Gardening Sweet Spots
By Donna Hessel
A flag flying off the 660-foot-long front porch of the Grand Hotel welcomed some 800 attendees to this year’s Grand Garden Show on Michigan’s Mackinac Island, August 28-30. Red geraniums are the hotel’s signature flower and 147 planter boxes along the porch rails and plants in the gardens below, as well planter boxes in the lobbies, showcased more than 1,400 red geraniums that are refreshed daily to assure constant blooms.
The keynote speaker at the general assembly the first morning featured Jack Barnwell, the landscaper whose company is responsible for perfecting every aspect of the beautiful gardens on the tours. Jack is a landscape architect and award-winning garden designer with companies in Michigan and Florida. He developed AquaPots, self-watering planters that were critical to the maintenance of huge planters that grace the entrances and patios of many hotels in Naples, Florida. He and his family spend half a year in Northern Michigan and half a year in Florida. AquaPots, as you may know, are quite expensive. So the best news he shared during his presentation was that the company has developed a self-watering kit that can be inserted into any existing pot of any material that will turn it into an AquaPot. The kits are not on the market, yet, but I am definitely excited about this development!
Because no motorized vehicles are permitted on Mackinac Island, developing the gardens in these photos presented enormous challenges. To move the huge boulders and rocks that form the walls, stairs and boundaries, special permits had to be obtained and development of the sites was limited to specific dates and times. Horses pulling drays loaded with rocks and heavy equipment labored with the landscapers to accomplish the resulting gardens. All of the plants, trees, shrubs and flowers are transported by ferry from the mainland. No mortar is used between the stacked stones in the walls – a signature technique used in Jack’s designs. Bicycles and horse-and-carriage are the modes of transportation for the islanders.
In his presentation, Jack stressed five elements of design that prevail in all of his designs (although many initial designs were sketched out on napkins during meetings in bars with his potential clients). He encouraged the audience to keep an eye open for them on visits to the tour gardens. The elements are structural integrity (the bones of the design – hardscaping, railings, etc.); functionality (access); color harmony; texture play; sustainability and maintainability (successional planting for year-round bloom and low maintenance).
This garden is one of several on the Grand Hotel grounds. A variety of perennials and annuals welcome guests near the entrance drive in front of the hotel.
Following morning speaker presentations and lunch, show attendees boarded carriages that stopped at each of the houses and gardens on the tour. Volunteer docents at each house guided the tour and pointed out special features at each of the gardens. There were seven homes along the West Bluff, three along the East Bluff of the island, and four gardens downtown along the main street. Artists painted canvases at a couple of the gardens. At one, a celebrated chef, Nathan Lyon, mixed fruit shrub drinks (gin optional) for participants and lectured on how to tell whether a cantelope is ripe and ready to eat. (It’s not the fragrance; it requires shaking the melon vigorously until the seeds pull away from the flesh and rattle, indicating that it is ripe.)
Crossroads Cottage and Carriage House
This property recently underwent a complete home and landscape renovation, including the addition of a beautiful carriage house. The integration of the horse culture into this property enhanced the outdoor entertainment spaces. It is one of the island’s most beautiful properties. The gardens had a variety of color and texture. The carriage house was pristine and the owner’s two beautiful horses curiously viewed tour participants from an outdoor corral behind the structure as tourists surveyed the interior from the entrance.
These five photos were all taken on the grounds of the Day
Cottage, a charming “cottage” shaded by mature maple trees. A giant chess game can be played outdoors, and a Quidditch theater on the grounds was included for the family’s children who adore Harry Potter. Huge turtle sculptures (one just barely visible behind the tree in the first photo) and other garden art are scattered throughout. The turtles are a tribute to the name of the island in Odawa – “Big Turtle.” It was named that by the indigenous natives because the shape of the island resembles that of a turtle. The color red is repeated in chairs and various building elements. The carriage house was recently renovated and transformed into a guest house, complete with fireplace. The first photo of the boxwood hedge borders illustrates the deliberate functionality element that Jack built into this landscape. The serpentine boxwood hedges lead the eye around the landscape while they restrain the plantings within its boundaries. Follow the serene boxwood border to access the garden art, the chess board, the patio and fire pit, the Quidditch theater.
