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Thursday, August 28, 2003
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DAVID ROBINSON
T
he
entrance
to
Woodlynde School,
on Upper Gulph
Road, near the intersec-
tion with Old Eagle
School Road has become
a point where cars slow
down long before the traf-
fic light. The attraction
for the drivers eyes is the
rich texture, movement of
color and flow of planti-
ngs
around
the
Woodlynde
sign
and
along the slope of the
ground.
The Woodlynde gardens
have been developed over
the past few years by
Haverfords
Laurie
Humphreys,
a
former
Woodlynde school parent
and
owner
of
Laurie
Humphreys
Landscape
Design.
A fine arts major, who
developed an interest in
working
with
natures
palette, Humphreys received
her masters in landscape
architecture
from
the
University of Pennsylvania.
She began taking classes at
Longwood and working days
in the crews of two well-
known Main Line landscape
designers, Sue Geylin and
Liz Porter. I learned a great
deal from them, not just hor-
ticulture, but also how to
deal
with
people,
Humphreys said. They rec-
ommended me for some of
my first jobs, and they still
send me clients. Landscape
design on the Main Line is
not a business that turns
over. It is made up of rela-
tionships and the process of
building relationships with
clients and their gardens.
The designers share informa-
tion and pass on information
to one another. Sometimes,
we pass along clients to one
another because of the site
location, type of garden, or
personalities.
Humphreys
crews
are
made
up
of
Temple,
Haverford and Bryn Mawr
students. Some of the crew
are still in school; others
have graduated and are tak-
ing time to make decisions.
After working on the crew,
some of our crew members
have gone into green indus-
try jobs, and some are con-
sidering graduate studies in
landscape architecture or
horticulture, Humphreys
said. One crew member
has stayed on and assumed a
managerial role.
Lately, she has been focus-
ing on displaying plants and
creating plant arrangements
in uncommon containers
such as metal file drawers.
Im experimenting with
stretching the zone limits on
plants. They are outside of
their zone, but they are not
rare plants, she added.
Some of the interesting
choices of plants are Dickia
leptostacha, Crypthansis and
Chondropetalum.
I want to encourage con-
versation between the plant
and its container, between
the house and the garden.
Maybe its a line from the
architecture followed into
the landscape or a connec-
tion between the inside and
the outside of a house. Not
just when you looking at the
total from the outside, but
also when youre inside,
looking out.
Humphreys pays special
attention to views. Every
landscape has its own char-
acter for the viewer. Some
places you stand and look,
while others are walk-
throughs. Woodlynde is a
drive by and a drive into.
Woodlynde is saying through
their garden, We want to
share this with you. They
want people to slow down
and take in the beauty. As
people drive by the hillside
garden, repeating plants
make the garden easy to read
and create a rhythm. I was
told that one particular
plant, Amsonia hubrecteii,
has received so much atten-
tion from the garden that
Waterloo cant keep them in
stock. Color photos of the
Woodlynde garden and other
examples of her work can be
seen on the Web site
h t t p : / / w w w . l a u -
r i e h u m p h r e y s . c o m / g a r -
dens.html.
Woodlynde Schools gardens catch the eye
In Laurie Humphreys design, there are blocks of single species
Amsonia hubrecteii and subsequent plant blocks of Dedum
spirium 'Fuldaglut' with Thymus praecox Woolly Thyme.
In metal file drawers used as planting boxes, Humphreys
stretched our plant zone limit with
Dyckia leptostacha
and
Pedilanthus macrocarpus from a Texas nursery.