Garden design Education of a gardener

Arts outdoors - five top summer events In Review’Asuccessful garden is one that has a sense of place,” begins Arne Maynard.

I believe him because, in garden design circles, he is God. So even if he scarcely utters a word today, some of the magic from his own creation at the end of a single-track lane near Usk is bound to rub off.

But Maynard, 43, a genial man with a ready smile, runs at full throttle, which surely comes as a relief to we dozen students of the soil paying ï¿¡180 each to learn about “The Main Plant Players - Designing Structure with Plants“.

Maynard’s one and two-day courses, running from March to November, are now in their second year and the venue is his own newly created garden at his 15th-century hall house in Monmouthshire.

Whether you want to design kitchen gardens, build earthworks, mazes and knots or learn how to make the most of topiary, summer perennials and winter woodlands, these educational days feature seasonal themes and well-made lunches.

The garden - a redundant farmyard of grassy banks and orchards with a stream and an ancient track running through it - is a beguiling open-air classroom.

As we stand in the approach to Maynard’s house, which is planted with an emerging tapestry of Angelica sylvestris ‘Vicar’s Mead’ and Geranium phaeum ‘Lily Lovell’, he explains his naturalistic approach to structure: “The garden melts into the landscape so that it roots into its setting.”

Maynard achieves a gentle transition from woods to garden with a 30-year-old topiary beech standing beside the track.

“It’s saying ‘This is the way’, it almost draws you in,” he says, as the track takes us across a bridge over the stream where thistles (Cirsium rivulare ‘Atropurpureum’) grow.

Beech, yew, box and Ilex crenata are among Maynard’s main players, and he clips them into free-flowing topiary. As he wanted his garden to look good quickly, his trees are mature and wildly expensive - the beech was a stupefying ï¿¡4,500 from a specialist nursery in Holland.

“The Dutch and the Belgians have always moved large trees - the secret is to keep moving them and cutting the roots to create a tight root ball. Our culture is different - we like growing from seed and taking cuttings,” he continues.

His planting is robust. “I don’t want a garden that’s too precious,” he says.

“It’s about connecting the landscape with the garden - it will appear completely seamless but will get very intense around the house with a mad jumble of topiary.”

Weaving between huge yews, a swirling contemporary earthwork is planted with a spiral of copper beech at different heights.

At the rear of his house, a boundary fence has blurred into the landscape; more earthworks planted with bush apple trees allow the garden to merge with the pastoral amphitheatre behind, where the line of an old drovers’ road cuts through the middle distance.

After lunch, in the loft of a barn, Maynard discusses design. There is no glass in the wooden mullions. “I so like the connection with outside,” he says, flinging back the shutters.

He explains how he trims, tames, pollards and pleaches, how he half-annihilates an ancient yew hedge to spectacular effect, how he sinks a drive to lose it in the landscape and how he despises parked cars.

We students scribble in notebooks. “Apart from a few trees, my garden is non-existent. I’ve never done anything like this before; I’ve come to listen to one of my gardening heroes,” whispers Louise Brook, who wants to transform her garden in Italy.

Emma Mills from West Sussex, also intends to try what she has picked up on the course.

“What attracted me to Arne is his idea that you bring the landscape into the garden and look to nature for inspiration. I like his holistic approach,” she says.

Archie Scott from Whitchurch concurs: “I’m a professional gardener specialising in hard landscaping but on a smaller scale - a day like this is where I get new ideas.”

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Saturday, May 31st, 2008

Backyard Landscaping, Landscaping Rock No Comments

Seven resortspas where you can unwind in the Wests Most Western Town

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — It’s been a long time since cowboys parked their ponies on Main Street in what was once proudly marketed as the West’s Most Western Town.

Today’s Scottsdale is two P.F. Chang’s, two California Pizza Kitchens and two Merrill Lynch offices.

It is art galleries and turquoise shops and boutiques and Beemer convertibles and monster shopping malls serving monster subdivisions hidden behind faux-adobe walls.

It’s also the heart of Arizona’s SpringTrainingLand, making it unavoidable for fans of Giants (the resident trainees), Cubs (the economic engine), Brewers (the few, the proud) and other boosters in appropriate T-shirts brimming with delusionary optimism.

Fortunately, though you may have to look carefully, Scottsdale is still desert and the mountains — or at least a short drive from desert and mountains. To those who pine and whine over “the old Scottsdale,” we offer this from Jennifer Franklin, an actual native Scottsdalean who represents the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess:

“My old Scottsdale is the view of the mountains and seeing them turn purple in the afternoon,” she says. “I grew up with these mountains. They still turn purple in the afternoon …”

The Scottsdale Convention and Visitors Bureau guide lists 71 hotels and resorts. We won’t.

But among the 71 is a collection of resort-spas, often with a golf component, that’s a concentration of the breed rivaled in this country only in and around Palm Springs, Calif. To provide just a real good hint of what Scottsdale has to offer, we bring you profiles of seven, some among America’s premier resort properties and all with Scottsdale mailing addresses — which knocked out The Boulders (Carefree) and Royal Palms (Phoenix) and a couple of other good ones. Sorry.

