TEN MINUTES WITH - Rebekah Lamphere Landscape Designer
April 1, 2021
Rebekah Lamphere may not be working as hard in the winter as she does the rest of the year, but by early March she is deep into planning mode. Lamphere already has preordered annuals from Zema’s Nursery, her grower in Stephentown, New York. Some 1,000 square feet of the nursery is reserved for her. She is also sketching landscape designs for clients, and some plans include work that will be done by Lamphere Stoneworks. (Her father and brother, who own the company, are master stonemasons.) Rebekah loves it all―from developing an idea on paper to transposing it into the ground to seeing it grow and change.
Your company, Hartland Designs, is a family business? Very much so. Every summer, I’ve brought my kids with me. My older son worked for me starting at 14 and is now an apprentice for his grandfather and uncle. When COVID hit, I said to my daughter that we should work on a “she-shed” for a craft project. She was so focused and intent, she used it as credit for her classes. I told her she was ready to work with me and my sister (who leads our maintenance crew). My 11-year-old found out his sister was working for me, so now he’s all jealous.
What drew you into landscape gardening? At 13, I told my mom I was bored. She brought me to a neglected garden that she had started and said I could do whatever I wanted. I picked a lot of plants in a Spring Hill catalogue. My family was very encouraging; it was like I was turning this garden space into gold. By 16, I wanted to be a landscaper. I had to look it up and see what it meant. I went to Paul Smith’s College for two years and learned about trees. I was the only girl in my major. I climbed trees with ropes and saddles, learned tree identification. It was fun. Then I went to Cornell and majored in horticulture. I’ve pieced my education together.
You’re just over the border in Petersburg, New York, yet most of your clients are in the Berkshires. Why? People in the Berkshires have a great appreciation for nature in a more complex way than some other clients in other parts of my region. They definitely seem to be more environmentally minded. They want sustainability. If it can’t survive winter without being burlapped, maybe we don’t use it. I also don’t have to do a lot of convincing to remove invasive species and for using more native plants.
Can gardens serve a purpose? They can be healing. People are drawn to beautiful things, and plants are a gift from nature—especially blooming plants. It’s important for us to acknowledge that nature isn’t separate from us. We are nature. I try to help reconnect people with what they already are.
What about the wildlife? It’s important to grow plants that feed wildlife. I’m not talking about encouraging deer, although if deer are eating my garden plants, it may be because of mineral deficiencies. I’ve been experimenting by putting salt blocks in the woods, away from my house. Salt blocks have trace minerals. I try to stay away from certain plants—deer love hostas, big fleshy leaves, purple leaf sand cherry, or many things in the rose family. To attract monarch butterflies, they need milkweed for all stages. Echinacea is another good plant to support the butterfly population. Oak trees are an important food source for insects in the spring. Also think of ephemerals that bloom early— forest flowers like trillium, blood root— and use them in the perimeters. I’m also thinking of birds, which love winterberry and the fruit from flowering trees, like hawthorn and Amelanchier (shadblow). Aster is important because it blooms late in the season, and bees can store that food over the winter.
Are you concerned about getting stung by bees? Most are very busy and very docile. I work in gardens full of bees, and I never get stung. There’s also this concern by people who don’t like weeds in the lawn, like clover. That’s a great food source for honeybees and bumblebees. It also draws nitrogen from the atmosphere and puts it into the soil. Nitrogen leeches and is not fixed in the soil. Instead of killing the weeds and clover, change your mowing practice. If you mow grass higher, like at four inches, it creates a healthier blade of grass and encourages root growth. If roots are deep, they are less reliant on irrigation.
How can we reduce our carbon footprint? Run irrigation systems less and allow your lawns to go dormant. If you don’t irrigate, you’re encouraging plants to search for more sources of water and more minerals. Give a garden a year to establish. Trees take a bit longer. A lot of times, clients want an instant garden that’s full and mature. The older trees are, though, the longer they will sit still to recover from the shock of the transplant and need more water. All their energy is going into developing their root system. A younger tree is quicker to recover, and you put less care into it.
What do you consider a beautiful garden? Gardens with something blooming from the very beginning to the very bitter end. This past year has been very unique. Many clients are so much more in love with their landscapes, because they’ve been here since March. They’ve witnessed the entire season in their garden. They’re also putting a lot more into their landscape and properties—creating outdoor spaces, pools, spas, fire pits. Part of my goal is to draw them outside and connect them with nature, and connect with themselves.
What can we do now? March is the reawakening, when people start thinking about gardens. If you want to put a vegetable garden in, buy seeds now before they are sold out. Some seeds, like for cool season plants, are directly sown in the ground. You have to read the label, get a thermometer to measure soil temperature. If you’re growing in your home first, you have to time it so that you can plant the seedlings outside after Memorial Day. Don’t start too soon indoors; you don’t want plants to be tall and leggy and bending over. Also, you can order annual seeds online. Grow them at the same time as vegetables. If people want to get a design together, they need to contact landscape design companies as soon as possible. A consultation for an hour to an hour and a half will do. Sometimes people just need a little bit of advice and a fresh perspective.
―ANASTASIA STANMEYER