Principles and principes: William Lyman Phillips and the palm collection at Montgomery

摘要

William Lyman Phillips' extant work is celebrated at many sites, especially in Florida. Over the decades some of these landscapes have evolved in a different direction from their original concepts. Economics, fashion, competing interests, and change of ownership or leadership can play a role in landscape change. Montgomery Botanical Center (MBC) maintains a landscape that includes many Phillips design elements expressed through palm collections. A potential competing interest at MBC has been the development of extensive palm collections for conservation purposes. Yet, Phillips' contribution to the landscape design at MBC remains extant. The design is part of the institutional memory, documented in the Montgomery Archive, and visible in the landscape. Here, we review the roots of the current landscape design at MBC in the context of the influence of Phillips, and exhibit the design principles of space, contrast, consistency, and variety, as exemplified by the palm collection. We focus here on how keeping Phillips' most important design principle — space — is accomplished in the context of competing factors, with the use of palm collections.