CYNTHIA KAUFMANN: I'd like
to thank you all for coming
and coming to the very
first of the summer
series Behind the Scenes
lectures that they have going on
for the next several Sundays.
My name is Cynthia Kaufmann.
I'm the chief of horticulture
here.
And I have been fortunate enough
to spend my entire career here
at the Gallery, so over 30 years
now, I have to admit.
So we're going to go ahead
and get started.
Our campus runs from 3rd Street
to 9th Street.
Our footprint covers basically
five acres of grass,
about five and a half acres
of heavily planted beds,
and seven acres of hardscape.
And when you come up
to the Gallery, your impression
of the Gallery
is going to be
my responsibility.
Are the sidewalks clean?
Is the trash emptied?
Are the beds
nice and presentable?
And in order to do this
you'll see my staff here.
We have a staff of 16
full-time employees.
We have about 12 volunteers
and contractors that work here
365 days out of the year to make
everything look flawless.
So I thought what we would do
is start at the West Building,
where it all started.
Back in 1941, on March 17,
when the Gallery opened,
horticulture was part
of the design.
Pope's design of the building
had the garden courts
on either end of the West
Building, in the east and west
end of the main floor,
were designed with plants
and a fountain
for your relaxation,
for your enjoyment,
to ponder the art that you've
seen,
or to just relax while you're
going
through the many galleries.
Here's a really early photo
of the fountain
in the east court
before the Gallery opened.
And I always like going back
to some of these old photos
of how plants were brought
inside the building.
And here early on, a group
of gardeners
bringing a large palm in.
The west and east garden courts
have typically had
fishtail palms adorning
the quadrants to give you
that nice big, lush foliage
look.
You have to remember that we are
dealing with conditions
that plant materials usually
don't like.
We have low light,
we have low humidity, and so we
manipulate the areas in order
to turn it into something
like this,
a nice green, lush area for you
all to enjoy.
The fountain displays--
everything comes
from our greenhouses
that we have on-site.
You'll see a couple pictures
later on.
And we typically will just
be going through the greenhouses
and selecting seasonal plants
to go along with the time
of year.
Our standard forsythia
and the Clivia,
the kaffir lilies, are always
a big hit in the springtime.
The Clivia-- we probably have
about 30 plants, and they are so
fantastic just
because of the color.
You can spot it a mile way
up there.
Here's just another display
of some foliage.
We typically take a trip down
to Florida once a year
and buy a tractor trailer load
of plants so that we can have
this rotation going year-round.
Sometimes I'm selecting plants
for special events.
Sometimes I'm selecting plants
just for the courts themselves.
We have four places
in the Gallery that have plants
all year round--
in the West Building,
East Building-- that we have
to supply plants every week.
And so in order to do that,
we need to have a nice rotation.
And so having a tractor trailer
show up
is the best way to do that.
Here we have a really nice
picture with our weeping lantana
and the calamondin oranges.
This is an example of how we
will take a plant
and reuse it over, and over,
and over.
The calamondins were purchased
for an exhibit,
and we've had them for maybe 10
years now.
And so we can take them out
to the greenhouse,
and let them have a little rest
from being inside,
and let them fruit again.
And then you all get to enjoy
them.
Here's just another example
with some crab apples,
and some foliage, and begonia
plants.
Sometimes we like to say we're--
put something a little faux in.
So this is cut cherry blossoms.
And we make it look like it is
a bush, when it really is just
cut material, for something
special.
And there's
a nice traditional holiday
setup.
The Garden Cafe is another area
where we have plant material.
And when I was reviewing this,
I realized I only put one slide
in here of the Garden Cafe.
But we don't neglect the Garden
Cafe.
Here we-- you can see some
lilies and some--
I think some Salix in the bottom
there.
And then the chadar which
is the Cascade fountain area,
also has plant material
year-round.
And so here you can see
a nice combination
of some summer flowering
hibiscus and black-eyed Susans.
