Then you're there. A short journey to be sure, but once the plants push through and fill the surface with a fair chaos, the journey slows.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Opening
Think of a flower opening. You walk through the narrow, restricted space of the woodland garden, looking ahead to the open prairie garden and the open sky.
Then you're there. A short journey to be sure, but once the plants push through and fill the surface with a fair chaos, the journey slows.
Then you're there. A short journey to be sure, but once the plants push through and fill the surface with a fair chaos, the journey slows.
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I look forward to a fair chaos.
ReplyDeleteIs spring very behind?
I think we're lagging 10 days to 2 weeks behind last year. Temperatures have been unusually low, and the nights have been downright cold.
ReplyDeleteJames, your garden looks lovely, a space I would love to walk through. When your garden looks this great in late winter/early spring, before the blooms start, you know you have done a masterful design job.
ReplyDeleteLynne, the garden is still very flat, but every day I see something new emerging. I think it's true the gentle, relaxed structure holds the emptiness of early spring as well as the fullness of summer. Thanks for the compliment.
ReplyDeleteYes!
ReplyDeleteOpenings and closings and speed - all so important in garden design!
Best
R
Yes, speed, pacing. Garden design akin to the slow food movement, in my case, time to savor, to be aware, to be conscious of being.
ReplyDeleteHi James. We don't know what it's like, where I live, in Melbourne, to have the flesh torn off your garden each winter, as you do at Federal Twist. For you, it's having everything start over again. Sure we have a winter, but it's mild, and there aint no snow. Having such dramatic change, does it make you re-consider the whole garden, so you feel something entirely new could happen, or are you just so absorbed in seeing the life come back you welcome whatever comes? Faisal.
ReplyDeleteFaisal,
ReplyDeleteIt may be that I just have come to like what I have, but I think I'd miss a dramatic change in the seasons. Autumn is glorious here, and the best season in the garden. Then if winter doesn't come on too fast, with an early, heavy snow, which isn't too common, the garden remains interesting well into December, even January. Your metaphor of having the flesh torn off the garden seems rather violent to me. I don't see it in that way, and I've come to enjoy the bare season. I do reconsider the garden while it's empty, and that is usually the time I decide to make changes. It's at this time of year, for example, that I can see things I need to add to bring an earlier season to the garden, more geophytes such as camassias, daffodils, other water tolerant bulbs. Two years ago I decided to add a hornbeam hedge, largely for winter structure and interest. So it goes. I think I prefer this to the Mediterranean climate of California, but I'll take it as it comes.
Nicely said, James, and I guess you're right about my metaphor...we have distinct seasons here, but I'm not used to such profound change. What Melbourne has is temperate, with a gentle European change of seasons, and a leaning towards the Mediterranean, and serious drought sometimes thrown in (!)...it's autumn here now, and I'm enjoying going a little slower and sometimes even allowing myself to sit and watch, which is, after all, what gardens are for. Sometimes I feel that the garden you think you know could actually develop into something else completely.
ReplyDeleteI love the way your garden is so dynamic, through the seasons and because of the pathways and open areas contrasting with the surroundings.
ReplyDeleteJanet, I do wish I had space for more open areas to allow more "breathing room" in contrast to the heavily planted areas. But dynamic, yes.
ReplyDelete