Chance

An old weeping cherry, planted when the house was built in 1965, frames simple Miscanthus sinensis 'Silberfeder' on a breezy October morning. Unintended movement of the camera exaggerates the light and movement. Just such accidents, serendipities, are the life of a garden, and guide its design. I was at a meeting yesterday in Crystal City, an office development in Arlington, Virginia, jammed up beside Washington National Airport. The Crystal City plantings were quite obviously expensive, and very attractive in an office park kind of way, but that neat, overly manicured style isn't my idea of a garden. There's too much of the cookie cutter architect's vision about it. Better a little mess, accident, and chance, or at least a suggestion of something not entirely within our control. Ironically, those Crystal City plantings are only about a half mile from Oehme & Van Sweden's thrilling plantings at National Airport.