Martyn Lawrence Bullard and Timothy Whealon, featured lecturers at the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Antiques, Garden & Design Show, are two celebrated interior designers with their own sensibilities and styles.
Bullard, who has designed for celebrities like Tommy Hilfiger and Cher, likes to create sophisticated and eclectic interiors. Whealon, who studied English literature and art history and trained at Sotheby’s, focuses on fine and decorative arts and mixes classic and modern styles seamlessly.
They both strolled the exhibitor booths at the Show’s preview party to choose pieces that caught their eye, and would feel right at home among their personal aesthetic. See these picks and more at the Antiques, Garden & Design Show, through Sunday, April 17, and stroll through the Garden grounds to enjoy the spring blooms.
Martyn Lawrence Bullard’s Picks: (Click on an image for information about the item and vendor.)
Booth #107, Greenwald Antiques: An aquatint and hand-color illustration, originally published by Daniell’s Oriental Scenery. Created by William Daniell, who spent nine years (from 1785-1794) sketching and drawing India’s architecture and antiquities. One of a set of four.
Booth #115, Julie Harris: Framed vintage bathing suits. “The blues and reds would be perfect in Tommy Hilfiger’s house,” Bullard said. He has designed for Hilfiger, as well as celebrities like Ellen Pompeo and Cher.
Booth#208, Fair Trade Antiques: An 1850s mahogany chest of drawers from England. Called a campaign chest—as in military campaign—the piece was designed to move around.
Booth #205, Sheridan Loyd Antiques: Bullard liked these 19th century sandpaper drawings. An art fad for schoolgirls of the time, fantasy scenes, like this one of a castle, were created using charcoal.
Booth #403, Forsyth: Mario Baughman zebra-hide club chairs in warm tones with a chrome frame
Booth #100, Lee’s Antiques: A 1970s Pierre Cardin red formica console table
Booth #120, The Golden Triangle: Art deco-style French leather club chairs made of lamb leather
Booth #104, Dinan & Chighine: A set of 18th century botanical prints finished with watercolor in etched Greek key-design frames
Timothy Whealon’s Picks: (Click on an image for information about the item and vendor.)
Booth #121, Village Braider: A 1950s painting similar to the style of French painter Raoul Dufy
Booth #118, Deluxe Inc.: A white diamond wall hanging. Whealon said he was drawn to the piece because it has “a sculptural quality, and it’s kind of fun.”
Booth #217, Framont: A pair of 19th century Empire console tables
Booth #212, Marona: A late 1700s French table made from European oak
Booth #400, Anne Loucks Gallery: A mirror-image photograph by Milwaukee-based artist Laurie Victor Kay, entitled Les Chaises Jeunes IV. Kay is a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Booth #310, Craig Bergmann Landscape Design: A towering garden obelisk with raised shell motif
Booth #120, The Golden Triangle: An unrestored 19th century elm Chinese table with original patina and 19th century display cloches for butterflies (filled with a modern arrangement)
Booth #100, Lee’s Antiques: A 1950s three-panel, silk-screen room divider created by the House of Scalamandré. Dedicated to Gino’s NYC.
Booth #100, Lee’s Antiques: A pair of 1930s American art deco ceramic and solid brass table lamps with original gold metallic shades.
Booth #400, Anne Loucks Gallery: A photograph of foggy park scene by photographer Lyle Gomes. Entitled “Atget’s Bench.” Gomes’ style is to depict an ethereal, natural setting with a subtle sign of humanity, giving a melancholy feel to the image.
We’ve selected the top 9 plants for green roof gardens from our 5-year study of 216 taxa. Download the results of plant evaluation manager Richard Hawke’s extensive study.
When the Green Roof Garden was first planted in 2009, everything we knew about long-term rooftop gardening was theoretical. Which plants would live more than one year on the roof? No one knew for sure. Were native plants better to plant than non-natives? Unknown. What about soil depth, extreme weather, pests, diseases? The list of questions was long.
Download the results of this 5-year study. Click here.
Today, after five years of watching, waiting, documenting, and evaluating, we now have actual data to guide us—and others—on the ever-more-popular topic of green roofs! I’ve just published the Plant Evaluation Notes from our research—the first national plant evaluation study of its kind.
I was blown away by the survival rates among plants, and by the fact that so many of them thrived and even excelled in such a challenging landscape. Of the more than 40,000 plants that we installed on both roofs, 30,568 of them were still alive in 2014. Just 14% of the 216 taxa died—that’s a pretty good success rate when you consider rooftop conditions. In fact, adaptability was one of the main criteria that we evaluated each plant on. Here’s the five-point list:
Adaptability (to hot/cold, dry, windy conditions, plus shallow soils)
Pests/diseases
Winter hardiness
Non-weediness
Ornamental beauty
Other surprises? Definitely the wild white indigo (Baptisia alba var. alba). Although I didn’t expect it to fail, I also didn’t expect it to be as large and vigorous as it has become. By year five, it was nearly three feet tall, with dramatic spires of white flowers. Meadow blazing star (Liatris ligulistylis) was in the same elegant category. But the absolute standout was prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis). It looked good all year, at all soil depths, and the fragrant flowers made the roof smell like popcorn in August and September.
Antennaria dioica
Baptisia alba var. alba
Phlox subulata ‘Emerald Blue’
The Green Roof Garden today: a tapestry of plant life
It also surprised me that some of the drought-tolerant plants like sulfur flower (Eriogonum umbellatum), tufted fleabane (Erigeron caespitosa), and long-petaled lewisia (Lewisia longipetala ‘Little Plum’) didn’t do better on the green roof. Same goes for sundial lupine (Lupinus perennis). In a broader sense, I’m disappointed that we haven’t had greater success with plants in the shallowest, 4-inch soil depth. It’s the most challenging area on the green roof, so we’ll strive to add more types of plants to this trial area in the coming years.
Monitoring plants in the field
Top 10 Performers on the Green Roof
Pussytoes (Antennaria dioica)
Dwarf calamint (Calamintha nepeta ssp. nepeta)
Juniper ‘Viridis’ (Juniperus chinensis var. sargentii ‘Viridis’)
The 69 other plants that got four-star ratings (good)!
What else is coming to the Green Roof Garden?
We’ll bring in a new set of plants (both native and non-native) to be evaluated and increase the replication of trials in 4-, 6- and 8-inch soil depths. Our goal is to compile a broad list of proven plants so that anyone—businesses, architects, governmental groups, and residential homeowners—has the information they need to grow a green roof. The sky’s the limit!
Visit the Green Roof Garden at the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Plant Conservation Center—open ‘til 9 p.m. all summer. The garden has two halves: the Ellis Goodman Family Foundation Green Roof Garden South and the Josephine P. & John J. Louis Foundation Green Roof Garden North.
