Guild Hall Garden As Art

On Friday and Saturday, August 22nd and 23rd, OvS Principal Eric Groft attended the events associated with Guild Hall’s Garden As Art: The Green Landscape, presenting the Eco-Friendly Gardens in and around East Hampton.

The event kicked off with a cocktail reception for patrons and benefactors of Guild Hall, hosted by Mary Ryan in the historic barn at her 19 acre waterfront farm overlooking Gardiners Bay. After a continental breakfast, there was a panel discussion on the “Perfect Garden” featuring experts including Eric Fleischer, Dr. Diane Lewis, Sean O’Neal, Stephen Orr, and Paul Tukey.

The theme for this year’s Guild Hall Garden event was based on Edwina von Gal’s new Perfect Earth initiative with a focus on best green industry practices. This initiative is fundamentally aligned with the OvS philosophy for many decades of “doing the right thing” as landscape architects. Founder Wolfgang Oehme was the leader in landscapes and gardens that were not dependent on water and chemicals and practices that could harm the environment. Drought tolerant plants, organic compost, fish emulsion for fertilizer and weeding the garden the old fashioned way (BY HAND!) was the great Wolfgang’s mantra since to the United States from Germany in the 1950’s. It was this philosophy, combined with the use of environment friendly perennials and native ornamental grasses, that gave rise to the signature New American Garden Style of Oehme , van Sweden & Associates.

On Saturday,the event concluded with a tour of gardens in East Hampton and North Haven.