After a detour last September to the North Fork, Landscape Pleasures, the Parrish Art Museum's annual two-day horticulture event, will return to Water Mill with a morning symposium on June 11, a Saturday, and self-guided tours of five South Fork gardens on June 12.
After a continental breakfast, the Saturday presentations will begin at 9 with “Steering from Pole to Pole: Forces at Play in Making Contemporary Landscape," a talk by Laurie Olin, a teacher, author, and renowned landscape architect. Among the projects of his company, Olin, are the Getty Center in Los Angeles, Bryant Park in Manhattan, and the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.
Mr. Olin will discuss the competing demands of ecology, community, resilience, equity, health, aesthetics, beauty, and delight. With examples from recent and ongoing projects, he will explain how he attempts to adhere to and balance those forces.
David Hocker, the founder and lead designer of Hocker, will follow with "Capturing the Spirit of the Modern Garden." With more than 40 design awards in the firm's 15 years, he has collaborated on parks, urban plazas and streetscapes, schools, institutions, retail, hospitality, and residential projects.
His presentation will focus on five meticulously detailed gardens of various scale, each of which responds to unique design challenges with responsible, innovative solutions that establish the landscape as a cohesive link between architecture and site.
The morning will conclude with "Relationships in Making Gardens for Our Time," a talk by Joe Wahler, a principal at Stimson. Mr. Wahler is currently leading the design and execution of Harvard University's Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, as well as major projects at Brown and Cornell Universities.
He will lead the audience through a presentation about his Heritage Museums and Gardens' Flume Fountain, which won the American Society of Landscape Architects' 2019 Award of Excellence. His talk will cover the initial site walks, design, construction, and professional photographs of the completed project.
Sunday's gardens, which will be open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., will include a Georgica Cove property designed by Jeff Mendoza Gardens; private gardens in East Hampton and Bridgehampton designed by Deborah Nevins and Associates, an East Hampton garden designed by Abby Lawless of Farm Landscape Design, and Trees in Bridgehampton.
Tickets to the symposium and garden tours are $250, $200 for museum members. Ticket purchasers at the sponsor level of $600 and above will be invited for cocktails on Saturday from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at a residence in Bridgehampton that features the work of the LaGuardia Design Group.
In conjunction with Landscape Pleasures, the museum and Hamptons Doc Fest will present "The Gardener," a documentary about the influential gardener and plantsman Frank Cabot, on Friday, June 10, at 6 p.m.
Directed by Sebastien Chabot, the film tells the story of Les Quatre Vents, the 20-acre English-style garden and estate created by Cabot in the province of Quebec. It features interviews with Cabot, filmed shortly before his death in 2011, in which he recounts his search for perfection at Les Quatre Vents, as well as remarks by his family, gardening experts, and writers.
The screening will be followed by a question-and-answer session with Alicia Whitaker, the former president of the Horticultural Alliance of the Hamptons.
Tickets are $15, $5 for members, senior citizens, and students.