The seven are not listed in any meaningful order. This isn’t a ranking. That’s for magazines, guides and TripAdvisor.

A couple of more points before we begin: The listed room rates, though accurate as can be, turn to fiction as occupancy loosens or tightens — so do check the resorts’ Web sites or call ahead; also, from mid-May (and sometimes earlier) until Labor Day (and sometimes later), when the weather here tends to get a little toasty, rates plummet, bringing luxury to within Best Western budgets. Packages (golf, spa, honeymoon, etc.), as well, can be attractive any season.

Finally, regarding our featured “favorite spa treatments”: None was actually attempted in the making of this picture. We were just intrigued by the menu descriptions. You will be too.

FAIRMONT SCOTTSDALE PRINCESS

This large spread manages to be an astounding desert resort without screaming, “Aren’t we an astounding desert resort?”

Take the spa, called Willow Stream. Remarkable. Inspired by the Grand Canyon and its Havasu Falls, cascades tumble down its multiple levels. “Just the power they have, in the middle of nowhere — it’s breathtaking,” spa director Jill Eisenhut says of the originals. “We tried to depict that feeling.” There’s more. Briefly: If Troon North is heaven for serious golfers, Willow Stream Spa is no less for serious spa-sters. (Both those suppositions are, naturally, open to debate — but not in this paragraph.)

The resort’s La Hacienda regularly appears with Chicago’s Topolobampo at the top among upscale Mexican restaurants in the U.S. Just added: Bourbon Steak, from award-winning chef Michael Mina.

Kids? Here’s a clue: Across from the adult check-in area is one for kids — yes, for kids — with a mini-staircase to ease communication with the desk clerk. The big people tell the little ones about such diversions as a covered sandbox, four-story water slides and catch-and-release fishing lagoon.

Bigger kids? The TPC Stadium club, one of two on-site 18-hole courses, is home to the FBR Open, renowned among PGA tour events for its unique tolerance for, um, fan participation (that is, noise).

Five pools. A “fragrance garden” (fragrance seasonal). There’s a resident desert tortoise . . . but explorers will find ungroomed desert “within five minutes of leaving the parking lot,” notes a spokeswoman.

The rooms? Really, really nice.

Downside: It’s a little away from the action. Minor.

Favorite spa treatment: Desert Moonlight Massage, $179.

7575 E. Princess Dr.; 800-344-4758; www.fairmont.com/Scottsdale . 651 rooms, including suites 25 suites and 125 casitas; rates from $459.

WESTIN KIERLAND RESORT %26amp; SPA

There’s nothing wrong with this hotel other than it feels like it got lost on its way to downtown Phoenix. Or downtown Dallas. Or suburban Kansas City.

This is an 11-story, 732-room (plus suites, plus casitas) godzilla of a hotel in low-rise country that, try as it does (and it really tries), can’t escape the sense it’s a convention hotel with privileges, not the resuscitative “resort %26amp; spa” the name suggests.

Businesspeople who haul the spouse and kids along will make the family happy. The requisites are in place: pools, water slides, a “lazy river,” Kids Club, Teen Lounge, spa. But.

The overwhelmingly marble lobby feels about as leisurely as the Sears Tower concourse. Yes, you can see golf though the lobby glass — lots of bunkers glare menacingly on the finishing hole of the Acacia nine. But.

There’s even a designated “director of fun”: cannonball contests, watermelon-eating contests.

Of course, adjacent to the hotel is Kierland Commons: 70 “high-end” retailers, along with restaurants everyone comes to Scottsdale to enjoy: Morton’s, the Cheesecake Factory, Tommy Bahama’s Tropical Cafe and Emporium …

The three nines of golf are here. Also here: air-conditioned golf carts. Explains a spokeswoman: “Keeps you cool on the back of the neck when you’re dripping sweat.”

There are hints of Arizona — a narrow Grand Canyon mural over a lobby bar, that sort of thing — but no real sense of place.

The signature restaurant is the much-praised Deseo (nuevo Latino). The creative Agave spa offers such treatments as a Gingerbread Massage: “When you’re all through, you get a gingerbread cookie.” A bagpiper pipes in the sunset.

A first-rate hotel. Plenty of parking. Pet friendly. If you’re stuck in a meeting, the spouse and kids won’t complain. If you’re on expense account, treat ‘em all to steaks at Morton’s. There it is.

Favorite spa treatment: Ice Cream Pedicure (you pick the flavor), from $95.

6902 E. Greenway Pkwy.; 800-354-5892; www.kierlandresort.com . 732 rooms, plus 55 suites and 32 casitas; rates from $369.

FIRESKY RESORT %26amp; SPA

Most convenient of this collection to downtown Scottsdale, the former SunBurst (opened in 1961 as the Executive House) was sold and in 2005 became the Caleo Resort %26amp; Spa; Kimpton Hotels, noted for breathing style into other people’s dowdy properties, took it over later that year and in spring 2007 re-introduced it as FireSky.

