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The Wild Garden:
The Wild Garden was designed for the Sterns in 1939 by "the dean of American women landscape architects," Ellen Biddle Shipman. Country Place Era designers like Shipman created Wild Gardens as "contrived wilderness" gardens, utilizing native plants in a primarily ornamental fashion. Shipman's extensive repertoire boasts many of these woodland gardens but Longue Vue's Wild Garden is the only extent example.
The focal point of the garden is the Pigeonnier, or dovecote, which overlooks the sandstone lined pond. It is modeled after one at Uncle Sam Plantation in Convent, Louisiana.
The use of dovecotes also figured prominently into Shipman's designs. The three serpentine walkways that traverse the garden create a feeling of intimacy that belies its one-acre expanse. Each walkway is devoted to showcasing a different mass planting.
Although the Shipman design does specify plant varieties, many of the Wild Garden's plants were found and planted by famed naturalist and artist Caroline Dormon. Dormon was a major force behind the establishment of Louisiana's only national forest, Kisatchie and a pioneer hybridizer of the Louisiana Iris. Her original botanical drawings are on display in Longue Vue's Playhouse.
Over time, excessive shading due to the maturation of the canopy dramatically changed the character of the Wild Garden. A thorough analysis determined that in order to return the garden to Shipman's intended design; the canopy would have to be selectively thinned, berms that had subsided over time would need to be rebuilt, native plants that had been gradually shaded out would be replanted and the pond and pigeonnier would require rehabilitation. This massive undertaking was initiated in mid-1997 and largely completed by 1999-2000. |