This is some Plumbago.
A lot of plant material that we
do grow is going to be tropical
just so that it will tolerate
the space.
And so something like this,
we have to have
in the greenhouse.
We can't leave it
outside in the wintertime.
There's a nice shot
with some poinsettias.
And here are some more
of the kaffir lilies,
and some yellow tulips,
nice spring.
So then I'm going to talk to you
about the Ames-Haskell Azalea
Collection.
This collection of plants
was given to us
for the 50th anniversary.
So back in '91 was
the first official year that we
displayed it.
We have typically always shown
this the month of March
and to commemorate the opening
of the West Building.
And the azaleas are a bunch
of Kurume azaleas
that were brought over
by an explorer
in the early 1900s.
And so for the last 26 years,
we have been displaying
this collection.
We house the collection out
in a greenhouse in Frederick,
Maryland.
We ran out of space to have it
here, because we have so
many things
that we support and needed
the space of our greenhouses
on-site.
So we had to keep moving north
in order to afford a place.
So that's how we ended up there.
It's quite a ride,
but you can see here, there's
a big box truck like right
there.
This is our loading dock down
in the basement of the West
Building.
And we bring the plants
in the truck, unload them here,
and then we take them upstairs
on carts through a very nice
large elevator.
And then we will arrange them
in the Rotunda.
There's a really nice variety
of color, of size of flowers,
of textures.
And if you haven't seen
the collection,
it's really worth coming back
in March to see it.
This one is a Bobbink,
this is a apple blossom,
and then a salmon supreme.
And then here you can see what
it looks like when we have all
of them together.
Over the years a collection
can change.
Plants grow.
Plants die.
We try to do our best to take
cuttings of the collections
so that we can keep it going
or find new Kurume azaleas
that we can add
to the collection just
to replace those that have
deteriorated.
And while we're in the Rotunda,
I'll talk to you
about the Folger display.
So we-- in the early '90s,
we had really elaborate parties
going on here.
The displays were just
phenomenal.
And we had some donors that just
felt it wasn't fair for them
to be the only ones
to see these fabulous displays.
And Lee and Juliet Folger gave
us an endowment so that we could
have a display in the Rotunda
from November 15 to April 15.
And this is the first display
we do, which starts in November.
And we usually
do a fall-color theme
for the last two weeks.
And here you can see
some orange, and yellow,
and some nice, big foliage
plants that we grow.
We work more than a year
in advance
to select what plant materials
we want
and to arrange with growers
to have the plants for us
when we need them.
As you can imagine,
a lot of things
can happen in a year's time.
So we usually try to have
a nice backup plan just in case,
because things can happen.
Crops can fail, and deliveries
can fail.
And we've been there,
and we've done it, and you just
keep moving on.
In December, we move
into the holiday display.
And for those of you who have
been around in December,
you'll know that we always have
some really large Christmas
trees adorning the space
and then our display.
And in this space,
we stay fairly traditional
with the look of the red,
and the white,
and the evergreens.
I have branched out a little bit
and tried some new colors
in some different spaces.
And you can always come back.
December 1, we usually have
everything set up for Christmas,
so you can come and see
the different colors.
I'm not going to tell you what
I've ordered yet. so maybe you
can come back and see what we
have.
Into January, we usually
typically incorporate some
blue or orange.
We have this funny thing.
My deputy, Julie Goodman, and I
have been making these displays
for a long time.
And she and I had decided
that in January it's really
cold,
and you feel a little blue,
so we always add a little blue
into this display.
And then in February, I think
everybody should feel the love.
And we usually go with the red,
and pink, and white
for the season of Valentine's.
I am a pink lady.
That's pretty much my color.
And even I get a little tired
of the pink, so we try not to go
too overboard on that.
And then Easter-- we always have
an Easter display that usually
finishes up, depending on when
Easter falls.
So either before or after
Easter, depending on the timing,
we might also end with--
oh, here's another shot
of a nice Easter look- of what
we call our spring medley.