So it’s evolved, from a classic (then faded) throwback Southwest property (desk clerks in cowboy hats?) to a classically Kimpton Southwest property with emphatic dashes of non-terra cotta color, a little healthy quirkiness (lightweight cheetah-pattern lounging robes instead of white terry) and an attitude Kimpton fans recognize.

“We’re not out to be the most expensive hotels,” says a rep, quoting the company mantra. “We want to be the most loved.”

That includes lovable touches like free shuttles into town and back, free afternoon wine-tastings, free other things.

They’re also extremely pet friendly. If you don’t bring your own animal, your room’s work desk will get a live goldfish. Dogs and cats are offered facials. True. The goldfish are not.

“If you bring an elephant …”

The changeover renovations are largely complete; the rooms already have their flat-screen TVs and other contemporary touches. The main pool is just fine; a second pool has a sand (though surfless) beach. Firepits (a Scottsdale standard) are all over the place here but not all merely decorative: Guests, on request, are provided the makings of s’mores. Lovable.

The spa (products by Jurlique) is small but interesting; treatment rooms are more Victorian than health-clubby. Golf? Not here.

What is here? A nice place to sleep and relax and spend a little downtime between bursts of busy-ness — but for most guests and unlike many other properties in this list, Scottsdale is the destination and

FireSky is the base.

Favorite spa treatment: Fabulous Furry Facial/Pooch Smooch (for your dog), $70.

4925 N. Scottsdale Rd.; 480-945-7666; www.fireskyresort.com . 204 rooms, including eight suites; rates from $379.

FOUR SEASONS RESORT SCOTTSDALE AT TROON NORTH

It’s technically in “Scottsdale” but a good 20 miles from urbanity, so if you’re coming to Arizona for baseball and rowdy fun you might want to consider something not quite this close to Utah.

For others, of course, that’s a strength.

“If you want the desert,” says a spokeswoman, “you’re going to get it here.”

In many ways, this is the un-Phoenician: We’re talking intimate and luxurious, not in-your-face opulent. (Both Travel+Leisure and Zagat call this Arizona’s best hotel.) Instead of crystal in the lobby, the light fixtures look like wagon wheels, sort of.

All rooms, recently renovated (flat-screen TVs, of course), have working fireplaces. Pinnacle Peak is less than a mile away; a trail leads from the resort, through the desert, to the base, and hiking the hike (escorted or not) is encouraged. This place doesn’t try to deny the desert; it embraces it. Suites have telescopes so guests can scan the clear desert night-time sky.

Two sizable pools, one of them for adults only. Best kids’ game room (air hockey, foosball, big-screen video-game wall) of the group.

This is a prime golf destination: The two Troon North golf courses, reconfigured last fall (to rave reviews), are legendary; though separate from the resort (it’s a “partnership”), tee times are set aside for guests and all but guaranteed.

The spa is smallish but sweet; the essentials are here. Opening in time for spring training: a new featured restaurant (Talavera) and bar. In sum: This is prime Four Seasons, with the comforts and service Four Seasons loyalists expect.

Favorite spa treatment: Golfers Massage (kneading of tight muscles with warm golf balls), $155.

10600 E. Crescent Moon Dr.; 480-515-5700; www.fourseasons.com . 210 rooms and suites; rates from $555.

THE PHOENICIAN

You’re greeted in the lobby by crystal chandeliers. The intent is to impress, and the Phoenician succeeds — even before the concierge offers the self-guided audio tour of the property’s $25 million (their estimate) art collection.

The resort has nine pools and 12 tennis courts, one of the courts regulation Wimbledon-worthy grass. Opened in 1988 and now one of Starwood’s Luxury Collection, a complete renovation of rooms and suites (all now have at least one 42-inch flat-screen TV, plus tweaked decor) has attempted to reinforce its sense of place (the desert, after all) as well as the property’s position among the nation’s finest spa-resorts.

Marie Elaine’s, its featured restaurant (modern French, not cheap), is a knockout, including the view. The Phoenician has the near-standard three nines of golf, on-site, to mix and match. The spa (at 22,000 square feet) is complete, though less a showplace than some others in this group.

In its Canyon Suites, an exquisite boutique hotel within the hotel, you can get a “therapeutic turndown.” Which is: “We’ll come in at night,” explains a spokeswoman, “and offer a pitcher of chilled water and then draw your bath with a variety of soothing salts . . . ”

Nice feature: an expansive cactus garden featuring 350 varieties from around the world. Another: a 165-foot water slide and other kiddie concessions — but this is primarily a place for grown-ups intent on dazzling (and/or seducing) other grown-ups.

Favorite spa treatment: Myoxy Caviar Facial, $250.

6000 E. Camelback Rd.; 800-888-8234; www.thephoenician.com . 647 rooms and suites; rates from $750.

CAMELBACK INN: A JW MARRIOTT RESORT %26amp; SPA

Part of the fun of staying here is imagining what Scottsdale was like when the resort opened in 1936. For a generation and more, this was a prime hangout for movie stars and others of means.

