Second life

Winds blew, trees slammed to earth ... an interlude ... then wet snow!

First Hurricane Sandy plowed through, stripping most foliage from the garden and wiping away the south border of trees. Then unexpected snow fell last week, heavy and wet, only about four inches, flattening most of the grasses. I thought the garden was over for the year. But the snow melted quickly, and the moisture saturating the plant tissues deepened the colors of the the rebounding grass, even on a foggy Sunday morning, giving them an inner glow.

The bright grasses contrasted with the foggy greens and grays of the background woods, warmth against coolness, exuberant detail against muted vagueness.

So I quickly took some photos, coordinated the work of my garden helpers, and left for the gym. As I drove down Federal Twist Road toward the Delaware, I felt elated. It's difficult to separate things in my life from things in the garden, but I had a sense of all the pieces fitting together. Like an epiphany.

A foggy morning (admittedly a pretty sight), a quick walk through the garden, a new paving, pool and planting started, and some mysterious state of mind or confluence of events had set me off on a journey of  ... what? Grace and gratitude? Not really, I was not to put into words what I was thinking or feeling  ... just say, my state of being. Two weekends back we visited Phil's mother, who is 92, in a Boston nursing home. We took her to the Museum of Fine Arts, which she enjoyed immensely. Next weekend, we're off to Mississippi to visit my sister, who isn't well ... Many things to be sad about. But sadness wasn't the tenor of this day.

Only in retrospect was I fortunate enough to recall  the discussion of garden as epiphany in David E. Cooper's small book A Philosophy of Gardens:

"Pope's famous lines, in his Epistle to the Earl of Burlington, on 'the genius of the place', for example, surely evoke a conception of The Garden as an epiphany. For Pope, 'the genius of the place' does not refer, as it does for many later writers, to the ambiance or natural setting of a garden: rather, it is that which 'Now breaks, or now directs, the intending lines' and 'Paints as you plant, and, as you work, designs' (Pope 1994: 81 f.). Palpable, here is a sense of The Garden as both a response to and an exemplification of something beyond the control and invention of human beings."

"Something beyond the control and invention of human beings." I'm not a religious man, rather agnostic in the extreme, opposed to most organized religion. But I do make room for that.

Certainly the thought of destruction, of the end of things, is suggested by these images.

But equally so, the beauty of the disintegrating garden:  color, form, the narrative of living and dying, knowing that without this nothing returns in spring.

"Something beyond the control and invention of human beings." Chance storms, accidents, leave room for moments of fleeting beauty, unanticipated emotion, surprise, mystery.

Emotional response to these scenes isn't something that I will. Is it nostalgia, a desire to recreate or return to a memory, to a lost or half-forgotten landscape, as Thomas Rainer has proposed? To some early memory in this life, to a culturally defined preference for open spaces with areas for hiding? Like children, do we delight in the sparkle of a colored rock among the gray, imagining gems, rubies, sapphires, then recreate that delight as adults, even with colored sticks and grass suffused with light?

So to Wikipedia for word origin:  "The term nostalgia describes a sentimental longing for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. The word is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of νόστος (nóstos), meaning 'homecoming', a Homeric word, and ἄλγος (álgos), meaning 'pain, ache'."

So "homecoming." I feel that in the garden; have felt it for many years ... a place to contemplate, to remember. To ache for something past. And to seek what may never have been known.

"Something beyond the control and invention of human beings." A place to create, to participate in a kind of mystery, perhaps an unforeseen gift.

"Now breaks, or now directs, the intending lines."

"Paints as you plant, and, as you work, designs."

Perhaps one should pray for guidance, even if a severe agnostic, before making a design decision. Chance plays a part in all decisions and when I put in this path, it was the wrong decision. So now it's coming out to be replaced by new plantings. And in its place a major renovation ...

... a new area, the gravel base now being laid, for a reflecting pool, shallow, just to catch the light and sky, and a paved surface - more open space, more void - all with curving borders and narrow, winding paths. Here's a primative sketch (I can't draw).

The planting will be thick, with glimpses in to the straight stone wall and to the water. The void, like silence in music, may make the plantings sing.

Surrounding this may be a field of Miscanthus. Of course there will be more, but at this time of year Miscanthus en masse is amazing in our climate. Ethereal. A field of Miscanthus alone could make you cry out.

Though Panicum, in this case 'Dallas Blues' (below), may win for color.

Keeping Miscanthus in mind, and looking toward the new sky where the large trees fell so ungracefully a month ago, I can see three or four Miscanthus giganteus would make notable additions to the hedgerow I'm planning at the far end of the path below -  giving a satisfying visual conclusion to the now empty southern end of the garden. They might open better views into the woods by giving the eye something to look through, and complete the "bowl" of the garden, so clearly visible in autumn.

You get the drift? Layers of Miscanthus, up the hill, across the field.

And possibly for accent, a rare native shrub, Zenobia pulverulenta, a dusty, glaucous green through spring and summer, and in magnificent plumage in early December.

And more of these Inula racemosa 'Sonnenspeer', of course. They seed like crazy, and I still don't have enough.

So as we prepare to leave for Mississippi, I make farewell gestures to the garden, now fading fast as the toughest part of winter approaches. I'll be visiting the place of my childhood, remembering, searching out the empty spaces ... and thinking about more changes in the garden.

Rain, rain

Endless rain, seemingly, has everything shooting up at amazing speed, including weeds. Local grasses are in flower, creating a kind of foggy haze over the garden. Once these early grasses turn brown, they'll give it the look of a meadow, and the rapidly emerging perennials will stand out against the tawny background.