So here we have some dogwood
and that really nice
yellow standard forsythia.
And then-- it's not
a good closeup for you,
but we really do have a mix
of every bulb, and texture,
and color
you can imagine for a spring
garden.
The display usually has 350
plants to 450 plants,
depending on what we've selected
to use.
So we have to really
be ready to substitute something
if we do have a crop failure.
Along with the Rotunda,
Mr. Folger really wanted us
to have plant material
in the niches.
And the red roses that are there
we did and coincide with
the February display
and the week of Valentine's.
We had those in every niche.
There's over 100 roses
in each arrangement.
So they will-- they'll last
about five to six days
for everybody to enjoy.
And then throughout the season,
we will have a different display
in there.
It might just be a single plant
or it could be something
like this.
This complemented the fall
display in November.
And then here you can see where
we have coordinated
the Australian tree ferns
in the niche and in the display
so it just all comes together.
So this brings us
to the greenhouses.
The greenhouses were--
the first one was built in 1954
and it really is the mainstay
of what we do here.
We support hundreds
of special events,
from a dinner--
for a lunch for two,
to dinner for 1,000,
having screens, having plants,
having plants for all
the displays throughout the West
Building, depending where it is.
And so this really keeps us
going.
And this is the oldest
greenhouse right here.
It was a Lord & Burnham
greenhouse, which was really
the greenhouse to build back
then.
They're no longer in business,
but I can tell you
that this greenhouse has
withstood a lot of time.
And it's getting very tired
right now and we're hoping
that in the future
we can get funding to replace
the greenhouses so that we can
continue the program that we
have built it
into over the many years.
There is one of the gardeners
cleaning plants.
We have a zero-bug policy
inside the building.
You can understand why,
because of the artwork
and I have to say that we are
pretty fortunate that bugs that
like plant material
do not like artwork, which
is a good thing for me.
But even so, we really make
sure that everything is clean.
If we see anything,
it's out of the building
right away.
We always say we're almost
like Disney, just plants
on wheels,
so that if we have something
that needs to be replaced,
we just take it right out
and put in a new plant.
So as you can imagine,
we do have to spray pesticides
in order to accomplish this.
We're lucky enough that we keep
things clean enough that we very
rarely have to use anything
strong.
And we use a lot of safer soaps
and safer oils
in order to accomplish our goal
here.
Here is a nice picture
of the guys.
They-- we use these little golf
carts to take everything
in and out of the building -
so here they are loading up
these rather large ficus,
and then you can see what it
looks like in the niche
in the Rotunda.
The other endowment fund that we
have is from Linda and George
Kaufman.
And again, back in the '90s,
when her and her husband were
attending the rather large
parties, she thought that,
wouldn't it be really
nice to have arrangements as you
come in the building,
to have some kind of flower
to greet you
as you walked in the door?
And so this is a few examples
of what we've done
over the years
to bring a smile to your face
as you walk in the door.
I have to say, it's really quite
an honor
when you're in my position,
and you walk around the Gallery,
and you see people looking
at what you do,
and it makes them happy it makes
you happy too.
All colors, all the seasons.
There we are with the two
of them on a desk getting
ready for an event.
A really nice fall combination.
In here you can see
the white flowers in there are
Abelia, and we grow Abelia out
on the plaza and use it--
I mean, you can cut that stuff
and never know that you've cut
it.
So we use it a lot in flower
arrangements
and it's nice that we can just
go outside and do that.
Here's a nice Fourth of July
arrangement.
And so coming over to the East
Building now.
The East Building opened in 1978
and it, too, plant material
was part of the mission
from the very beginning with IM
Pei's design of our ficus trees
in the atrium.
As you can imagine, again, here
we are in an open space that
seems really bright.
And none of the light that's
coming in the building
is for the trees.
It's all screened off so
that the bad rays are not coming
in the building.
So we have grow lights
in the ceiling.