It’s grown under Bill Marriott from 118 rooms to today’s 453 — yet the basic concept is unchanged: adobe-style casitas scattered about the irregular desert terrain between Camelback and Mummy Mountains. “You’re integrating the Southwest, the desert,” says a spokesman.

And, oh yeah, they’re integrating significant construction. It will be April or May before a new main building (including restaurants, one the latest in the BLT Steakhouse group), ballroom and other elements are ready to go. Guests in most casitas will be oblivious to what’s going on — hilly terrain can do wonders to deflect visual nuisance — but still. Watch for discounted rates.

The spa — revolutionary when it opened in the 1980s, updated four years ago — remains best known for its lap pool (with mountain views) and the attached Sprouts healthy-foods restaurant. Its facilities are low on frills but competitive.

There’s one other pool in operation, and at this writing one other restaurant, a casual one (burgers, etc.) alongside that pool; compensating is the relative nearness to downtown Scottsdale eateries.

Guests have access to the nearby Camelback Golf Club.

Regulars who love this place will deal with the construction the way good parents unconditionally love their sometimes-wayward teens. Newcomers will have to adjust. The management is certain that will be easy.

“This was a quality five-diamond resort from Day 1,” says the spokesman, “and it continues to be.”

Favorite spa treatment: Adobe Clay Purification Wrap, $135.

5402 E. Lincoln Dr.; 800-24-CAMEL; www.camelbackinn.com . 453 casitas, including 27 suites; rates from $359.

HYATT REGENCY AT GAINEY RANCH

Maybe this is what the Westin Kierland wanted to be but couldn’t quite pull off.

The Hyatt Regency dates to 1986, which makes it a pioneer of sorts here in pioneer country. The feeling may be country club with strong hints of corporate and convention business, but that formality eases with a walk through its gardens, the layout and lighting fixtures recalling Frank Lloyd Wright during his Japanese period, the sounds of falling water everywhere.

Like the Westin, golf (three nines, again) is visible through the lobby’s glass wall — but here the emotion is more liberating than decorative. Can’t explain why. Ask an architect. It just is.

Above the lobby is a Native American and Environmental Learning Center, where, on this day, a young non-native guest is being taught how to lace moccasins by a Hopi expert. “We provide the venue,” says a spokeswoman, “and they are able to tell the story.”

In Camp Hyatt, a concept born here at Gainey Ranch 20 years ago and widely emulated, kids fiddle with crafts steps away from a local tarantula (”We’re all about learning and discovery.”) in a glass case.

Spa Avania, 2 years old, is big and dreamy: Everything is time-pegged (energetic in the morning, increasingly mellow toward evening), from the background music (guests can select their own during treatments) to the vigorousness of the massages to the beverages provided.

New hotel rooms are on the way; that project begins in April. (No more bathtubs. “People don’t use them anymore.”) Two restaurants opened in October: SWB (for Southwest Bistro) and the Italian Alto Ristorante, which throws in a free gondola ride for dessert.

At night — and this is true of most of the resorts in this package — the mix of lights, from lanterns, from firepits, creates its own world . . .

Nice.

Favorite spa treatment: Anti-Age Performance Facial (for men): $160.

7500 E. Doubletree Ranch Rd.; 480-444-1234; www.scottsdale.hyatt.com . 490 rooms, plus 25 suites and eight casitas; rates from $439.

SCOTTSDALE BESTS

Best if you love the desert: Four Seasons at Troon North

Best if you love spas: Fairmont Scottsdale Princess

Best if golf is why you’re here: Four Seasons, Fairmont

Best honeymoon spot: The Phoenician

Best for families with little kids: Hyatt at Gainey Ranch

Best for families with tweens: Four Seasons

Best for families with teens: Westin Kierland

Best if you collect classic hotels: Camelback Inn

Best spring training base: FireSky, Camelback Inn, Hyatt

Best fun vibe: Hyatt, FireSky

Best for a quiet escape for two: Four Seasons

Best destination with other couples: Fairmont

Best if you must bring your dog: FireSky, Westin

Best for dining on-site: Phoenician, Fairmont

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Wednesday, March 19th, 2008

Backyard Landscaping No Comments

Grand Canyon weather is no sure thing but when the moonlight hits the snow …

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. — It doesn’t have to snow here to make it gorgeous. If you haven’t been to the Grand Canyon, for sure you’ve seen pictures of the place. Awesome pictures.

Snow in the pictures? Not usually.

But …

With the exception of the Grand Canyon in summer — and the “exception” part is debatable — there is no grander scenic wonder in the United States than the Grand Canyon in winter.

When there’s snow.

Which, for those of you who like to plan, is never a sure thing.

For the record, here’s how we caught it just right — and there’s a lesson in this for everybody.

I was doing some travel-related stuff last December in other parts of Arizona, a state that even in December should have been sunny and dry, this being sunny and notoriously dry Arizona.

Instead, it was unsunny and wet. Very wet. We’re talking coming-down-in-sheets, being-forced-off-the-Interstate wet, which is the only excuse for overnighting at a cheap motel in Casa Grande.

And now, we quote beloved Austrian philosopher Julie Andrews:

“Reverend Mother always says when the Lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window.”

