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Thursday, January 10, 2013

Rectilinear ripples (thanks, Calvin)

Argillite chimney
Another round of navel gazing ...

In response to many helpful comments on my problematic reflecting pool design, I'm working on a solution suggested by Jill Nooney (bedrockgardens.org), a New Hampshire garden designer, in a comment on a recent post. She asked, "Is there any structure within sight that would reinforce an orthogonal theme"? That started me thinking about rectangles and squares, and how I could use existing geometry at the site to integrate the square pool into a rambling garden full of curves.

One of the notable features of my garden is the use of local stone, a very hard sedimentary stone called argillite. It is colored a dark blue-black, black, and many tones of grayish brown, is rather glass-like, and tends to shatter when hit hard or cut. It also makes a ringing sound when struck by another stone. This phenomenon is so notable argillite was called "blue jingle" and "blue jingler" in past times. I have plenty of argillite, piled into long stone rows by the people who farmed this land in the nineteenth century. I'm not sure what kind of farming they did, but there is evidence they had orchards, probably peach orchards. This was a large peach growing area back then, railroads were built to carry the produce to New York City, but a blight killed all the orchards, ending a thriving industry.

At present there are two prominent and highly visible uses of argillite in the Garden at Federal Twist:  a rectilinear dry-laid stone wall (see below) around the base of the raised hillock on which the house sits--effectively a plinth for the house--and a large, tall chimney (above) that rises probably ten feet above the roof peak, topped by an unusual curved, wing-like steel ornament, which is original to the 1965 house, the point being that the ornament draws attention to the chimney, making it more prominent than it would otherwise be.

Argillite dry stone wall, like a plinth supporting the house
Looking at the new pool area with the house in view (below) you can see how the chimney, the house (also a rectangle, though not of stone) and the "plinth" stone wall create a multilevel orthogonal construct, defining three descending parallel plains in the abstract.


Now imagine a similar low stone wall of argillite to support the gravel bed, built parallel to and located four or five feet out from the existing stone wall. There you have it, an orthogonal base for the new reflecting pool, made of the same stone as the existing wall and house chimney. The rectilinearity, similar materials, colors and textures of the chimney, the house, the plinth wall, and the new gravel containment wall will reinforce each other and create a multilevel series of rectangular structures that provides a solid grounding for the square reflecting pool.

Imagine a new, lower stone wall surrounding the gravel bed, extending the rectangular shapes out from the house base.
Last weekend we brought in a huge amount of argillite (below) to support the gravel bed. Unfortunately, I had it laid in curves. So imagine this stone relaid in straight lines to form a low rectangular support wall around the gravel bed. Parts of the new wall, the end at the left in the photo below, for example, need to be well laid in a neat pattern, emulating the existing wall behind, so they look essentially the same and visually reinforce each other.


This new low wall will form a rectangle, or group of intersecting rectangles, extending out from the point at which the two parts of the plinth wall meet. No, I don't intend to move the pool, but I do want to adjust the gravel bed to shape it into rectangles and more closely align it with the pool. I plan to move out the concrete pavers, to level the surface of the gravel bed, and to work out a way to add planting pockets at the edges of the new low stone wall, creating small, better drained planting areas, and increasing my options for close planting around the pool area.


Below is a distant view of the pool area, showing the chimney, house, and plinth wall last spring after I burned and cut the garden. The new rectangular structure supporting the reflecting pool will appear to be an extension of the house and its associated geometries. I think it shows this "orthogonal design approach" may be the solution I'm seeking.


I'm reluctant to ask for further opinions, but I can't resist.

Just a reminder (below) of what you actually see from this distance earlier in the fall.





41 comments:

  1. Hi James,
    Let me be the first to cast my vote in favor of a low, angular, retaining wall built parallel to the plinth wall.
    --Emily

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    1. But I solicited the critiques. I have to listen to them. Last night I looked at photos friends took on a four-day trek through the Milford Track. I want to do it.

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  3. I think you are definately getting there. The most important thing is that you like it and it feels right to you

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    1. Closer, but no cigar. I'm not entirely satisfied. I may need to change the location and orientation of the pool, but I just can't deal with that yet.

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  4. did you mean that you will make the reflecting pool slightly raised from the surrounding area? I think that a raised pool, using your stone, would also work, but I also think that maybe the pool is out of scale with the garden. Good luck with your ideas. Christina

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    1. I don't intend to raise the pool; it's already a few inches to a foot above the surrounding area. Yes, it's out of scale. I'm thinking I need to lower the tone of this project. Rather than "reflecting pool," I may call it the "small square frog pond."