And if you go out
into the atrium, you can look up
and see them.
Otherwise, you would never
notice them.
And that keeps these trees
going.
I don't have an example of it,
but the trees turn.
And so we can also get in there
and turn them so that they're
always moving, just
like the light would move
during--
for an outdoor tree.
And a lot of questions I get
about the trees is, how often do
you have to change them?
And we'd like to say every 15
to 20 years.
So here's-- I thought you would
like to see an example of us
bringing these large trees from
Florida.
And we-- this is all done
by my division - and so they
strap them up in these
forklifts, and lift them up
into the planter, put it right
in there.
And then there's a nice happy
tree.
So this is one of our gardeners,
and he's spraying down the tree.
We spray them down once a week
for a couple of reasons.
One, it gives it a little bit
more humidity right
inside its canopy and it also
helps with the dust.
If you can imagine, this place
is really dusty.
And with all the people coming
and going, and the fibers
of your clothes, you'd be amazed
the dust balls get made around
here.
And so the washing of the trees
really helps with keeping them
clean.
And there's a nice holiday shot.
The East Building was also--
has two-- well,
we have three terraces now.
But originally two terraces
were designed with plant
material.
The last terrace that was
designed
is one that's
open to the public.
And these that I'm going to show
you are on the employee side.
And these were original crab
apples that were up there,
and it was not a good choice
of a plant.
We really fought the fire blight
with them, and so they decided
to change them.
And I always think this is
a great shot, because it's
a flying tree in DC.
Really large cranes were used
to do a lot of roof work.
And so at the end
of the project,
we were able to utilize
the crane and get the trees up
onto the roof.
We replaced them with Styrax
japonica, or Japanese snowbell,
and they seem to be very
happy in their spot,
and you can see that they
definitely have a beautiful view
of the Capitol.
And then the other terrace
we put crepe myrtle on.
This is-- This is one perk
of working at the Gallery.
This is where employees can go
to have lunch and coffee
in the morning.
And you have a fabulous view
and a nice plant to sit under.
Here's another view
with some pretty roses.
And then along the left side,
we have
some espaliered magnolia.
And I think this is
a great shot, too.
You get to see the Capitol
and the Smithsonian,
and it's a great place
to be in the morning.
I used to say, well, I'll
go water the terraces,
because you get
a nice quiet time up there
by yourself.
And they're not irrigated, so we
have to water the trees
every other day
in the summertime.
So it's quite a labor of love
up there to keep everything
going.
So this is probably the most
photographed spot,
I think, at the Gallery right
now--
our newest terrace.
And we-- I went down to Georgia
to pick out the fringe trees
that are
in the circular planters that
match the circular planters that
are in the atrium.
And that is a Chionanthus
retusus.
And then we had picked
the moonfire maple
to go in the planter that
is right at the skylights.
And so when you leave here
and go upstairs, if you look up
out the skylight,
you can see the maples.
Sometimes you wouldn't know
to even look up there.
But you can see them up there.
If you haven't been up there,
it's a nice view as well.
He gets a lot of publicity.
[LAUGHTER]
We're going to-- and moving
right along, here we have
our fountain gardens that were
also of original design.
And they have definitely changed
and grown over the years,
as you can imagine
that those overcupped oaks that
are up there
are some of the largest
oaks around the area.
And when they were planted,
they were just
a small, little 5-inch tree.
And now they're just
a massive tree that's created
a lot of shade.
So for 75 years
growing, and changing
the garden,
and changing the space,
we have had to do
the same thing.
The large magnolias have stayed.
We have had some damage
with some snow on the magnolias
through the winter.
And we just recently
in the last couple of years
changed one
of the original magnolias.
But other than that,
the bottom garden
is just like a garden you have
at home.
It's going to grow.
It's going to change.
We're going to like something.
We're going to not like
something, and make it work so
that it always looks
presentable.
We have some reblooming iris up
there.