In other words, if it’s raining bobcats and coyotes in, say, Scottsdale … children?

“If it’s raining bobcats and coyotes in Scottsdale, and it’s winter — maybe it’s snowing up north at the Grand Canyon!”

Indeed. Look at these pictures … and at what precipitation in higher elevations can bring to us all.

Comparing the Grand Canyon in winter to the Grand Canyon in summer is a little like comparing two very different kids you love equally. The joy in just being here and looking down at it from the rim, or up from the canyon floor, or up and down from anyplace in between, in any season, is unconditional.

Well, one condition, especially in winter: Dress right.

Casey Murph is in charge of the mules that, year-round, carry people into the Grand Canyon and, in a perfect world, back out of it. On this barely post-dawn December morning, in a light snow, he was addressing a dozen or so would-be riders who had paid significant amounts of cash (from $139) for the privilege of sitting unnaturally astride a famously stubborn mammal for several hours in temperatures that would freeze vodka.

“Everybody going to be prepared for this?” Murph asked in his most insistent drill-sergeant screech. “Are you all dressed warm enough? You all have appropriate gloves, something to keep your ears warm? Warm clothes, right?

“Folks, do not underestimate what you’re getting yourselves into …”

That goes for pedestrians as well. If you’re dressed properly, the Grand Canyon in winter is close to being the Grand Canyon in summer. But when the elements happen fortuitously, it’s also marvelous snow-flocked trees and snow-lined pathways, frosted canyon walls, visible breath, lacy glistening ice sculptures, fresh animal tracks, elk so close you could touch them if that weren’t illegal — and something else.

“It’s more peaceful and quiet,” says National Park Service ranger Dawn Majewski. “It can get very busy on the rim in the summer.”

Un-busy as it is in hard-freeze conditions, don’t expect it to be just you and the canyon. The world won’t let that happen.

Sure, close to 20,000 daily visitors can flood the park (figuratively speaking) in July — but even on a frigid day in early December or any time in January, you’ll likely have 4,000 or so scattered about. (There’s usually an upward bump during Christmas break.)

On this visit, among those enjoying the white-trimmed magnificence were a couple from Japan celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary, a tour group from France, a family from Australia, a large reunion of Vietnamese who had rebuilt lives all over the U.S. and the Panozzos, canyon veterans from suburban Cary.

“I love it,” said Margaret Panozzo of the wintry-ness. “It adds that extra dimension.”

“The colors are better too,” said husband Bob. “I don’t know why I think that.”

Artists, professional outdoors photographers, decorators and others who play with light and color for a living could probably explain the phenomenon, and vividly. Amateurs like travel writers bored easily by technicalities are left to spout what they see: impossibly clear air plus brilliant natural hues set against startling whiteness, all this made even more pleasing when remnant clouds move out and the sun brightens absolutely everything.

And at night, when the moonlight hits the snow … oh, my.

Other weather-related practicalities have to be mentioned here.

Paved trails along the rim are cleared of snow when practical, making leisurely, scenic ambling easy for most folks. But the unpaved switchback trails into the canyon that date to long-ago mining operations — including Bright Angel, the trail hikers share with the mules (and the stuff left by those mules) — are something else.

An attempt one morning to walk a few dozen yards down that trail, with its sheer drop-off, in inappropriate shoes literally brought one normally fearless travel writer to his knees lest he go over the side or, worse, see his company-owned camera crash into an unsuspecting jackass.

“There may be a little snow at the top of the trails,” concedes another NPS ranger, David Smith, “but in general, so long as you’re prepared — so long as you have some crampons (spikes favored by mountaineers) or traction devices for your feet — you’re fine going down into the canyon.”

(The mules, by the way, wear devices too. “They’re shod with cleats,” says Murph. “They grip the ice quite well.” It’s one of the reasons, he says, that more than a century of recreational riding has gone by “with never a single fatal accident from the back of a mule in the Grand Canyon.”)

Now, the canyon doesn’t fill up with snow. That’s a big hole we’re talking about.

The whiteness can stick to the upper walls and complicate trails for a mile or so — but when temps are in the teens up at 7,000 feet on the rim, it can be in the 50s down at the bottom by Phantom Ranch. The Colorado River, which contributed mightily to creating the Grand Canyon, never gets ice-clogged down there; it’s why though warmer months are prime rafting season, winter raft trips through the canyon aren’t unheard of.

And even up on the rim, snow “melts a lot quicker than it does back home,” says ranger Majewski, a Michigander.

Which is why, when I called her number during the rainstorms down south, she said: “You’d better get up here.”

Southwest lifers know how strange northern Arizona weather can be. Flagstaff, whose slopes can be heavenly for skiers, was virtually snowless for the two winters before this one. Majewski remembers one recent Christmas when temperatures at the park hit 60 degrees.

“New Year’s Day, we were sitting out on the rim with our champagne and our shrimp — the whole thing.”

Again, most of the time we’re talking the same canyon from season to season, only in winter it’s colder.

