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In the Garden: Ken Smith’s Pod Planters Land on a Midtown Terrace
Two years ago, Ms. Joseph, an architect in her 50s, and Dr. Ravetch, 60, an immunologist at Rockefeller University, wanted a new garden on the terrace of their Midtown Manhattan penthouse. The previous garden had been demolished to fix a leaky roof, and the 720-square-foot space was bleak and bare: covered in concrete pavers, it was empty except for the davits (I-beams that hold the pulleys attached to window-washing platforms) in each corner. The couple wanted a garden on wheels that would move to accommodate the window washers, who need access to the terrace. They envisioned a functional space where they could not only entertain friends and have barbecues with their family — Ms. Joseph’s teenage son and daughter from her second marriage, who live with them, and Dr. Ravetch’s two sons from his first marriage — but also wash the mud off their two golden retrievers after a weekend at their home in the Hudson Valley. They also “wanted a sense of enclosure without perimeter planting,” Ms. Joseph said, which <a href="www.bestnikeshoesforstore.com"><strong>cheap nike shoes </strong></a> “can block the view of the city.” And a fountain, for the sound of moving water. In late 2009, Mr. Smith, an old friend, attended a party at their apartment and brought along a copy of his new monograph. “And two months later,” he said, “Wendy called. Jeff liked my stuff, and was surprised I actually used plants.” Mr. Smith, as it happens, is known for juxtaposing artificial flowers and plants (not to mention things like chain-link fencing and crushed rubber) with grasses, trees and rocks. His rooftop garden for the Museum of Modern Art, visible to only people in the buildings overlooking it, for example, is what he calls “simulated nature”: boulders are hollow plastic, and the boxwood is plastic, too. But he has a deft way with real boxwood and grasses, <a href="www.bestnikeshoesforstore.com"><strong>Best nike shoes for store</strong></a> as well as bamboo and magnolia. So the three of them went to dinner to discuss the garden, and a month later, Mr. Smith presented his idea. “I proposed we do a stencil on the pavers,” he said. “And then have a collection of very interesting scholar rocks.” He gave the couple two choices: a traditional garden with real rocks and bonsai or an abstract version with large egglike planters in place of rocks, “which I knew would be the stronger and more interesting scheme,” he said. Dr. Ravetch, a passionate gardener and longtime collector of Japanese garden stones, was immediately taken with the latter design. “I said, ‘Ken, you know I’ve been doing this for years.’ It was a confluence of moments.” His wife added, “It was love at first sight.” Working with Nadine Soubotin, a landscape architect on his staff, Mr. Smith created five planters with recessed casters. (Because they each weigh 300 to 400 pounds, they are stable in the wind, but it takes several people to move them.) One has a fountain; another doubles as a slightly slippery loveseat, and there is an end table “large enough for two martinis and a bowl of peanuts,” Mr. Smith said. He chose plants that can survive the extreme conditions of a habitat 39 floors up and exposed on three sides: “grasses, sedum, sedge and nice aromatic plants like lavender, which is happy growing there.” The largest, hardiest plants are rooted <a href="www.bestnikeshoesforstore.com"><strong>nike shoes heels</strong></a> in the soil at the bottom of the planters; smaller plants are in pots tucked into openings at the top, so they can be replaced if they wither and die, though he said he expects everything to survive the weather. The total cost of the garden was in the “high five figures,” Ms. Joseph said, but it was money well spent. “It’s formally elegant, and it’s whimsical.” “When it all came together, you have this very refined, distilled aspect of a garden stone,” her husband said. “And on the other hand, you have this almost Disney-esque aspect of the Shmoos.” Or as Mr. Smith put it: “It’s seriously funny.”
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