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    2. It is difficult to know exactly how it looks on the ground, photographs are not really all that helpful in a three dimensional sense. I think the pool needs rooting into the rest of your garden where there seem to be very few straight lines (I could be wrong about this because you spoke about its relationship to the house). You could try planting one ‘something’ at one corner to reflect in the pool and help root it to the planting. Maybe something about as tall as the pool is long with slightly arching growth (I’m thinking out loud here). To be honest the rest of the garden is so amazingly beautiful I don’t think the pool is so much of an issue. Christina

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    3. I think a lot of the scale problem will be solved if you repeat linear and rectangular or square forms. The frog pool in and of itself can be small and intimate, but it become a stronger feature if its form is echoed and reinforced in the rest of the space.

      This can very much happen in combination with the already existing looser, organic lines. The use of both spatial languages will strengthen the other.

      Also just making the wall will make the space around the pond more intimate and allow it to better fit the scale of the space (by changing the scale, or adding an extra smaller scale within the greater context of the garden).

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    4. I agree. This post, from my new blog (http://federaltwist.com/garden-diary-on-the-level/) shows the new linear wall around the pool in relationship to the straight lines around the house. Not the best photo or view, but at least you get the idea. After I've planted, most of this wall will not be visible, or only pieces will be glanced through masses of grasses and herbaceous perennials. I also want to add some Thuja occidentalis in the pool area for vertical accents and to provide additional screening and more feeling of intimacy. I'll also limit access with a narrow entry path.

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  5. repeating the corners, in stepped layers like a Mayan pyramid - yes that sits more happily than the curve of stepping stones. Making the garden of its place, its own precise particular defined place, itself.
    Orthogon? Excuse I'll have to Google that ...

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    1. Just translate it as square of rectangle. If you google orthonogal, you'll find it's quite a complex concept, used in many different fields. I like your Mayan pyramid metaphor.

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  6. Definitely square-edged is a better choice than curved. I agree with Christine -- the photos suggest there is a problem of scale. A raised edge with a wide lip may help.

    As for "the most important thing is that you like it and it feels right to you" -- I don't agree. Surely good design principles involve more than personal likes and dislikes.

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    1. The raised edge with a wide lip interests me. I'll have to experiment once the stone is in place. Too bad I have no professional landscape training. I could use some basics, such as knowledge of standard formulas for dealing with sizes and proportions. But learning "on the fly" will be pleasurable once it's over.

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  7. Ms. Nooney's idea is a good one. I like the idea of 'rectilinear ripples,' which you may feel free to use in place of 'multilevel orthogonal construct,' which could prove tiring. In all seriousness, though, photo 5 makes it appear that you will be enlarging the gravel area slightly, as the two sides of the wall come to their point. Just that little bit of extra raised gravel in combination with the wall will 'explain to the eye' why the planting area immediately beyond falls away. You are well onto your solution, I think, and I look forward to the results show.

    Argillite out my way is a traditional carving medium for the indigenous peoples of the B.C. coast (the Haida, to be precise). Northern Canadian stone is less variegated than yours, and after carving was polished and oiled. The carvings were trade currency after the fur industry died away. If you have never seen them, you should look up an image. Extremely beautiful.

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    1. Okay, okay, so "multilevel orthogonal construct" isn't the most elegant terminology, but you get the point. I agree "rectilinear ripples" weighs less heavily on the ears (and mind). Yes, the gravel area out at the far end (around the small square frog pond) will get a little larger. Good point that this wall will explain the falling away of the grade.

      I was talking about argillite to people at one of the local quarries and they told me ours is very prone to fracturing and shattering when worked. (I was hoping I could get cut slabs of argillite rather than the blue stone.) It doesn't sound like a stone that could be carved easily. The quarry guys told me they also have a red argillite they cut from the hill behind the quarry. This is only three miles from me, directly across the Delaware in Pennsylvania. I was surprised to learn there is so much local variation. I do know argillite exists throughout the world, but being no geologist, I know nothing of how its properties may vary. Interesting that it was carved by indigenous peoples. Thanks for this new information.