Also most of the time: Aside from Thanksgiving weekend and Christmastime, no matter what the weather, from November well into February crowds will be down, noise will be down, parking will be easier and, unlike in July and August, chances of suffering from dehydration and other heat-related ailments will be (like the temperatures, sometimes) close to zero.

For sure: Snow or not, barring the odd fog or something else freakish, the Grand Canyon will be grand.

But if you really luck out …

IF YOU GO:

GETTING THERE: The South Rim of the Grand Canyon, which is open all year, is a 50-mile drive from Williams, Ariz., 79 miles from Flagstaff, 220 miles from Phoenix, 335 miles from Tucson and 278 miles from Las Vegas. (The North Rim, with more severe weather due to higher elevations, closes in winter.) You can make it there and back from Phoenix in a day, but that would be silly, especially in winter with its short days and uncertain weather conditions.

Bus service to the park is available from Williams and Flagstaff (www.flagstaffexpress.com, 800-563-1980; www.openroadtours.com, 877-226-8060); and special tour-train service (via the Grand Canyon Railway, www.thetrain.com; 800-843-8724) is offered out of Williams.

By the way: If you think you’ve seen the canyon by just taking that popular helicopter ride over the place from Vegas — well, you’re wrong. It’s like flying over the Vatican.

GETTING AROUND: Even in nasty weather, roads within and to the park generally are kept clear; parking, often a hassle in summer, in winter is a breeze, both in lots and at overlooks. Visitors who arrive without a car can get around much of the park on free shuttle buses, which run every 15-30 minutes — but in most cases some walking will be required to get from the bus stop to rim viewpoints.

Unless the conditions get ridiculous, hiking never stops, with trails — both the paved rim trails and the unpaved ones into the canyon — maintained year-round. (The paved trails are relatively level and, when cleared of ice and snow, good for folks with accessibility issues.) Mule trips into the canyon, often booked solid in warmer months, run throughout the winter (conditions permitting) and are usually easier to book in those months, sometimes even at the last minute (888-297-2757; www.grandcanyonlodges.com).

Yes, there are winter raft trips on the Colorado, but they’re irregularly scheduled; contact the park office (see below) for details.

STAYING THERE: The best option is staying within the park; one central booking office (888-297-2757; www.grandcanyonlodges.com), under the Xanterra umbrella, handles them all.

The 102-year-old El Tovar Hotel, practically on the rim, is the classic experience. Rooms (doubles $142 and up, subject to change) are nice, well-equipped but not Ritz-Carlton posh, and there’s no elevator. And the rooms can be small. The price of classic-ness. Bright Angel Lodge (opened in 1935; a couple of lodge-controlled cabins date to the 1800s) has rooms from $52 (no private facilities) to $239 (with). Newer and well located between El Tovar and Bright Angel are Kachina and Thunderbird Lodges, where perfectly acceptable rooms with parking-lot views run $139; rooms facing the canyon run $152, but not all the views are knockout. At Maswik Lodge, if it’s open — and it may not be in winter — you’ll pay $78 and up, depending on degree of rusticity; it’s a quarter-mile jog to the rim (or you can catch the shuttle), but many of the rooms were beautifully updated in 2006. Mather Campground ($15) and adjacent Trailer Village ($28) are open in winter. Yavapai Lodge, at 358 rooms largest of the lodging complexes, is closed most of the winter.

Closest lodgings outside the national park are in Tusayan, about 2 miles south of the park entrance and 61/2 miles from the actual canyon. There you’ll find several decent-looking motels, including a Best Western, Holiday Inn Express, Quality Inn and a Grand Hotel, which looks like a Wisconsin Dells indoor water park resort but isn’t. Flagstaff (especially) and Williams (which actively touts its Route 66 heritage) are loaded with rooms — though good weekend ski conditions, when they happen, can tighten things up in Flag.

DINING HERE: Xanterra, which controls food service in the park as well as lodgings, lists 10 places serving sustenance within the boundaries, but some are limited (the Canyon Coffee House is basically morning coffee and muffins, etc.) and many are seasonal. Open all year is the attractive El Tovar Dining Room, most formal (in an informal way) of the venues, with entrees generally in the mid-$20s and up. The Arizona Room, alongside Bright Angel Lodge, is a few dollars cheaper and very good but nowhere near as atmospheric as El Tovar, and it’s usually closed from New Year’s through mid-February. Bright Angel Restaurant, in Bright Angel Lodge, is a casual all-purpose restaurant. The rest, scattered among the lodgings, are mainly sandwiches, pizza and, at Maswik Lodge, a cafeteria.

No reason to drive to Tusayan just to eat — but if you base there, you’ll have a few restaurants to choose from plus a McDonald’s and a Wendy’s. In Williams, try the family friendly Pine Country Restaurant; in Flagstaff, if you like good steaks and a sense of place, seek out the Horsemen Lodge Restaurant.

