The winner of this year’s Gardenista Considered Design Awards Best Amateur-Designed Garden is Bettina Mueller of Tivoli, New York.
Her project was chosen as a finalist by Gardenista editor in chief Michelle Slatalla, who said: “The use of simple, rustic materials reinforces the beauty of the natural surroundings.”
Bettina Mueller’s Design Statement: “Drawing from her decades-long study of the Japanese Tea Tradition where great–even legendary–gardens are small by necessity, Bettina Mueller sets out to turn her backyard in the small Hudson Valley village of Tivoli, New York into a private world of beauty and tranquility.”
Q: Where do you live?A: I live in an 1860s Victorian house on a quarter of an acre in the small Hudson Valley village of Tivoli, New York.
At Bard College, which is five minutes away, the Frank Gehry-designed Fisher Center for the Performing Arts hosts dance and theater companies from around the world.
Q: What were your practical goals for the project?A: In 2005 I built a small tea house in the backyard which had no trees or plantings.
Q: What solutions did you find to your design problems?A: There are a number of design elements that make a roji or tea garden work, and I incorporated these concepts into my garden so that they didn’t look out of place in my Victorian village.
Gates and fences play an important role in defining the two main garden rooms: the outer roji and inner roji. In the outer roji, the path is straight and cobbled.
Q: What are your favorite features of the project?A: I built the cobblestone path in the outer roji from stones I gathered from an old wall on my mother’s property nearby. He also said that a tea garden could be made more intimate by using materials that have personal resonance.
I would build tea houses and the gardens that surround them. Projects like that appeal to me. Q: Where do you get your design inspiration?A: I have practiced the Way of Tea for many years. Oudolf’s High Line in NYC is an amazing place, as is my favorite of his designs, the Lurie Garden in Chicago.
In June, Mueller published a book on her gardening journey as a student of the Japanese Way of Tea. A Tea Garden in Tivoli is currently available for $28 (down from $34.95) on Mueller’s website, Tea Garden Book.