Something to look forward to because, frankly, I'm bored by all this.

In the first few years, I thought technique alone--experimenting with a garden in a most inhospitable place, going about it without any soil improvement, relying only on "right plant, right place," and editing out the failures--would be enough, but it isn't. I need more from the garden. The "idea" of sustainability is poor sustenance.

I've been thinking a lot about the importance of emotions in gardens (seeing gardens, making gardens, designing gardens) so it's disquieting to have sunk into this funk. I think the problem may be this:  I need people in my garden, need a conversation, stimulation, insight. In a pinch, a tranquil sunset will do.

But for now, a photo tour, also boring because photos fall far short of the reality of being in the garden.

So ... to list the plants, across the pond, Darmera peltata, Petasites x hybridus, Japanese irises, Carex muskingumensis. The large foliage plants are a prime source of interest (at times, even pleasure) in this early season.

Darmera with Ligularia japonica ...

Across the way, a Cercesis canadensis 'Hearts of Gold' planted last year and in the distance, poison Hemlock (Conium maculatum) in flower. It will quickly die and turn an unpleasant brown. Unlink most of the large plants, this one does not retain structural interest, so I'll cut it as soon as seed has matured. There's plenty coming up below it.

Thank goodness for Marc Rosenquist's sculpture. It adds another level of complexity (dare I say meaning?) to the garden. It asks questions, makes me think, suggests metaphors, sparks fantasies of swirling motion (a wheel, a galaxy, the Axle Tree?), raises issues of taste, of aesthetic appropriateness. It reaches outside the garden.

View from the back, looking toward the woodland garden. One of many Filipendula rubra 'Venusta' is just to the right of Marc's sculpture, which has become a place, a reference point. I could even say it links the garden to the rest of the world, to ideas of art, history, culture, the universe.

Bracken, one of my favorite plants, is a legacy plant. It may have been here a century or more. Who could know? It was here before my garden certainly. People give it a bad rap because it tends to spread at the edges. Not nearly as invasive as many other plants, and it moves slowly.

This isn't a pretty picture but you can see the developing L-shaped Hornbeam hedge and the bench it's intended to surround. Someday it will define an end to this corner of the garden, and hide the deer exclusion fence behind.

That hedge, should it ever come to pass, may also become an artifact, like Marc's bronze, that adds to a conceptual appreciation of the garden. I want it to work at multiple levels. In the present, as a visual demarcation of one corner of the garden (with the unavoidable question of what lies beyond), as a spatial device to give an emotional sense of safety and enclosure, and practically, as a screen to hide the deer fence. To anyone with a little knowledge of gardening history, it will also refer to a centuries old garden culture, to the entire history of British gardening, beyond that to Renaissance Italy and even ancient Rome, creating a conversation between those traditions and my naturalistic garden. (On further thought, that's a heavy burden to put on a hedge, but I suppose it can serve as a reminder of the more formal elements of Western gardening tradition.)

Below, the serpentine wall seen from the area of the bench. I need to work on this. The Petasites japonicus is growing over a well drained wastewater leaching field and isn't entirely happy here. The stone wall, as a reflection of the Hornbeam hedge, might itself suggest a more appropriate planting, but one I'm not yet aware of.

A 180 degree turn gives a view across the garden. Siberian irises here will be divided and spread across the field. The ordered row of Thuja occidentalis across the garden has to be seen in the context of the Hornbeam hedge and the stone walls throughout the garden.

I don't mean that there is any specific meaning intended here. But I do enjoy evoking aesthetic and cultural references, and seeing my garden as an embodiment of the historical concept of "garden," of finding a place in garden culture, so that Rome and Rousham hover in the background and are present with me. I can't control what it might be for others.

And then, the garden is simply a place to sit, perhaps alone ...

... or in conversation.

The planting below speaks to the emotional power of images. Years ago I saw a photo of an Oehme van Sweden-designed planting with Miscanthus 'Silberfeder' in the background and mixed Pycnanthemum muticum and Petasites massed at its feet. Though I'm not yet able to define the emotional appeal of that planting, even many years later, I felt it was appropriate for this spot, not least because the environmental conditions were suitable, but also because I loved the shapes of the plants and their effect in combination. It's most effective later in the season, when the Pycnanthemum turns white and the Miscanthus is in bloom.

Perhaps the key to the interest of this planting is its playfulness, with the dramatic contrast of the large, funnel-shaped leaves against the very small ones. But it's also more than playful. It recalls some of the more frightening children's fairy tales. The growth is so vigorous, it's almost threatening. At the least, stimulating in an aggressive way.

Though the bracken is very different, it has much the same aggressive in-your-face effect ...

... like a wave about to wash over you.

The circle of red logs ... merely decorative? Gardens don't speak in sentences, so you have only emotional affect to go on. And of course a long tradition of associations with circles, and with the color red.

A strange planting, some intentional, some not ...

... dominated at the moment by Poison hemlock ... is this for some witch's brew? Is this a Maurice Sendak garden? Perhaps there's something to that connection, a certain outsized, exaggerated quality. More so later in the season when many plants grow much larger than people. Then I've noted some visitors prefer to stay near the house, safely removed, up on the little hill.

Straight lines and curves ...

... forms emerging from the chaos of early summer grasses ...

... box and Bergenia, footed by a sedum found in the wettest part of the garden ...

... and irises.