arden Woes | Natural Triumph

Boxwood: Loving What the Deer Don’t NYTimes

Deer hate boxwood — all 150 kinds in every size, shape, leaf form and colors. Boxwood contains alkaloids that are toxic to deer and humans both. Speaking of boxwood’s pungent odor, Oliver Wendell Homes described it as the ‘fragrance of eternity’. Its detractors say the fragrance is cat urine.

‘My plant palette is limited to what the deer don’t eat,’ says Andrea Filippone, 50 and an accomplished garden designer and antiques dealer.  With a degree in architecture from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard, she is partners with her husband in Tendenze Design, working on their property in Pottersville, NJ.

View a lovely slide show.

Natural Curves Ahead

The Beautiful Gardens of Marqueyssac in France  InspireFirst

The Château de Marqueyssac is a 17th century chateau and gardens located at Vézac, in the Dordogne Department of France. The chateau was built at the end of the 17th century by Bertrand Vernet de Marqueyssac, Counselor to Louis XIV, on cliffs overlooking the Dordogne Valley.