INFORMATION: Grand Canyon National Park, 928-638-7888; www.nps.gov/grca

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Thursday, February 21st, 2008

Backyard Landscaping No Comments

GUIDING RULES FOR GARDENS

PHILADELPHIA - -Home gardener or professional horticulturist, doesn’t matter: When you ask why they love digging in the dirt, they all get that look in their eyes. They smile a certain way, as if they can’t believe you would ask such a dumb question. Then comes the grin, and major teeth. And they blurt out what Claire Sawyers does: “Because . . . because . . . it feels like you’re playing!” When Sawyers, director of Scott Arboretum at Swarthmore College, is not “playing,” she’s writing about gardening. She offers much to think about in a new book called The Authentic Garden: Five Principles for Cultivating a Sense of Place (Timber Press, $34.95).

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Sunday, February 10th, 2008

Landscaping No Comments

Buhl Mansion in Sharon among Top 10 romantic inns

It was built by steel baron Frank Buhl in 1896 as a wedding present for his wife, so it’s fitting that the elegant stone castle now operating as the Buhl Mansion Guesthouse %26amp; Spa was selected as one of the Top 10 Romantic Inns for 2008.

It’s just one of the many accolades the Buhl Mansion in Sharon, Mercer County, has earned since Jim and Donna Winner renovated the Romanesque castle and reopened it as a guesthouse in 1997.

The latest honor comes from iloveinns.com, the Web companion of American Historic Inns Inc. The Top 10 were selected out of 19,000 bed-and-breakfasts in the United States based on scenic setting, interior beauty, sense of place, hospitality and overall romantic mystique. It’s the first time a B%26amp;B in Western Pennsylvania has earned this award since the organization began selecting top romantic inns in 1994.

Among previous awards, in 2006 Buhl was included in the Top 10 Most Memorable Bedrooms by Inns Magazine.

The castle offers 10 guestrooms, each with a fireplace and jacuzzi. The spa provides more than 100 treatments. The romance spa package is its most popular, with side-by-side couples massages, facials, manicures lunch, and bottle of champagne.

For more information: Buhl Mansion Guesthouse %26amp; Spa, 422 E. State St., Sharon, 1-866-345-BUHL (2845), www.BuhlMansion.com.

Other inns included in the Top 10 list include:

%26#149; Pearson’s Pond Luxury Inn %26amp; Adventure Spa, Juneau, Alaska.

%26#149; Songbird Prairie Bed %26amp; Breakfast, Valparaiso, Ind.

%26#149; Garth Woodside Mansion, Hannibal, Mo.

%26#149; Ho’oilo House, Lahaina, Hawaii.

%26#149; Run of the River, Leavenworth, Wash.

%26#149; Red Horse Inn, Lundrum, S.C.

%26#149; Lake Pointe Inn Bed %26amp; Breakfast, McHenry, Md.

%26#149; The Reluctant Panther Inn and Restaurant, Manchester, Vt.

%26#149; Hydrangea House Inn, Newport, R.I.

Mr. Winner, who made a fortune from his invention of the anti-theft device the Club, also with his wife renovated an 1854 Federal-style farmhouse into Tara — A Country Inn. It opened in 1986 and is six miles away from the Buhl Mansion in Clark.

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Sunday, January 27th, 2008

Backyard Landscaping No Comments

The bind of a cement plan

In a peaceful North Otago valley, the prospect of a massive new cement plant is stoking a row. JOHN KEAST reports.

Peter Rodwell is a man of the world and a man of many parts %26#150; doctor, farmer and, in his latest role, fighter.

Rodwell is chairman of the Waiareka Valley Preservation Society, a group that sprang to prominence after the New Zealand subsidiary of international cement maker Holcim announced last year that it was considering building a $200 million plant at tiny Weston, near Oamaru in North Otago.

That did not sit well with Rodwell, whose father, ironically, was a cement-plant engineer who had worked on projects across the globe.

Rodwell began to work with rural neighbour Rodney Jones, an economist, on battling the proposal, one that Holcim contends will bring prosperity and long-term growth to the area. Jones and Rodwell are a formidable team, and the depth of their opposition has probably taken Holcim by surprise.

But Holcim says it welcomes the debate, saying it can only lead to a better consent process. It argues that a robust consent process will ensure that only a plant of the highest quality will be allowed.

Rodwell, a medical doctor, is not even sure if he will stay in the area if the plant goes ahead; others, too, share that view.

Four years ago he bought the historic Elderslie estate. It has a walled garden, a coach house (in which Rodwell lives), historic stables and other buildings.

Rodwell’s dream is to turn it into an organic farm, but with a major industrial operation planned nearby, he is not sure his farm would pass certification. Should he risk $200,000 pursuing his goal? He’s not sure.

But Rodwell is more concerned for the community at large. In no particular order, he cites the reasons for his opposition: the increase in the number of heavy trucks that will use the rural roads around Weston, Ngapara and Windsor; dust nuisance; noise from a 24-hour operation and health risks.

All in all, he says, the Holcim plans would turn the peaceful valley into an industrial corridor likely to turn off visitors. And he is worried about emissions from the plant.

Rodwell concedes that the business of what a cement plant produces is not a pure science, but he does not want the community exposed to any risks.

Holcim, for its part, says that like any industrial activity involving the combustion of raw materials, the making of cement results in discharges into the air.

