Gwinn: Wild Garden
In 1907, William Gwinn Mather, owner of Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company, asked Manning, along with Charles A. Platt to design his property outside of Cleveland, Ohio. Manning and Platt were hired to work together, but often with conflicting landscape designs for the same property. Platt, a more formalist designer, emphasized paths, gates and other architectural elements while Manning based his designs on the “wild garden” approach (Karson, 1995). Manning inventoried the site’s pre-existing plants, and with selective pruning and thinning, created graceful planting groupings and spaces. Manning also shipped plants in from neighboring states including wildflowers from Michigan and rhododendrons from North Carolina (Karson, 2004). In 1912, Mather bought another large piece of property adjacent to the Cleveland location, at which Manning designed another “wild garden.”
Privately held since 2007, Gwinn is not open to the public.
Read more about this topic: Warren H. Manning
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