If you don't have any
and you like iris,
this is the one to get.
It'll flower for you
in the spring and in the fall.
And we've had iris flowering up
till Christmas
when we have had
some mild temperatures.
And there's some really pretty
hydrangeas
and our topiary azaleas that
line the pathway.
And then it always brings you
to the wisteria, something
that I usually get phone calls
asking, "Is it flowering?
Is it flowering?
Can I come see it?"
And-- and--
I have to say that we're
the lucky ones here,
because back behind the moat
walls by the greenhouse,
we are always the first one
to see it flower,
because it's rather warm back
there.
So I can always gauge how long
it's going to be by how
much longer it is
from the inside of the wall.
And there's a nice shot of it
along there.
Would you guess that we had
arborists on staff?
So we are in charge of all plant
material, which means that we
are also in charge of the health
and well-being
of our mature trees
and aging trees on our campus.
We-- this is just an example
of going to a nursery,
choosing a cherry tree that had
to be replaced at the East
Building.
I thought you'd like to see
this.
This is really fun to watch,
when they bring one
of these big spades
to plant a tree.
And it's amazing how fast they
can plant a tree using
that equipment.
Currently, the landscape
is a bit
different from the picture
that you just saw.
When we did all the construction
around the East Building,
it was decided to go back
to the landscape plan of Dan
Kiley from the very beginning
when the Gallery opened.
And so that plan was a very
plain grass and trees.
And that was it.
And so this is a current picture
from this past spring of what it
looks like now.
We still have a construction
fence down at 3rd Street,
but besides that, everything
is back to way--
the way it was.
And here we come
to the Sculpture Garden.
So when I was younger working
here, I would have tourists ask
me where the Sculpture Garden
was.
And I'd say, well, there isn't
one.
But it was on the map
in the 1960s
as having a Sculpture Garden
in this space and so we were
fortunate enough to work
with the Park Service
to be deeded the land
in the early '90s.
And part of the agreement
was that we would keep
the double ring of lindens
and the pavilion
that was in the back.
And so then it began--
ripping up all the concrete that
was there in the pathways
and bringing in really large
plant material.
So when the construction was
going on, our group was not part
of that.
There were contractors
and construction groups taking
care of all of the work.
But I worked in the greenhouses
right across the street
at that time
and I was like a kid
in the candy store
watching these trees come in,
one tree on a tractor trailer
at a time.
It was unbelievable for me
to see this.
And all the trees that were
brought in
were of a large caliper
so that when this garden would
open, it would look like it had
been there for a long time.
And so this was not long
after it opened up
in the wintertime.
And you can see all
those large cedars,
Atlas cedars.
And see how it really looked
like a real garden right away.
It was too bad that Mr. Mellon
didn't get to see the opening.
He died just months
before the opening
of this garden.
But the idea that he could have
walked through here
and seen a garden that looked
like it had been on the map
for a long time would have been
really nice.
We take care of every aspect
of this garden; 6.1 acres
is the overall footprint.
We take care of the sod,
irrigation, cleaning, anything
you can name.
And here's an example of a piece
going into the garden.
This is the Roxy Paine,
the large tree.
And here it is, all the sod
showing up, to put down the sod,
to finish it off.
Working with Roxy
was very interesting.
He was here
during the construction
of the tree.
And living artists obviously
have requests.
And so his request was that we
did not have flowering material
behind the tree.
And so it is very
green on that corner
of the Gallery--
of the garden.
And you'll see that.
More sod work.
Something to also consider--
what we do is replace a lot
of sod, because of people.
You'll see some great people
shots here in a minute.
The heat of the sidewalks
really is hard on the grass.
It heats it up and burns it up.
And so we replace a lot of sod.
There's a great shot, up
in a lift, looking down
at the eraser.
Here's some nice spring color
with the magnolias that always
open up so early.
And the spider-- so I wanted
to show you this,
because this is just an example
of how we had to adapt
to a situation.