But in designing the plant, Holcim says it has been careful to draw upon its experience to ensure the plant will be operated to best practice, including the use of processes to ensure all discharges are acceptable.

It goes further, saying the proposed plant would not be built if Holcim was not completely confident that it could meet stringent air-emission standards likely to be set by the Otago Regional Council.

But all that is cold comfort to Rodwell and Jones.

Jones says, first and foremost, that the sloping valleys behind Oamaru are simply no place for a cement plant. The changed look of the valley is a very big issue; that the plant and associated coalmine and quarry would change the whole sense of place.

Oamaru, he says, has done well on its historic brand, drawing in tourists and visitors.

Jones, who returned to New Zealand a few years ago after 15 years abroad, says that brand will be put at risk. “These are dramatic landscapes, and an alternative route to Mount Cook. This will ruin the valley.”

And Jones says he’s no Luddite. He is all for growth, but of the “right” sort.

The modern world, he says, is all about brands. “And this is not a brand for Otago.”

Holcim has said since it announced it was revisiting the North Otago option that it is just one on the books. Other options include rejuvenating its existing, but ageing, plant at Cape Foulwind, near Westport, importing cement, and exploring options in south Waikato. The Weston site was evaluated by the company 25 years ago as a potential site for a new plant. Land was bought and zoning and consents granted, but a lack of confidence in the cement market at the time meant the plant did not proceed.

Jones %26#150; who admits locking horns with Holcim has cost him a lot of time %26#150; says the preservation society, for which he is spokesman, has taken on Holcim on the basis that the option for Weston will proceed.

Says Jones: “They are fully committed to this; this is their option and we have engaged them on that basis.”

To that end, at a cost Rodwell or Jones will not say, the society has employed its own legal team and experts to give evidence at consent hearings, expected in August or later this year. The society believes the consent applications may fail on several fronts, including noise and visual impact.

Jones says that yes, North Otago needs growth, but not of the sort planned by Holcim. He cites low unemployment and that several big businesses in Oamaru already struggle for staff.

Holcim counters with a variety of arguments: that its plant will be safe, that it will not be built unless all safety rules are met, that the plant and associated works will bring significant benefits to the community.

Holcim’s general manager of strategy and development, Paul Commons, who has been involved with the project from day one, says: “The obvious economic benefits are the jobs that would be created and cash that would flow into the local community as a result of constructing and then operating the proposed plant at Weston.”

Construction, he says, would create 450 jobs for two years, with about $106 million of the $200m cost of the plant spent locally.

“Construction workforce salaries alone would total around $30m with another $44m in indirect or multiplier effects,” he says.

After construction, operating the plant would provide between 110 and 125 jobs. “These would be long-term non-seasonal, permanent jobs worth around $8 million a year in salaries.

“A cement plant at Weston would provide real diversity to the local economy and reduce the dependence on primary industry and agriculture, which tend to provide more seasonal jobs,” Commons says.

So, with the deadline for submissions closing on Tuesday, the proposal is generating a lot of debate.

There appear to be three camps: those strongly opposed, those for, and those who do not care either way.

Opponent Liz Plant, whose rented home will be within 1km of the plant, says the issue has divided the community and, in some cases, families. If it goes ahead, she will shift.

Wendy and Andy Fricker say that if the plant comes, the family will leave. “I’m worried for my kids (Hayden, four, and Rhianna, six). We won’t stay. I don’t want to look at the plume (from a proposed 100m chimney),” Wendy Fricker says.

She says she tries to grow her own food and to live a healthy lifestyle. “They (Holcim) are taking our dream away. We worked for so long; it would be stolen.”

She says the price of such a plant will be too high for North Otago, and tourism could be at risk. “I would just like Holcim to disappear. I have to believe it can’t go ahead,” Fricker says.

She says health concerns are her biggest worry, followed by the number of trucks that will use the area’s roads.

Holcim says its proposal will bring diversity to the local economy, create economic benefits, bring options for the district’s young and be consistent with the cement policy zone created and maintained in the district plan.

Opponents, however, say that this proposal came as a surprise; that it could cause health effects; that it will use low-quality sulphurous coal; that it will create an industrial corridor in a pristine valley.

Jones and Rodwell just wish the whole project would go away. That is very unlikely.

Jones says the preservation society has been given the use of a McCahon painting of a North Otago landscape, A Landscape With Too Few Lovers, to use in its fight against the proposal.

Jones believes the society has a good case to fight the proposal and, equally, Holcim says its proposal will bring a wealth of benefits. Whatever the outcome of the consent hearings, it is likely the matter will end up in the Environment Court.

For the moment, the valley slumbers.

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Wednesday, December 26th, 2007

Garden Landscaping No Comments

Downtown Taylor Revitalization Landscaping Idea

Much of the monstrous construction equipment landscaping idea, unsightly gaping holes and bright orange cones and barrels — all of which have become commonplace landscaping idea — will have vanished. In their place will be smooth, white walkways, fresh landscaping and a sense of renewal, city staff said. (more…)

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Sunday, October 21st, 2007

Landscaping Idea No Comments


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