Touring Ohio’s public gardens

Ian Adams brings program to Wharram film series Feb. 13

By CARL E. FEATHER - Staff Writer - cfeather@starbeacon.com

About this time of year, most Northeast Ohio residents can use a little reminder that January snows eventually melt and nourish April and May flowers.

Ian Adams is just the person to deliver that message.

Adams is Ohio’s premier environmental photographer whose work has appeared on more than 50 calendars for Browntrout, in 17 books and scores of magazines, as well as the walls of corporate and private image collections.

A Cuyahoga Falls resident, Adams typically drives more than 15,000 miles in Ohio and other states seeking the region’s most beautiful places to photograph.

On Feb. 13 at 7:30 p.m. Adams will bring his “Ohio Public Gardens and Arboretums” program to Kent State University-Ashtabula. The 45-minute presentation is an entry in the Sam Wharram Nature Club’s annual film series. Dinner with the presenter is at 6 p.m. Reservations are due by Feb. 9; contact Berniece Boggs, 997-9403.

Adams says his digital presentation will give the audience an overview of the many Ohio gardens he’s photographed for commissions.

“I think anyone who has an interest in gardening and learning more about Ohio’s public gardens will find it of interest,” Adams said in a phone interview last week.

He said the program also brings up the issue of sustainability. Ohio’s public gardens tend to use native plants whenever possible because those species are naturally hardy and better suited to the environment. That means less fertilizer, water and effort to maintain growth.

“It’s a photo tour of the public gardens, but I try to bring in things like sustainability as much as possible,” he said.

His photographic tour of the gardens will include a stop at the Holden Arboretum in Kirtland. Adams was the photographer for a 2000 book on the arboretum, with text by Steve Love. That job led him to a commission with the Cleveland Botantical Garden to produce a book that commemorated the garden’s 75th anniversary in 2005. “A Paradise in the City” was published by Orange Frazier Press.

His next book commission was to document the Ohio Heritage Garden at the Ohio governor’s residence.

“I did all the photography out in the gardens and inside of the mansion,” says Adams.

The Heritage Garden offers visitors a botanical tour of the state’s major physiographic regions in just three acres. Adams said he’ll spend about 10 minutes of his program talking about that garden and sharing some of the photographs he made for the 2008 book, “Our First Family’s Home: The Ohio Governor’s Residence and Heritage Garden,” for Ohio University Press.

In the process, he’ll most likely share a story or two about the wildflower-rescue efforts he and former Ohio first lady Hope Taft conducted.

“We would actually go out and dig up wildflowers when (builders) were destroying habitat for housing developments,” Adams said. “We would plant them elsewhere, so they would survive.”

Adams next landed one of the most prestigious assignments of his career: The Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis. The nation’s oldest and one of the most prestigious gardens in the world commissioned him to document the garden for a book that celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2009.

He made several trips to the 90 acres of gardens over a two-year period, spending three to four days there at a time in order to cover all 33 gardens. The book, published by MBG Press, was released in 2008.

Adams’ other titles include “The Free-Spirited Garden and Midwest Landscape Design” with the late Susan McClure, “Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens” with co-photographer Barney Taxel and text by Steve Love; and “The Art and Craft of Garden Photography” for Timber Press.

While the latter book was written with film photographers in mind, Adams has been 100-percent digital for the past eight years. He has also scanned some 75,000 film images and Web surfers can view about 1,500 of them on his Web site, where he sells prints of the images.

Adams’ latest project is “A Photographer’s Guide to Ohio,” a project for Ohio University Press. Adams says the book will include a section on bridges and barns. He plans to include the county’s Smolen-Gulf Covered Bridge and the harbor’s Bascule lift bridge in the book.

He’s also in demand as a photography instructor and has done more that 160 workshops throughout North America.

For more information on Adams’ work, his workshops and to order prints, go online to ianadamsphotography.com.

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