When the garden was designed,
it did not have one piece
of artwork in mind.
They designed the garden
with some rolling,
let's say, rooms to put things.
But artwork had not been chosen
when the design was finally put
together.
And so when this spider was put
in this spot, it had grass all
underneath it and, as you can
imagine, it almost looks
like a jungle gym.
So you could see people swinging
from this thing all the time.
And it's really fragile,
so we had to close
the whole area off.
So when you see some pieces that
are definitely closed off,
there's usually a reason why.
And here's some great fall
color.
There's another one
with the eraser.
Which brings us to the people.
So if you've been here
on a Friday
night from the end of May
to the beginning of September,
we have Jazz in the Garden.
And there can be 8,000 to 15,000
people go through here
on a Friday night.
And as you can guess,
grass is really hard to grow.
Here are just a lot of people.
You end up with compaction.
You end up with dead grass.
You end up with sangria
everywhere.
So this is another thing that we
work on every year
after the season is revamping
all of our sod
so that it can look nice.
The Mellon Fountain was
another piece of land
that we have acquired
over the last year and a half.
This was donated to us
by the Park Service
so that we could fix that up.
They-- this fountain
was dedicated in the early '50s.
And the Park Service ran it,
and then they ran out of money
to keep it up.
And so Richard King Mellon
Foundation gave money
to the Gallery to fix it.
And then the Gallery worked
on acquiring the land so
that if we fixed it,
we could maintain it and keep it
nice.
And so for those of you all who
have been in town,
you'll know that there's been
a lot of construction around it
lately.
And they took the fountain
completely apart.
Last year we worked on revamping
it for the opening
of the 75th anniversary, which
meant planting about
30,000 mondo plant,
for a nice green-grass-looking
cover, and a few new trees.
And this past fall, they shut it
down again to fix the fountain.
What had happened over time
was the concrete
under the bronze form had
deteriorated.
And so they took the--
took everything down
to the ground and started over.
And they-- it was
my understanding
they were testing water in it
this past weekend.
So we're getting close.
I think a couple more weeks,
and you'll be able to see
this fountain in its full glory.
There's just a nice 'nother
picture.
Snow-- to us
snow is a four-letter word.
I don't know how you feel
about snow, but I think I'm
ready to move to Florida
sometimes.
So this is us after one
of the snowpaloozas
that we had
in the last several years.
And not only do we sleep here
and stay here for days when
something like this happens,
I think we're all just really
hoping for a nice hot meal
when we can finally get home.
It's our job to make sure
that the sidewalks are
safe for you
and that when you come
it's going to be OK.
You know, we always hope
for a nice warm sun
after snow like that just
to clear off the sidewalks.
In some of these cases,
you know there is so much snow
that makes it really difficult
to get around DC.
The Mall steps has over half
an acre of granite and marble.
And so you can imagine how
heavy that snow is to get it
down the steps.
You always-- we-- late
this last winter
was a perfect winter.
We can always hope that we don't
get a lot of snow.
I know when my kids were little,
and they wanted the snow so bad
so they wouldn't have to go
to school, and I'd just be, oh,
please, no snow.
And there's a great shot.
So we work with conservation
also to identify plant material
within the paintings.
A lot of times there might be
a book that's being written
or maybe some research
that they'd still like
to continue.
You're going to find in artwork,
as many of you will know,
that a lot of plant material
is made up.
You can identify it.
It's got a flower and a leaf
that don't belong together,
because it looks much better
in a painting that way.
And we work with object
conservation.
Just like the spider,
the stacked chairs
had the same problem.
The grass went right
to the fence behind this piece
when they put it in.
And so you can--
it looks like a ladder.
It looks like you should climb
it, and everybody wanted
to climb it.
It was just
as unstable as the spider.
And so we rerouted the bed
so that we would have stuff
in front of it, but yet you
could still enjoy it and see it.
And I have to say,
I don't see people trying
to climb this.