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    2. I kind of smiled at the term "multilevel orthogonal construct". I was unfamiliar with the concept of orthogonal design, and I think it is an interesting point of departure that could lead to some cool stuff. Though is this case, it is also just a matter of repeating the rectangle and straight lines that the pond introduces. Simple, really. And simple is often good.

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    3. studio TOOP (Carrie, it this you?),

      This is a post from the past on my old blod (I've moved to WordPress at www.federaltwist.com). Now that it's all finished, the retangular stone wall around the pool integrates successfully with the house, the straight lines, and rectangular structures around it. I feel happy with the reslt. I've also brought in several cubic yards to top soil to cover the old path I removed and prepare it for planting. Planting is the goal now, though with our night temperatures still below freezing, I haven't been able to start that. Damn this winter weather!

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  8. James, you're an intelligent garden-maker. Your work is brilliant. I like the look and the inter-relatedness.
    X, Faisal.

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    1. Faisal,
      I wish I could agree. This project seems cursed, but I may be making it worse my continuing to make it public, to the extent this is public. Thank you for the vote of confidence.

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    2. James, I'm, not sure you should say that. Gardens are hard work. Not just hard work, they can be demoralizing. Any gardener attempting something new/different is going to come up against walls. Have any of your neighbours done anything better/ more interesting? I doubt it. As it is in midwinter, there's a low point for every gardener. I face it now, in our awful dryness. It's not just a vote of confidence; you've been doing something at Federal; Twist no-one anywhere else has been doing. That takes enormous courage and talent.

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    3. Thanks, Faisal. I think I've come to a decision though I don't think I'll blog about it at present. I want to finish up this project and do some planting before "going public." And I need to start burning and cutting the garden to control the vole population. So there are many other things competing for attention, even in the middle of winter. Last I heard there were bad fires in Australia. I hope you've had some relief. BTW, I have friends coming through Melbourne and driving to Adelaide. They may decide to take a detour to Billy's Wigandia. They're not really garden people, so I don't know whether to encourage them to do that or not.

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  9. Only a question, not an assertion... - are you putting a lot of effort into trying to make something not quite right right? Will it ever sing?
    XXXXXX

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    1. Anne, you cut to the bone of the matter. But I'm certainly not going to rip it out. (Maybe next year!) I do think these changes will solve some visual problems. As to the problem of scale, the plantings will make that almost a non-issue because what is an open space now in winter will become a quiet, private corner, more like an interlude in the woods, or a quite place along a stream side. My point in the last photo was to show this will be almost invisible when the garden is in growth so it will be experienced close up and intimately.

      I'm coming to the conclusion that I will also probably need to reorient the "small frog pond" and move it in relation to the new stone walls I've proposed.

      As you well know, it's almost impossible to see, really see, a garden in photos. They select scenes that don't really exist for a visitor, they obscure relative scale, eliminate depth, etc. So I probably can't answer the question, "Will it ever sing," until next yeat, or the next.

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  10. James,
    I think using local material that is already on site and in the design is the best choice. I agree with Jill about having perpendicular walls of the same material is a good idea. Are the existing wall and the pool parallel to each other? It doesn't look like it in the photograph I see. I think it is important that the pool, whatever rectangular/square shape you decide, should be parallel to the walls. If not, there should be a good reason that they aren't. I also wonder about the use of rectangular stepping stones to make a curved path. It might feel more inevitable (I like to use that word when make decisions about garden design rather than right) if they were only used in strait lines and perpendicular parts of the garden. In this instance, strait lines and perpendicular=manmade and curved lines=natural. If you went with that idea, you would use those rectangular pieces near the new pool area and then every aspect of the curving path, including its material, says round and curving. For me it comes down to intention. Once you make a "mission statement" about the garden or parts of the garden, every design decision reenforces the intention or mission. If you break the rules, which successful designs often do, you do it knowingly. One last thought: I wonder if Tom Stuart-Smith's renovated Courtyard garden might inspire you?? At ant rate, you are a braver man than I, to ask for more opinions. Hope I didn't go on too long. I love watching you think your process out loud. Thanks for that.

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    1. Thanks, Michael. I'm getting so many comments, some conflicting, that I have to keep my filters working. I feel foolish, of course, knowing I would have been much better off to hire a professional designer to help with the planning process rather than plunging impetuously into construction, then redesigning, piece by piece, ass backwards. But I've always learned far more from my mistakes than from my successes. I have Tom Stuart-Smith's Barn Garden book and brought it with me on a weekend visit to friends in Portland, Maine, where I sit with glimpses of Casco Bay thinking about your garden, my garden, all the mistakes and work ahead.