The Iroquois Hotel, lakeside on the town’s main street, is owned by the Barnwell family. The beautiful raised gardens behind the hotel were torn out this year and the area was totally rebuilt to facilitate the addition of a boardwalk and outdoor dining patio. The first photo (above from left) is an excellent example of sustainable, successional planting and low maintenance. The evergreens, elderberry and boxwood provide year-round structure, the perennials long-term texture and the colorful annuals the accents that draw the eye into the garden and invite closer examination. The second and third photos are views of the gardens along the path leading to the hotel’s dining room and rear gardens.
I loved the color harmony apparent in the window box and sidewalk border in front of the hotel. I nearly got run over by a carriage as I backed into the middle of the street to get a good photo. The planned repetition of the strong fuchsia colored impatiens, the taming purple/white calibrachoa interspersed and the dark background plants (probably a type of salvia) that set them off is so dramatic against the white surfaces! You get a glimpse of the same fuchsia color on the chairs inside with a peek into the windows — the interior color repeated outside. The color arrangement evokes a feeling of serenity (everything’s under control) and yet is invigorating.
Hollyhock Cottage underwent a complete landscape renovation this year along with a new addition to the home. The stone staircases in photo two wind through multiple garden levels. The walls and stairs in this garden must be the ultimate example of structural integrity. They provide access to the upper garden area, keep the hillside intact and provide a visual path that features plants with a variety of color and texture, repeated as a visitor navigates up the slope. The stones are fitted together without mortar and one hopes that the newly built wall next to the house in photo four will not come tumbling down! Many of the cottages have water features – either streams with recirculating water and remote control systems as in photo three, or fountains surrounded by gardens as seen in another home’s garden.
Named Edgecliffe, this home is also known as the “wedding cake” house because of the appearance of its many stacked dormers and turrets. The front yard features an assortment of perennials and annuals. Note the repetition of colors in the plants along the fence. Can you image getting down on your hands and knees to plant a similar border every spring?
Sandwiched between two cottages on the West Bluff, this terraced garden with a striking array of plants and colors was specifically designed to be gazed down upon from the balconies and windows above. It also provides an amazing view at street level, the colors of the various annuals echoing those in the gardens that surround the home at ground level.
The famous Mackinac Bridge, viewed from the lower deck of the ferry crossing from Mackinac City to Mackinac Island, was nearly obscured on the very cloudy day we arrived. Anticipation is high on the 15-minute trip to the island, and sometimes wet if the lake is choppy and a passenger has chosen to ride on the top deck. The ferry kicks up enormous amounts of spray as it bounces through the chop.
The “season” on Mackinac Island ends with a Halloween festival at the end of October. The huge hanging baskets on the light poles along the main roads are dismantled, the gardens put to bed. The Victorian cottages are primarily summer homes. Only 601 people are permanent residents, according to the 2022 census. More than a million visitors come to the island during the summer months, and the hotel and retail establishments employ students from many foreign countries as seasonal help. There is a K-12 public school, which has 59 students; some grades have no students at all. The island is 4.35 square miles. The lake freezes in the winter; horses are boarded off the island and permanent residents use snow mobiles and/or cross country skis to get around. There is a deer population of approximately seven, offspring of the three or four that crossed the ice one winter years ago, according to one of the carriage drivers.
This August was the eighth year Proven Winners has partnered with the Grand Hotel, Jack Barnwell’s companies and several other gardening-related companies to host the Grand Garden Show. Information on the event is available on the Proven Winners’ website, ProvenWinners.com. Sign up for their free idea book and a newsletter. The announcement about the show is posted in December or January. In 2022, the Grand Garden Show was sold out by March! If you love touring gardens and would enjoy being pampered at the Grand Hotel for a few days, be sure to check out this vacation opportunity.
All photos courtesy of Donna Hessel
