Mann’s “Flower Basket” Garden and Nursery

Location: Saugatuck
Date: Established 1940s

The climate and landscape of the Saugatuck area has attracted a number of professional gardeners and landscapers. Charles Mann was a Saugatuck horticulturalist and landscape architect who used his home garden, called “The Flower Basket,” as a test and showcase garden for the landscape and nursery business that he operated with his wife Lorna. His design specialty was creating local gardens “in the English manner.” One of these was the authentic English garden he designed in 1969 for Chicago antiques dealer Russell Button, located on Center Street in Douglas. As in typical English gardens, Mann often included Oriental plantings in the layout. In his Saugatuck area gardens Mann took full advantage of the lake effect, which moderates temperatures and allows successful plantings of rhododendrons, azaleas, flowering trees, and other plants. Now a private garden, the Flower Basket garden spans about six acres. The formal garden covers over one acre and is located high on a bluff overlooking the Kalamazoo River—complete with vistas, terraces, a sunken garden, and stone walls.