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PHOTOS BY GLENN TRIEST

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Glen Goldberg of Four Seasons Garden Center.

t may take Glen Goldberg and Four Seasons along with Mark
the landscape restoration spe- Lyman, 38. "In addition to being
cialists at Four Seasons Garden the largest and most complex
Center in Oak Park five years to garden on the grounds of the
complete, but they're planning estate, it's a challenge to recre-
on keeping the late Matilda ate a traditional landscape
Dodge's Rose Garden dream that embodies European ele-
gance."
alive.
Four Seasons is donating all
When the multi-phase project
is complete, the restored 20,000- the labor and materials to the
square-foot Rose Garden at project as a community service.
Meadow Brook Hall on the cam- It was invited to do the work by
pus of Oakland University in Meadow Brook Hall and the Met-
Rochester will give Detroiters the ropolitan. Detroit Landscape As-
rare opportunity of experiencing sociation, of which Four Seasons
firsthand the splendor of a ma- is a member.
Mr. Goldberg said one of the
jestic formal European garden of
goals of the restoration is to add
another era.
"It was an honor to be select- more roses to the garden, bring-
ed to restore the garden," said ing it closer to its original pur-
Mr. Goldberg, 30, co-owner of pose. When the project is

.

Oak Park landscape
E company restoring
Rose Garden at
L-± J , Meadow Brook
E Hall.

w DEBBIE SKLAR

SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

42

Glen Goldberg at work in the Rose Garden at Meadow Brook Hall.

complete, about 1,000 rose plants
will grow there.
The Rose Garden was de-
signed in 1916, but delays and
the Great Depression prevented
its construction until 1948. Ren-
ovation work was done in 1973
and 1974 by the Cranbrook
Women's National Farm and
Garden Club and the Bloomfield
Hills branch of the same organi-
zation. It included redoing the
rock garden.
Working from Ms. Dodge's
original parchments, Cindy
Richardson, senior landscape de-
signer at Four Seasons, incorpo-
rated many of Ms. Dodge's
preferences into the renovation
design. Ribbons of red, yellow and
pink roses (Ms. Dodge's favorites)
will be "braided" with
hedges of boxwood and
perennials.
"Our goal is to blend in
Matilda Dodge's tastes
while recapturing the
grandeur and richness of
a formal, manicured rose
garden," Ms. Richardson
said.
A number of the gar-
den's current roses and
perennials will be trans-
planted, but the majori-
ty of plantings will be
new.
'We're trying to keep
things as they were," Mr.
Goldberg said. "Some of
the trees and shrubs are
the originals. But we also
want to bring in many

new rose bushes and perennials
and we want to keep the garden
practical. We want the mainte-
nance to be easy."
Much of the work so far has
involved replanting perennials,
installing hedges and recondi-
tioning the soil, Mr. Goldberg
said.
At one time, 1,800 roses, all se-
lected by Ms. Dodge, flourished
in the garden. She walked daily

"We want to
keep the
garden
practical."

—Glen Goldberg

through the garden, often choos-
ing flowers to fill vases in her
home.
"There were gardeners who
just tended to the roses. They
would start on Monday and take
a whole week to cultivate them,"
said Meadow Brook Hall horti-
culturist Kim Zelinski.
A 1982 graduate of Berkley
High School, Mr. Goldberg said
he became interested in his pro-
fession while he was at Berkley.
He took horticulture classes at
the Southeast Oakland Voca-
tional Education Center
(SEOVEC) and later got a job
working in the field. ❑

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