Evolution of a New Water Feature at Yew Dell Botanical Gardens

Yew Dell Botanical Gardens hired Land Morphology to conceive, define, and plant the new Castle Garden, which will be the first new garden on the property since Yew Dell opened to the public. The new garden will improve pedestrian circulation and link historic features and gardens to an existing meadow, while providing an opportunity to increase botanical collections and display horticulture. 

A central water feature will be the heart of the space. This post shares some of our design process, including thoughts and options for the design of the central water feature.

In our initial design concepts for the central water feature, we show a simplified reflecting pool that creates a balancing element in the gathering space near the Castle. We represented this with a rectangle, to reinforce symmetry while creating an attractive element in the garden that people can sit near to think, meditate, and relax.

With this initial concept illustration, we provided precedent imagery that played with the rectangular form and materiality.

Design precedents for the reflecting pool included the Barnes Museum, Canada War Memorial, and weathering steel water features.

During design development we proposed a raised cantilevered metal vessel; a form that complemented the design language we used on the guardrails, arbors, and other metal elements in the garden.

Ultimately, this option was considered more interactive than meditative and was not selected by the client. The next alternatives we discussed with the design board incorporated millstones that the founder of Yew Dell had collected. Desired elements included soothing sound, light movement of water, and reflection properties. The design also needed to address concerns about safety for children and overall maintenance. Here are some of the options we developed:

The selected water feature groups the millstones so that the water cascades from the high point into a basin above ground level. Although this feature is not in the same location and style as we initially proposed, the feature creates an element for people to gather around. It respects the memory of Theodore Klein who collected the millstones and represents how Yew Dell values design and ingenuity in the garden.

Yew Dell Botanical Gardens is in Oldham County, Kentucky, eight miles south of La Grange, the county seat. The 34-acre property is the remaining core of an original 200-acre farm.  The garden’s founder, Theodore Klein, used the landscape of Yew Dell as his medium to convey his interests in design, history, plants, education, and the nursery industry. After his death, the property became a public garden.