And here's a nice example of one
of our gardeners,
Willy, rerouting irrigation.
So whenever a new piece
or a piece
gets changed in the garden,
we have to go through and change
all the irrigation.
The spray of the water
will leave permanent marks
on the artwork, so obviously we
can't have that.
So we have to go in.
And we can work with a piece
like this and have all the spray
heads for the grass spray
out from the piece of art
so we don't have that problem.
We also do tours and workshops.
We have a lot of staff members
that like to come out
to the greenhouses
and have tours if you're
a new employee
or if you're a special guest.
Or in this case, we were working
with our volunteer consortium
of the Greater Washington area,
where we hosted an event here.
And the members are volunteers
at different gardens,
were here to learn about what we
do here.
That's Jeff Nagle.
He is our sculpture garden
manager there talking
to the group.
And yours truly talking
to a group in the greenhouse.
And this is Julie Goodman
and myself doing a flower
demonstration.
We had an after-hours event
where we were asked to show
people how to make arrangements.
So we thought what we should do
is go to the grocery store,
and buy bouquets of flowers
that you would buy,
and make a flower arrangement
with this group.
And we had a lot of fun.
We had a lot of people.
Everybody took theirs home.
And I have to say,
nobody left theirs behind,
so they must have been happy
with it.
And-- and then I'd like to talk
about exhibitions.
So since a very early on time,
plant material has been used
inside the Gallery
with exhibitions.
We are a very unique museum
in that you are going to see
plant material
throughout the place.
Not a lot of museums
are like us.
We have learned to adapt to it.
It's kind of the norm
here that we have plants
on the corners,
and to make a place look softer,
or enhance a spot.
This was a show right after I
started here, this Nasher
Collection.
It was a sculpture--
outdoor sculpture that was
on every floor of the East
Building.
And since it should have been
outdoors, they wanted it to look
like it was in a garden.
So every floor in the East
Building was heavily plant--
had heavily planted beds
with the sculpture in it.
This is another great example,
if you've been
around the Gallery
a long time,
of the Japanese show
that we had years ago
of creating a Japanese garden.
They incorporated the ficus
trees in the main atrium.
They had a tea house,
and you could tour the house
and the little garden out there.
And this open area, which is now
a piece--
a really large piece of art,
was a English garden
from the Treasure Houses
of Britain, in the later '80s,
I believe.
And then it was switched over
to this Japanese garden, which
it stayed a Japanese garden
for a very long time.
And probably one of my very
favorite exhibits
that we worked on was Pompeii.
And this exhibit created
a house.
It was a replica of a house that
was found.
And we had this fresco hanging
on the wall, next to a spot
where we were going to create
an indoor garden.
And so we studied this painting
and brought plant material out
of it.
You can see over here
we have some oranges.
And we used Mediterranean herbs.
Anything we could find that was
associated with that fresco,
we brought into this painting
or into this little garden.
And those strawberry trees,
the Arbutus, right here, we
had them shipped from California
so that we could really bring
this show together,
because that's one plant that we
clearly could see
in that fresco.
And then there
is an overall view.
That red room in the back
was a dining room.
And then this-- the planting
area would have been
an open-ceilinged garden space
inside this house, so it really
tried to make it as
realistic as possible.
And one of the last things
that I have to talk to you today
is about special events.
This is something that takes
quite a bit of our time.
We work with the special events
groups to put together
beautiful flowers,
as I said earlier, from a lunch
to two, to a dinner for 1,000.
We work with outside florists,
depending on how big the event
is.
We only have so much room
to create things.
So I thought I would walk you
through the steps of what we do
in order to put a special event
together.
So our first thing is going
to be choosing the linen
with the special events group.
This is for Bazille.
And that pretty blue aqua
was picked.
And then they create maps
to tell us where they want
everything.
For this event, we had 60 cafe
arrangements to make.
And so we'll
go into the exhibit,
and we'll study the artwork.
