Rudy J. Favretti - Landscapes and Gardens for Historic Buildings

Landscapes and Gardens for Historic Buildings

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR STATE AND LOCAL HISTORY BOOK SERIES

Series Editor

Rebecca K. Shrum, Indiana UniversityPurdue University Indianapolis

MANAGING EDITOR

Bob Beatty, AASLH

EDITORIAL BOARD

Anne W. Ackerson, Leading by Design

William Bomar, University of Alabama Museums

Jessica Dorman, The Historic New Orleans Collection

W. Eric Emerson, South Carolina Department of Archives and History

Tim Grove, National Air and Space Museum

Laura Koloski, Pew Center for Arts & Heritage

Russell Lewis, Chicago History Museum

Jane Lindsey, Juneau-Douglas City Museum

Ann E. McCleary, University of West Georgia

Laurie Ossman, Preservation Society of Newport County

Sarah Pharaon, International Coalition of Sites of Conscience

Laura Roberts, Roberts Consulting

Julia Rose, Homewood Museum at Johns Hopkins University

Sandra Smith, Heinz History Center

Kimberly Springle, Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives

William S. Walker, Cooperstown Graduate Program, SUNY Oneonta

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About the Organization

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Landscapes and Gardens for Historic Buildings

A Handbook for Reproducing and Creating Authentic Landscapes

Third Edition

Rudy J. Favretti and Joy Putman Favretti

Rowman & Littlefield

Lanham Boulder New York London

Published by Rowman & Littlefield

A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

www.rowman.com

Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB

Copyright 2017 by Rowman & Littlefield

All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Favretti, Rudy J., author. | Favretti, Joy P., author.

Title: Landscapes and gardens for historic buildings : a handbook for reproducing and creating authentic landscapes / Rudy J. Favretti and Joy Putman Favretti.

Other titles: American Association for State and Local History book series.

Description: Third edition. | Lanham, Maryland : Rowman & Littlefield, [2017] | Series: American Association for State and Local History book series |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016051644 (print) | LCCN 2016053934 (ebook) | ISBN 9781442260764 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781442260771 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781442260788 (Electronic)

Subjects: LCSH: Historic gardensConservation and restorationUnited States. | Historic sitesConservation and restorationUnited States. | Gardens, AmericanConservation and restoration. | Landscape architectureUnited StatesHistory. | Landscape gardeningUnited

States. | Plants, OrnamentalUnited States.

Classification: LCC SB466.U6 F34 2017 (print) | LCC SB466.U6 (ebook) | DDC 712/.60973dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016051644

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Preface

The words preservation and restoration have been part of our vocabulary since childhood. Joy lived in a carefully reproduced period house in her early years and then, as a teenager, in a historic house built in 1696 that her family restored. Rudys fathera master carpenter who learned his trade with hand tools and by apprenticing for five years in his native Dolomites of northern Italy, before emigrating to Americaspent most of his professional career restoring old and historic houses, several of them in the historic village at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut. We thought that everyone knew about preservation-restoration until we became involved ourselves, but as Rudys father often said: People spend tons of money restoring the house, and then they go down to the store and buy junky stuff to plant around it.

We both decided to specialize in preservation-restoration within our chosen fields of landscape architecture and botany. Little had been written about restoring the grounds around historic buildings except for a few accounts about Williamsburg. There was nothing of a how-to nature, or a book offering guidance. This is why we decided to write the first edition of this book in 1978, after we had practiced as professionals in the field for twenty years. Now, after almost sixty years of practice, it is time for another revision of what many refer to as the bible of landscape restoration.

We have kept the organization of the book basically the same, with the first and lengthy chapter describing American landscape design from the seventeenth century to the twentieth century. Chapter 2 deals with research toward plan development, and it suggests various possible sources for determining what the landscape for a particular site should be, or might have been, followed by instructions on how to develop the plan for that landscape. Joys chapter 3 has extensive lists of plants for particular periods and styles of landscapes. Each plant listed can be documented from lists that were printed in-period. The documentation is not included in the book lest it becomes encyclopedic and cumbersome to use as a handbook. However, that documentation is available if needed. Chapter 4 discusses maintenance issues from lawns to soil fertility to dealing with the wear and tear of pedestrian circulation, as well as many other issues, such as developing a maintenance plan.

Within this basic framework that has worked well for the past thirty-eight years, we have made approximately 150 revisions, about a third of them major. We have eliminated sources of heirloom plants because there is now a plethora of seed houses and nurseries dealing with them. Therefore, any list would inadvertently be incomplete and unfair to those not included. Today it is easy to Google the name of any heirloom plant, using its botanical name followed by the word source, and the results spring forth.