere, and provoke the eye.   Favorable circumstances enabled me to buy this property-an accountant common to both the seller and I who brokered the sale, and a friendly zoning ruling from Bloomfield Township.      

The closing took little time.  But the property sat from March until August-I had to work.  In late August of 1995, every truck I had pulled up, and parked.  We had a lot of work to do.   

The inside of the building-really rough.  Today my office and library occupies this space. 15 years ago, this space was a wreck.  This was the main office of the Little and David Machine Company, in the demolition phase.  Less than ideal-about all I had to offer this project was my willingness to work.  I hired a construction supervisor.  Everyone who worked for me helped to transform this space.   

Oil coated the floors, and splashed up the walls.  Reviewing these pictures, I am so pleased and amazed that I had the nerve to go ahead.  My Mom cried when she saw this building-no wonder.  In my mind-a great shop devoted to great objects for gardens.  No oil soaked surface would deter me.  I persisted.  These floors defied cleaning.  I finally hired a company to come in and shot blast the floors with steel shot.  Once the top 1/4 inch of concrete was ground off, they were clean; Rob and I mopped all of the floors with clear epoxy to seal the porous concrete.  

Months were devoted to the shovelling out phase.  Cleaning up and shovelling out a fouled site-this takes a lot of time.  Everyone who worked for me signed up, and delivered.  Every compelling story has much to do with the people who make that story happen. My group-they were great.  Fortunately, none of us were shy about getting dirty.  I was sure the space had not been cleaned in many years.         

The shovelling out-we drove trucks in and out of the building and to the dump for almost 3 months.     

Once the building was empty of all the debris-I was assessing spaces.  How did it feel? To be on my own?  Liked a rolling stone-just ask Bob Dylan.   

The greenhouse room-I removed the roof here, and  stood pat with the roof open to the skies for better than 3 months.  The rain washed away much of what worried me.  The smell of oil finally dissipated. We were able to start the construction phase-new walls would enclose the office space from the shop. The construction phase took 3 months; we opened March 29, 1996.  Two old clients had offered to throw me an opening party-what fun that was.  To still be here all these years later- even better.  My fifteenth anniversary-I am treasuring this moment.

Posted on: March 28, 2011 7 Comments
Filed Under: Detroit Garden Works

The Olive Jars


Apparently I am still writing about Italian terra cotta-bear with me if you can.  The container that arrived just a few days ago has brought back a flood of memories from the past fifteen years shopping for great terra cotta-I have some 35mm images that describe those memories.  Once the shop had a home, and an address, Rob went shopping not one bit more seriously, but in greater volume, and with more confidence.  In the early 1990’s, he met and did business with Klaus and Ilona-they brokered Italian terra cotta from a number of different potteries.  Rob would meet them in Florence, and shop.  Though Klaus was German, his mother lived in Tuscany-in those days.  Rob became part of their Italian/German family.  Many bottles of great chianti and home bottled olive oil from Klaus’s Mom arrived in the container with our terra cotta in those days.  They helped bring order to Rob’s orders. Few of the potteries we bought from did much business exporting to the US.  The order we placed very early on with Carlo Chiti-the money disappeared, and our request for pots went unanswered.  Carlo Chiti-if you are out there, we are still waiting for our pots.  Klaus and Ilona no longer rep Italian terra cotta, but their generous help and support more than a decade ago taught Rob much about how to shop in Italy.     

The terra cotta pots, and sculptures manufactured by Mital are legendary.  Giant and ornately sculpted vases from Mital grace gorgeous gardens all over the planet.  In my opinion, the most beautiful classical Italian terra cotta pots ever made come from Mital.  My own terra cotta collection revolves around pots from them.   

A series of terra cotta pots of this exact design were made by Franco’s grandfather early in the 20th century for the Biltmore Estate.  These replacements for two broken pots, made from the original mold, were about to be shipped when Rob visited Mital in 1998.  Based on this photograph, I ordered three of them for the shop.  One client spoke for all three-he is as crazy about classical Italian terra cotta as I am.

Rob’s first trip to Mital in 1998-not so much about the history.  It was much more about meeting people.  Franco’s father’s vintage Lancia was as much a part of the landscape as the terra cotta.  There was much discussion of that car.  The personal relationships that Rob nurtured so many years ago over a love for fine terra cotta was instrumental in our ability to offer fine terra cotta to our gardening clients.  

I cannot speak or write with any authority about the use of terra cotta pots for storage of olive oil.  But I do know the terra cotta of the 12th and 13th century primarily consisted of jugs to hold water (mezzine), tiles and bricks for buildings, and jars for storing certain liquids and grains (orci).  By the 16th century, as the production of olive oil became an increasingly more important agricultural product in Tuscany, the production of orci-those jars used for the storage of the oil- increased accordingly-dramatically. 

In the yard at Mital, an incredible collection of antique terra cotta olive jars, side by side the olive jars still in production there.  What was once traditionally made in Italy to store oil is still being made, though their use has expanded.

   The ancient olive jars at Mital-a collection amassed over a lifetime by his father.  Franco was clear-none of the ancient jars were for sale.  Though they were simply diplayed at the pottery, they were a treasured reminder of all the the history of his craft.  Glazed on the inside, olive jars both new and antique have a distinctive shape.  The large oval bodies tapering at the bottom permitted the jars to be stored upright in metal or clay rings, or in wood braces aboard ships.  The relatively narrow necks still permitted easy access to the oil; the handles were useful should the jar need to be moved.

Olive oil should be stored in a dark cool place for maximum longevity.  The jars-perfect for this.  But ancient terra cotta olive jars are incredibly beautiful in their own right. My personal collection of terra cotta from Italy includes one 18th century olive jar, purchased from an Italian antiques dealer in northern Italy.  The year it arrived from Italy, Rob filled it with water.  Unbelievably, the scent of olive oil filled the air.     

Though I plant my jar with flowers every year, it is every bit beautiful enough to stand on its own, unplanted.  The day it is moved to the deck for the summer is a very good day indeed. I spend plenty of time thinking through what I will plant-this part is my pleasure.  

This Italian olive jar, empty, but faithfully supporting a climbing rose-this might be my most favorite garden photograph ever.  I have no idea where Rob took this picture, but it describes what I love so much about Italian gardens-they have a long standing romance with their gardens that is unmistakeable.   


This ancient terra cotta pot with obvious damage is an important visual part of this vineyard landscape.  I am sure it was not placed here for that purpose.  There simply was no thought to discard it.  If I had the chance, would I buy a pot such as this?  No doubt-yes I would.

Posted on: March 15, 2011 4 Comments
Filed Under: Detroit Garden Works, Garden Ornament Tagged With: , , ,