      The rectangular stepping stones are a non-issue. I've decided not to use them for this project. The one inspiration I take from reading about Tom's Courtyard Garden is that it's a small, very private space, different in character from the larger garden. To use the British term, that's my brief and that aspect of the new pool area has been so from the start in spite of all the physical metaphormoses that are occuring. I do mean for it to be like a sparate "room" though, since I can't wait for hedges to grow (I'm 67 and don't want to wait ten years), I have to make the walls of shrubs, large grasses, and perennials. I've even eliminated one of the three planned entry paths, and narrowed the remaining ones, to better "hide" the private place and clearly demrcate it as "other." I agree with your assertion that once you make a design decision every other decision should reinforce that original intention, allowing room, of course, for iconoclastic moments of inspiration. (I don't see my little project in such grandiose terms.)

      You're right about the pool. I've avoided wanting to deal with it's orientation. I had it laid out with its sides indicating the four points of the compass, but I agree, it needs to align with the existing wall. Making that change, though I dread the delay and work, will probably only take one weekend.

      As an aside, I was pleased to read that Tom grows and is very fond of one of my favorite plants, Inula racemosa. To quote Tom, it "has balls." This plant will be prominent in the new area. Some have multiple stems up to ten or eleven feet, and their structure is amazingly strong. Quite a physical presence, with loads of character.

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    2. I am sure whatever you do it will be beautiful. Mistakes (at least it makes me feel better to think this) are all part of the process. I have the Barn Garden book too and have found lots inspiration. His website is also great. If I get down to your garden again, I'd love a volunteer seedling of Inula racemosa. Who can pass up on a plant that "has balls"!! 67--you are just getting started!! Thanks agin for thinking out loud. I learn a lot listening and watching.

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    3. Well said, Michael, and I agree. I also really like the term inevitable in design choices.

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  11. I keep looking at the photos...hoping a moment of divine inspiration will strike...but, alas, I'm drawing a blank. I'm sure there's a solution ou there...and I'm sure you'll find it...eventually :-)

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    1. Thanks, Scott. Obviously, I started without a "moment of divine inspiration," so I understand. And it's very hard to have opinions on something only seen in two-dimensional pictures. That's the huge flaw in this whole "critiquing" process I've asked form

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  12. Hello James,

    Since you solicit comments.... (!!!) ... it seems a feature that works perfectly in your Brooklyn garden has traveled to the country and your garden there resists it. I don't think your garden likes straight lines.

    My only suggestion would be to dissolve the pool into the garden, both with plants, as you suggest, but also by taking away the flagstone edging, bringing the gravel right up to the edge, with sempervivums, grasses in tussocks, perhaps hemerocallis.... and by making the pool asymmetrical -- a boomerang pushing away from the garden's center. That's my thought, at any rate.

    I thought of you as I am at present in South Africa on a hike, and the grasses are extraordinary. Everything is densely planted turf or fynbos, as they call it here. Of course, I swoon over the ditches filled with agapanthus. Blues and whites.

    all best in the new year, Ross

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    1. Ross, I've been wondering where you might be, assuming traveling somewhere and likely hiking. I read the South African fynbox is extraordinary so I'm very envious. And agapanthus is one plant I'd like to use in profusion, but can't, of course. I'm not yet able to agree with you about my garden not liking straight lines, and I think once I get this monstrous project finished, and the area planted, and a couple of years for the plants to grown in close, it's private nature will make my garden like it. But the one thing certain is change.

      I do like your idea of a large circular pool with "swirling" paths out into the garden, but in another incarnation.

      Have a delightful time.

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  13. I think the issue of scale will be resolved when plants and/or a retaining wall provide boundaries for the seating area. Yes, the pool is small given the scale of the entire garden, but may be just right for the more intimately sized seating area. I was thinking about the option of using flagstone laid into the gravel base instead of the square pavers as flooring. The pavers seem to be holding-over from the more formal first inspiration. Using irregular flagstones will detour the potential problem of matching up the lines of the pool with the lines created by the walls and will play towards the more casual nature of the space.
    --Emily

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    1. Emily, Thanks for the vote of support, and for acknowledging the intimate nature of this area. The concrete pavers will go away. I'll try no paving, just gravel, at least at first, until I can see how it looks, and how practical it is. I have decided I must reorient the pool. I find the dissonance created by the lack of alignment with the wall too much to try to justify. I would be curious about how some really different geometric patterns might work in the gravel (similar to what you've done in Seattle), but that's for another day. I do intend to have frogs in this pool, and probably will carefully select a stone to be positioned near the edge, just breaking the surface of the water. An easy path for frogs to more in and out. We have thousands of frogs. They're a source of both beauty and entertainment, and I'll plant to encourage them in this area.

