I think we laypeople (gardeners and garden visitors) lack an accessible language to talk about garden design or gardens as art. You get domestic garden design books from the library, hoping to decide where to put your gin and tonic patio so that it is nice in the evening but doesn't have a view of the neighbour's bins. This is not going to help you explain why Piet Oudolf's planting does (or doesn't) appeal to you.
Also, a gardener's practical experience is, mostly, going to be about plants. Making a garden is rarely going to be about hard landscaping or making big effects. And even if you've made a pond, spent a decade growing a wavy-top hedge, put up a pergola for wisteria, these are rare things. Isn't the ongoing experience of the garden - if you want to do more than bare maintenance - going to be planting things here and there, dividing this, pruning that? That's my experience, and I think it's natural to focus on the small delights, the micro scale, rather than a macro effect. The only macro effect in my garden is one of untidiness and disarray! (This is not self deprecation, the garden is genuinely messy, weedy and I am a poor gardener. I still like to go outside to muck about with plants, and I like to visit gardens.)
But I do wonder if people don't actually appreciate "the beauty of expression and design in gardens"? They might not be talking in technical terms about the volume of the planting, the rhythm of the colour and texture in the long border, or the tension between the enclosure of the walled garden opening into the wildflower meadow. But they might say they liked how the big hostas and the small ferns went together, or all the different oranges were good, or how the garden had different kinds of spaces that made them feel different.
Thanks for this. And - of course. But it is very strange, as a garden maker, that we not only lack that language and habit of discussion, but that gardeners tend only to speak to gardeners. As if the only people to discuss books were authors.
There’s enough practical stuff available about gardens to drive any novice mad. So - enough of that, for the time being, maybe. But re your last paragraph, such thoughts could be a begining of us taking garden making and design seriously? And then go to see a garden as an experience in its own right, not simply a place to discover new plants and have tea?
Would it be fair to say that we need the garden design equivalent of progressing from Handy Andy and Changing Rooms to Kevin McCloud and Grand Designs?
Maybe the biggest hurdle would be getting the necessary level of exposure? Social media is good at pretty plants and details, but most people are looking at too-small screens to appreciate anything large scale but subtle, as I think most good design-y gardens probably are. And gardening is under-represented on TV - there’s only so much you can do with an hour of Gardener’s World each week, and the annual Chelsea coverage (which is about 30% famous people who know nowt about gardening anyway).
Which would leave…info boards in the garden? “As you look right along the long border, take a moment to appreciate the rhythm of the rudbeckia…” I don‘t think this would be appreciated in the same way that people are content to amble and read their way around stately homes.
I don’t doubt people’s capacity to engage and understand - but I don’t think most plant lovers and gardeners are actively looking to make their interest more intellectual. That kind of shift either takes some sort of charisma bomb to make people take notice, or the opposite: a drip drip drip that changes perspectives without folk hardly noticing.
Hi Geoff - and yes, I understand. Though Vita didn't make the garden inaccessible in her particular, plant oriented pursuit. It's wonderfully striking in this plant obsessed world though, that she was looking for effect rather than sticking a new plant in somewhere problematic.
Both Sissinghurst and Dixter have a strong basic design, and I guess you might argue that Dixter is now doing a Vita to it, without the constraining hand of a Nigel?
You’re giving her a great deal of leeway Anne in the soft focus of looking into the past. I wonder if that’s actually how she was planting? If so, seems similar to the way I plant.
I was thinking of individual differences in people. Nigel Nicholson in his diary:
In the afternoon I moon about with Vita trying to convince her that planning is an element in gardening ... The tragedy of the romantic temperament is that it dislikes form so much that it ignores the effect of masses. She wants to put in stuff which "will give a lovely red colour in autumn".
. I wish to put in stuff which will furnish shape
to the perspective. In the end we part, not as friends.'
Love your writing and discussions. I am 100% the possessive plant guy. Over the years you have encouraged me to put much more effort into the overall plant and garden design in our yard. Thank you for that.
I think we laypeople (gardeners and garden visitors) lack an accessible language to talk about garden design or gardens as art. You get domestic garden design books from the library, hoping to decide where to put your gin and tonic patio so that it is nice in the evening but doesn't have a view of the neighbour's bins. This is not going to help you explain why Piet Oudolf's planting does (or doesn't) appeal to you.
