Flowerless Perfection, Burdick & Associates published in September '08 ME Home + Design

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B
old and bodacious landscape designs can offer a dramatic
visual feast. But the higher art often occurs when natural
elements are subtly accentuated to produce quieter yet
ultimately more resonant results. Such is the case with a
project that landscape architect Bobbie Burdick has been gradually
refining for more than a decade on the Blue Hill peninsula.
The seventeen-acre site is archetypal Maine: protrusions of half-
buried rock ledge, jumbles of lichen- and moss-covered boulders, and
even the remains of former granite quarry. The inherent simplicity of
the site could easily have been ruined by a heavy-handed design. Yet
Burdick, employing a delicate but inspired touch, created a landscape
that appears as though it has existed undisturbed for centuries.
“This project is always at its peak,” says Burdick, whose firm Burdick
& Associates teamed with, among others, Elliott Elliott Norelius
Architecture and Freshwater Stone, to execute the design. The site
always feels full and lush because, as Burdick explains, “except for the
water lilies, there are literarily no flowers.”
Burdick’s palette was composed of native plantings that she
discovered on-site. The list itself even conjures up images of Maine:
huckleberry, bunchberry sod, hay-scented fern, and pitch pine. Burdick’s
challenge was to accentuate these plantings while shaping a landscape
that was neither overplanted nor sparse. “We wanted to create a design
so well integrated that the project itself disappeared,” says Burdick.
Amazingly, even the most unnatural element of the hardscape design
Flowerless
Perfection
Ponds, paths,
and native plantings
on the Blue Hill peninsula
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LanDScaPE
by Joshua Bodwell
Photography Trent Bell
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feels understated and entirely natural: an eight-foot-wide spa. “We
wanted it to appear as though it was a glacier-carved basin,” says
Burdick. Though it is just fifty feet from the main home, Burdick
fashioned a space—by nestling the granite spa against an existing
ledge at the end of a winding path—that is at once both convenient
and invisible. “It has always been our intent to create a harmonious
connection between the natural and built elements of this peculiar
site—we feel that the integration of the spa pushed that idea to its
limit,” she concludes.
While the spa is breathtaking, Burdick is proud of the entire
design, which, over the years, included building a tennis court in a
blasted hole, creating a child’s playground within a grove of native
pitch pines, and turning a once stagnant quarry pool into a lush,
lively pond.
“It is a very rare site,” says Burdick, “and unusual to have no
flowers. But it is probably one of the most peaceful spaces I’ve ever
worked on.”
‘‘
When the well’s dry,
we know the worth
of water.”
Benjamin Franklin
Landscape
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Bayberry
Black Huckleberry
Blueberry
Cinnamon Fern
Haircap Moss
Hay-Scented Fern
Moose Maple
Ostrich Fern
Pitch Pine
Reindeer Moss
Sweetfern
Wintergreen
Partial Plant List for
the Blue Hill Peninsula Landscape:

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207-772-3373
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