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  14. I am fascinated by what you are doing here because one of my big issues in my own garden (basically a sloping field with a fabulous view) is the balance between openness and enclosure. I have always admired from your photos the way that the surrounding trees and the use of grasses produces a sense of enclosure but what you are now planning goes much further. My problem is one of scale and that seems to be the issue here too. When most of the garden is open and spaces are generous it is hard to find the right scale for an enclosed space: too small and it feels incongruous, too large and it changes the feel of the garden not only when you are within it but all the time. I haven't got it right at all here so I am not in any position to advise you. The one thing I am sure of is that the pond should line up with the wall! Good luck, will be fascinating to see how it develops.

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  15. I understand what you mean. You have such extraordinary views and openness. If I could, I would use hedges, probably something like hornbeam. But I've found the hornbeam hedge I've nurtured in another part of the garden will take at least a decade, if ever, to reach the height I want. So my evolving plan will be to use single and clumped evergreens that grow quickly in my conditions, supplemented by grasses and perennials large enough to create a private space. The issue of scale goes away. I agree the pond has to align with the wall; I hope for a winter like the last one with little snow so work can continue.

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    1. Explain to me why the issue of scale goes away? I see that by using less "permanent" plants than hedging (which I tooI am contemplating) the writing on the landscape is less irrevocable but is not the space you create still a presence which relates to your other spaces? I sound a bit pseudo here. Sorry. Perhaps I need to get out more.

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  16. I may have over stated my point. I think our gardens are very different. Yours, from what I have seen in photographs (and I'm remembering Anne Wareham's point that seeing photos is not like being in a garden at all), has a great deal of open space, apart from the enclosed area near the house. (I may be wrong, but this is how I imagine your garden.) My garden is rather full of stuff. It has little negative space. (I wish it were otherwise.) So when I surround the new pool area with plantings it, in a sense, disappears. The "walls" of the pool area are so like the rest of the garden (tending toward a homogeneous character) that they almost disappear. In another sense, however, I see you are right. One's experience of being in the small, enclosed pool area must relate to experience of the garden in other places--on the terrace by the house, from which you look down on the garden, views toward the area from other parts of the garden, the experience of walking in the garden and coming into this new area from another more open space. So, to agree with you, the spaces must relate, smaller to larger, but since the visual distinction "disappears" in my garden, you're left with a sensuous, perceptual, emotional relationship, which I find much more difficult to predict. I don't think I'll know how well those relationships "work" until next summer when I can experience the changed garden. The area is down under the high embankment, making it invisible from the house, so it's more private than some other parts of the garden. I hope that sense of privacy, of secrecy, will make it appropriate to the garden as a whole.

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  17. Are you doing all of this on location and not making sketches on paper first? If so, you brave man! I am curious though what playing with the lines on paper might offer you in the way of unexpected solutions. It will save you lots of back aches too, as you don't need to move the stones after you reject an idea.

    I think there are a number of good solutions that would really work here and that creating a more intimate space that in scale and spatial language relates to the pond should be the goal and you should play till you find it. Glad you are ditching the stepping stones, they distract and the gravel is more than sufficient. And love that you are using the local stones, and that they are ringing rocks. Concert by the frog pond!

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  18. I did make some scribbles on paper, but I'm no draftsman. I also find it difficult to take a drawing and see what it will look like in reality. This process has certainly taught me the value of working with a professional designer who brings all the necessary planning skills and tools, as well as experience solving problems prior to construction. On the other hand, I like the process of actually building it, taking it apart, and building it better. There's an emotional reward in that. I'm also happy with the idea of some messiness, both in planning and in the final garden. Too much perfection is, to my mind, not a good thing in a garden. It's one issues I have with the work of designers like Luciano Giubbilei. I love the now aged look of gardens by Mien Ruys (can you tell me how to pronounce her name?)

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