And you'll see here that there's
geraniums, and hydrangeas,
and roses, and lilies.
And we'll look at the palette,
we'll look at the linen that has
been chosen, and then create
buffet arrangements and cafe
arrangements from this.
So here's an example of what we
did.
In this painting,
you have the white calla.
We had already decided we were
going to be using a salmon
color.
And although it looks red,
it really was a little bit more
salmon, the calla in the clay
pot.
So we mimicked the clay pots
that are in the painting.
And there's a lot of clay pots
painted throughout Bazille's
paintings,
just to bring it all together.
And here's an example.
You can see the amaranth hanging
in his painting here.
I really wanted to get some
of the trumpet vine,
but I couldn't find it anywhere
to purchase it.
So we stuck with the amaranth
in our nice big urn
and tried to create and give you
the same feel of the exhibit
that the event is for.
And the geraniums in the clay
pots as well--
it's-- using real plants is
a lot more economical than using
cut flowers.
And in this case,
we had a smaller budget, so we
were able to really, I think,
bring it all together
in the long run.
We bring plants
from the greenhouses
to create screens.
So depending on the group
and where it is,
we can close off a space.
Or in this case, because there
were so many people
coming, when they come in
they would be kind of filtered
into one area
to start the event.
So this is--
I say I have a lot of favorites.
I think I really do have a lot
of favorites.
This is from Della Robbia, which
recently closed a few weeks ago.
And here is an example of what
we did to create a flower that
would really be associated
with the artwork.
We took her headdress
and studied it.
And she had pears, and lemons,
and cucumbers,
and the little blue flowers,
and grapes.
And we created our version
of that in a flower arrangement.
I think this hit it home right
with that combination.
And here are just a few
more examples of cafe
arrangements that we've done,
something pretty and bright,
work with the art work.
See what season it is.
Obviously here we have a holiday
event going on.
This was a tropical theme.
It's always fun when you can
make 60 arrangements that don't
have to be identical.
The lunches and dinners, we work
with the florists, who usually
are doing the arrangements
for the tables
so that our display will match
their color theme.
We never have to be exact,
because I don't think we need
to be exact.
But we really work so that when
people come in,
it really compliments
each other.
And in this case, the oranges
were duplicated in the fountain
with our hydrangeas
that we had purchased
for this display.
Here's another one that was--
used a lot of purple.
And so we had some really nice
purple delphinium.
And then their arrangements were
more on the pink side,
but it all just came together
so nicely.
This was the first Mellon dinner
that I had worked at.
This is in the early '90s,
with the topiaries,
and the roses, and the lilacs.
It was also in the month
of March, I'm sure commemorating
the opening of the Gallery
back then with the really pretty
peach color.
And in the background,
you see these screens.
They were lemon leaf screens.
Somebody stuffed lemon leaves
in all of those screens.
It was a lot of work.
Contractors would come and do
this work.
Today we wouldn't have
enough money to create something
like this.
But it is kind of fun to look
at the past
and see where we've evolved to.
This was the 75th anniversary
dinner last March 17.
I have to say, I think this was
the most elegant display
that the Gallery has seen yet.
You can see the large curtain
screens that they constructed
to hang in the four quadrants
of the Rotunda.
And then an all-white theme
on these kind of mirrored tables
was really stunning.
And I think I have a little bit
closer shot of the--
here we go.
You can see in that arrangement,
we created those rose
arrangements that we had
in the niches.
And we had peacock feathers
in here.
I had done some study on flowers
from the '40s, and they tend
to use some feathers.
And so I took it to my level
of what I wanted.
And I found some white peacock
feathers and then
ostrich feathers
that we had at the entrance
arrangement.
So you can see orchids,
and callas, and hydrangeas,
and roses, just a lovely mix
to really bring it together.
And I hope I haven't talked too
fast, but I just want to thank
you so much for coming and maybe
learning something
new, a little aspect
of horticulture of what we do
here at the Gallery.
[APPLAUSE]
