BmoreArt

I wander down to the lake where a small, Japanese-influenced teahouse sits on its dock. As soon as my feet hit the wood, turtles and muscular orange koi break through the surface, puckered mouths begging to be fed from a large sack of grain nearby. There are boats, an arbor, pavilions covered in roses, a copper aviary populated with peacocks and red golden pheasants, and a large swimming pool where the children of the archers splash and play. A variety of small camping tents fill the landscape behind the house, while bathing suits dry in the sun on various shrubberies and trees. I realize that this is where all of the archers and their families have been staying this week.

Walking over to the site of the competition, I see a few friends, as well as crowds of visiting Bhutanese women and children, everyone watching the competition, drinking lemonade or wine, and enjoying the summer afternoon under the shade of giant trees. I have never visited a place quite like this and I want to know more.

The name, Tashiding, comes from the oldest and most venerated monastery in the historic Himalayan Kingdom of Sikkim, Tsognie’s country of origin. According to the couple, “loosely translated, the word means ‘a very auspicious place.’ We appropriated the name for our auspicious place.” The Hamiltons met in 1972, introduced as friends of friends, while Douglas was backpacking through India, where Tsognie was a student. They have now been married fifty years, have two grown sons, and three grandchildren. 

Neither are trained gardeners, but they had always felt a great love for landscape design and the power of place. So when they purchased the property in 1998, as a large and derelict old farm, they rebuilt the house and landscape to reflect their life together, a combination of East and West. This design includes time and space for music, art, and good food. Their annual Bhutanese Archery event, which ends in a massive firework display, is just one of many treasured community traditions that the Hamiltons have created together. 

For anyone curious to learn more about this incredible hidden gem, a forthcoming book, Tashiding, Beyond Earth and Sky: The Gardens of Douglas & Tsognie Hamilton, features hundreds of luscious, full color photographs by Norm Barker, a locally based artist and Professor Emeritus of Pathology from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Over the course of several years, Barker’s patient eye roved across the landscape, capturing it from every possible angle, season, time of day, and weather condition.

In addition to Barker’s luminous snapshots and a foreword by Hillwood Museum Director and avid gardener Kate Markert, the book weaves historic family photos with an interlocking narrative of the deep roots and layers that have converged to build Tashiding as a home, place of respite, source of international camaraderie, and inspired landscape. 

Not only does it chronicle in great detail a garden that intentionally combines native plants with those of the Far East, it features architectural details, outdoor sculpture, elegant outbuildings, and details from a life that prioritizes art, family, and hospitality. For many years, Hamilton served as Board President at The Walters Art Museum and his dedication to all kinds of collections is playful and serious—a reflection of a life full of curiosity, travel, and culture. 

In a personal essay, Tsognie admits that she had to be convinced by her husband’s grand plans for the property, which was in need of a complete transformation. “Lured into walking acres of nurseries in search of specimen plants and trees, driving round the countryside looking for the perfect rocks, I was hooked,” she writes. “We worked hard to re-create the sacred ground so essential for our spiritual growth.”

In detailed thematic chapters, Douglas outlines their inspiration and process in creating a garden that encompassed an Eastern sensibility while incorporating Maryland’s diverse native plants. In one chapter, he details a significant garden achievement, which was “locating a cache of very large rocks on our friends’ property at the other end of Western Run Valley.” When Tsognie approached the owners, they generously told her she could have the boulders, providing, of course, that she would move them. 

“This task was more complicated than it would seem,” Doug writes, explaining that the two largest weighed 23,000 pounds each. With the help of Andreas Grothe and a rented crane, the boulders were transported by flatbed truck. “After the rocks were set in place, the basic structure of the conifer and maple garden was established. We mounded soil around the rocks to create a bit of elevation change, then over time planted a variety of conifers, including a golden Hinoki cypress, a Tanyosho pine, and a mix of Mugo pines, Korean boxwoods, and junipers. We planted a couple of cutleaf Japanese maples among the conifers to add contrasting texture and seasonal color.”

It is this mix of ingenuity and pragmatism that makes these gardens so compelling. Thumbing through the gorgeous photos, Tashiding appears a fait accompli, almost inevitably made, and it’s inspiring to other would-be gardeners to understand the Hamiltons’ process for solving site-specific problems together. It makes sense that this book functions analogous to the Hamiltons’ gardens, a collaborative journey where learning is acquired as needed and with pleasure.

“Being pulled into the book project has made me look up and acknowledge how successfully he has grown a rich environment in which the body, mind, and spirit can move and meld,” writes Tsognie. “Gone is my initial thought of exile, as if to the plains of India; Douglas has grown hills and green forest reminiscent of my beloved Himalayan homeland. Tashiding, wellspring of auspiciousness indeed.”

Although the Tashiding in book form is different from an experience in real time, the publication  captures the magic of my visit there last summer. After the archery awards are given out and a huge dinner consumed, we all retire to the back hill for a display of serious fireworks. In the dark and quiet night, the booming explosions are coupled with ooohs and ahhhs from the audience. The multicolored blooms in the sky appear in triplicate, reflecting on the pool full of splashing children, radiating across the surface of the lake down below. In the back garden in front of the peacock aviary, a dance party begins, guests from Bhutan and Maryland stepping together in rhythm. 

Tashiding, Beyond Earth and Sky: The Gardens of Douglas & Tsognie Hamilton is being published by ORO Editions, and will be available in September 2025.