Building a Traditional Garden at Northern Academy, Upstate New York

In the presence of something truly beautiful, it brings out a better part of you, you know. It brings out the good part of you. This is a year and a half of planning. Yeah, it's a long time planning. That's going to be the agriculture garden, which will be an intrinsic part of the education about learning how plants grow. How long do you think it's going to take before it's the ideal version of what you were thinking at the very beginning? It really does matter. Beauty. The whole aim of all of this is to create a harmonious setting. I don't think there is a garden that's like this. It's going to be very special. Hello everyone. Today I'm in upstate New York in Middletown. We're going to have a conversation with a good friend of mine, James, who's a designer very interested in architecture. I had a conversation with him a few days ago. He told me about this project he's working on, which is a garden for a school. And not just a simple garden, but a beautiful traditional garden. And when he told me about the whole thing, I said, well, let me get involved. Let me do something. This is a great thing. And so now we're going to have a conversation with him and he's going to explain what it's all about. It's going to be great. Let's do it. Hey, James. Great to see you, my man. Hey, how are you doing? Great. So this is the famous garden. Right. So tell us more about this garden. Well, what you see here is a little bit of the classical tradition coming to life. What we're doing here today is like forming up the hedge, which is really going to give the structure of the garden, the shape of it. And basically what we see in the classical tradition, geometry and regular geometry. We see like a semicircular here. And as we walk in here in a little bit with the complete circle in the middle, it's very ordered and sort of classical Italian garden, I would say. Yeah. The bubbly garden. Many of the gardens there were just, you just wander around. It's like you're in some kind of paradisiacal landscape. This is the very first time you've been working on this garden. There was nothing here, you said. Yeah. It was like a disaster. A year ago, this place was overgrown. There were weedy kind of trees. There were four foot high, like weeds growing. Like it was just totally unruly. And I'll let Min tell a story about that, because that was like the source of his inspiration. One of the guys who's working over there. Yeah. Min's the main inspirer of this project. Our garden mascot over here, Nyo Nyo. Are you a good boy? He's come to give a good atmosphere for the project. Here's Min here. Great to see you, man. Good to see you. Great. The birth of the project started with Min's mind and his inspiration. Okay. So what happened? What was the, let's say this park that triggered everything? In 10th grade, right? Two years ago, I'm in top grade now. I lived in that building. And every day I would go here and play basketball. Don't really like looking at ugly things. There was a lot of trees, wheat, and sewage entrance, actually. Old-style sewage entrance. 300 years old or something. I figure if we have a space for students to hang out after they play basketball, have a couple swings, couple benches. Behind you is the C building. It's this part. This is where we're standing right now. So it's going to have one entrance here. So the whole area will be fenced off, right? There'll be one door here leading up. Like a gate? Yeah, like a gate. And we want to block this part off. So they would have to go around the garden if they want to get to the other side. That's kind of bad. So they have to see the garden. Yeah, we kind of forced them to go into the garden with benevolent intent. The circle here has the main feature garden. And then I'll lead out into these spaces. This kind of field here is going to be like a little bit of a sort of open space, sort of multi-purpose. A space for students to spend time outside. Yeah, get some sunlight. A lot of people at the school practice Qigong too. So we're thinking we could have some morning exercise out here in this field. That open space then leads into the rear, which is moving towards that tree back there. Right. And that's going to be the agriculture garden, which will be an intrinsic part of the education about learning how plants grow, the life of each plant, and then how they come together and live together in a garden. I really like classical gardens, especially ones in France and Italy. So that's my main inspiration. I looked up a lot of Italian and French gardens. Great artist copying someone else's field. I don't remember. Filled up the shoulders of giants. Great minds think alike. That's the kind of way of doing it. Right, yeah. One thing I'm curious is to have a garden this way, with a traditional starting point, not just to have a simple lawn of grass and a few benches. We can call it a day. Why do you think it's important to do it this way rather than do it in a more modern way? I think our school focuses a lot on character, building morality, traditional values. I think a big part of that is the appreciation for beauty. We have a class called etiquette class, so we learn how to properly behave ourselves. I think when you see something, in the presence of something truly beautiful, it brings out a better part of you. It brings out the good part of you. Something that classical art, classical music in general, can do. How did you convince James to get involved? Because one thing I learned about teamwork is, you can have a great idea, but then you have to gather people and make them, yes, let's do it. The mastermind behind that was Ms. Zabian, Maureen here. She's a teacher involved in the project. Nice to meet you. Nice meeting you. Fantastic. So you already had a team. Yeah. Kind of. Great. I got her to do most of the convincing. I'm a college counselor at North Academy, and I really want the students to have a great college resume. And part of that is actually doing some sort of initiative. And so I saw this area and I thought, wow, this could be potentially a great garden. And we called it the secret garden. This is really exciting. We're finally actually planting it, and you can see it. But I'm going to tell you, there is a lot. This is a year and a half of planning. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah, it's a long time planning. Yeah. Many layers. I had no idea. Yeah, just so much work. So how long do you think it's going to take before it's the ideal version of what you were thinking at the very beginning? Well, honestly, myself, what I think is actually by June, you're going to see a really good layout of it. It's going to be a little, what, festival of different kind of plants. Yeah, there you go. It's really going to sort of come into its own. Probably. And then as they grow in, like this head probably will take two or three years before it all lines up and grows mature. And so probably like three to five years will be when it really peaks. I know nothing about plants. They will change color. Are they evergreen? Our plan is to have like different layers of plants. There'll be the evergreens. They'll just serve as the basis. They're always there. And then maybe some flowers that are seasonal. They come up in spring when the other one die. I mean, right. Or just leave. Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. So it would take, yeah. Different blooming sequence too. So we'll get the early spring flowers and summer. I'll be back. How big is it, by the way? Well, it's about 90 feet across and 180 feet long. Sort of going into the distance there. It kind of comes short, a little bit short of that big tree in the back. It's just that tree over there. Yeah, just short. But yeah, maybe we'll see a little bit. The centipede kind of, it organizes the garden and distributes people out into the garden with the different paths. You can see around. We've got this circle here. This is going to raise up about a foot and a half where it's going to be a stone wall, a dry-laid stone wall. And then it's going to come up into, this is bulbs. It's going to be like tulips and daffodils. Oh, nice. What we see happening here, all the plants going in along the side of the main path. I'd like to introduce Nick Barashaka. He's been the main part of all of this coming together. How do you envision the whole thing? How do you think it's going to look like? I think it's going to be probably one of the most beautiful gardens that a school can offer. I really do. I don't think there's going to be a garden... I don't think there is a garden that's like this. It's going to be very special. Is it truly worth it? Yeah, yeah. All this effort, all this time, all the money to gather people together, get organized. Is it worth it? Yeah. For beauty? It really does matter. Beauty. The whole aim of all of this is to create a harmonious setting so people can be here. They want to be here. And they can relax here and feel uplifted. Create like a nourishing environment. And that's the kind of effect that this garden aims to have. It'll just soften people. And then that relates to how the kids will interact with each other in this sort of more gentle sort of exchange. Oh, what a day, man. Yeah. Good job, babe. Fantastic. So everything done. We're happy. This is the foundation of the garden. We have the form in place now, the shape of it. But what's the next step? It's the great wall of fence. Because we need to keep animals out. Right. There's a few things. For the veggies, definitely we need the deer out. And the ornamental garden, some of them eat the flowers too. So it'll allow us to have more species in here. The fence and to keep the kids in a safe environment. Correct. Yeah. Okay. I'll see you next time, my friend. Thanks a lot. Take care. Ciao.