New Canaan Nature Center Welcomes Landscape Architect Kathryn Herman for Annual Lecture


Inside the decades-long evolution of landscape architect Kathryn Herman’s home garden

A Moment in Time: Designing a Country Garden is both a design guide and a personal record of a landscape shaped over decades. Written by local landscape architect Kathryn Herman, the book offers a four-season exploration of her 20-acre home garden at the historic Pepperidge Farm estate in Fairfield, where she has refined the land for more than 30 years.

Herman will be the featured speaker at the Annual Lecture & Luncheon benefiting the New Canaan Nature Center on May 7
at the New Canaan Country Club.

Balancing restraint with English-style softness, Herman uses her home as a case study in patience, structure and seasonal thinking. Organized as a tour through a series of garden “rooms,” the book breaks down her design process with essays that address form, color, ornament, layering and historical context, alongside practical guidance on creating meadows, orchards, perennial gardens, pool landscapes and productive spaces that welcome wildlife.

What sets the book apart is its attention to experience. Herman emphasizes how sound, scent, texture and movement shape the way a garden is felt, not just seen—from rustling leaves and moving water to fragrant shrubs and tactile plantings that change throughout the year. She invites readers to a deeply personal look at how a garden evolves over time.

 

 

Photos: Courtesy Of Rizzoli

 

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