Also, a gardener's practical experience is, mostly, going to be about plants. Making a garden is rarely going to be about hard landscaping or making big effects. And even if you've made a pond, spent a decade growing a wavy-top hedge, put up a pergola for wisteria, these are rare things. Isn't the ongoing experience of the garden - if you want to do more than bare maintenance - going to be planting things here and there, dividing this, pruning that? That's my experience, and I think it's natural to focus on the small delights, the micro scale, rather than a macro effect. The only macro effect in my garden is one of untidiness and disarray! (This is not self deprecation, the garden is genuinely messy, weedy and I am a poor gardener. I still like to go outside to muck about with plants, and I like to visit gardens.)
But I do wonder if people don't actually appreciate "the beauty of expression and design in gardens"? They might not be talking in technical terms about the volume of the planting, the rhythm of the colour and texture in the long border, or the tension between the enclosure of the walled garden opening into the wildflower meadow. But they might say they liked how the big hostas and the small ferns went together, or all the different oranges were good, or how the garden had different kinds of spaces that made them feel different.
Thanks for this. And - of course. But it is very strange, as a garden maker, that we not only lack that language and habit of discussion, but that gardeners tend only to speak to gardeners. As if the only people to discuss books were authors.
There’s enough practical stuff available about gardens to drive any novice mad. So - enough of that, for the time being, maybe. But re your last paragraph, such thoughts could be a begining of us taking garden making and design seriously? And then go to see a garden as an experience in its own right, not simply a place to discover new plants and have tea?
Would it be fair to say that we need the garden design equivalent of progressing from Handy Andy and Changing Rooms to Kevin McCloud and Grand Designs?
Maybe the biggest hurdle would be getting the necessary level of exposure? Social media is good at pretty plants and details, but most people are looking at too-small screens to appreciate anything large scale but subtle, as I think most good design-y gardens probably are. And gardening is under-represented on TV - there’s only so much you can do with an hour of Gardener’s World each week, and the annual Chelsea coverage (which is about 30% famous people who know nowt about gardening anyway).
Which would leave…info boards in the garden? “As you look right along the long border, take a moment to appreciate the rhythm of the rudbeckia…” I don‘t think this would be appreciated in the same way that people are content to amble and read their way around stately homes.
I don’t doubt people’s capacity to engage and understand - but I don’t think most plant lovers and gardeners are actively looking to make their interest more intellectual. That kind of shift either takes some sort of charisma bomb to make people take notice, or the opposite: a drip drip drip that changes perspectives without folk hardly noticing.
A challenging discussion. I'm right in the middle so I'm going to get mown down by both trucks!
O yes, you'd will be!
Isn’t this a variation on the classical v romantic dichotomy described at Sissinghurst?
It ought to be, but that makes certain requirements of the gardens.
Hi Geoff - and yes, I understand. Though Vita didn't make the garden inaccessible in her particular, plant oriented pursuit. It's wonderfully striking in this plant obsessed world though, that she was looking for effect rather than sticking a new plant in somewhere problematic.
Both Sissinghurst and Dixter have a strong basic design, and I guess you might argue that Dixter is now doing a Vita to it, without the constraining hand of a Nigel?
You’re giving her a great deal of leeway Anne in the soft focus of looking into the past. I wonder if that’s actually how she was planting? If so, seems similar to the way I plant.
Ah, well, in the UK we admire nothing quite as much as a dead person's garden and the benefit of hindsight...
I was thinking of individual differences in people. Nigel Nicholson in his diary:
In the afternoon I moon about with Vita trying to convince her that planning is an element in gardening ... The tragedy of the romantic temperament is that it dislikes form so much that it ignores the effect of masses. She wants to put in stuff which "will give a lovely red colour in autumn".
. I wish to put in stuff which will furnish shape
to the perspective. In the end we part, not as friends.'
Love your writing and discussions. I am 100% the possessive plant guy. Over the years you have encouraged me to put much more effort into the overall plant and garden design in our yard. Thank you for that.