Fountains of light, abstract patterns, taking a chance on chance

I took these photos just before we learned Hurricane Sandy was headed our way. Since we weathered the storm on high ground in Brooklyn, I have no idea whether the garden was knocked flat or blown into a frenzy of exoticism. These may be the last images of the year--but probably not. I'll know when I can find enough gasoline to make my way out to Federal Twist.

Autumn progresses and the leaves change colors, shrivel, fall ...

... exposing structures of the garden perennials and the bare branches of the forest trees beyond. With good light a kind of contrapuntal patterning, a visual music, begins. This is present through all seasons, but reaches its peak in fall.

This is the dry end of the garden where tall perennials and grasses--Panicums, Molenia, Miscanthus, Rudbeckia maxima--tower above the shorter perennials--glaucous blue Pyncatheum muticum and golden bracken. There are no flowers now, except for drifts of Aster tartaricus not visible here, but who wants flowers with all this color?

This is an example of horizontal layering--plants dotted throughout the landscape, some tall, some short, some opaque, some transparent--in almost random distribution rather than lined in ranks as in a traditional flower border.

Graveled paths and concrete pavers run around and through this area but they're hidden by the perennial growth. The Wave Hill chairs below give a sense of scale and locate one of the paths.

The tallest grass is Miscanthus giganteus below, at about fifteen feet, counting the flowers ...

... which is about the height of the bank going up to the house, mostly hidden behind mounding miscanthus and other perennials.

Layering at a smaller scale--whisps of golden bracken and miscanthus flowers in front of Sedum 'Herbstfreude', backed by a real keeper, a native broom sedge (Andropogon virginicus) that was here before I started the garden.

The layering effect can be visually complex, and at times quite flat and two-dimensional, suggesting patterns on paper or textiles. Here a golden leaf of seedling Silphium laciniatum with seed stalks of Rudbeckia maxima.

At this time of year, the garden takes on colors of the surrounding forest, though in more concentrated form. Seen from above, the plants make a bowl of abundance, and you can see the colors of the garden and the forest beyond are one. The green wall of trees that acted as a barrier during summer vanishes in areas of deciduous growth, and the garden joins with the open spaces of the forest ...

... to enjoy the patterning, you have to go down into the garden and look out through the layers of planting. Lines, voids, colors and textures make sensuous compositions easily seen during this brief season, creating
graphic, at times abstract, tableaux ... but tableaux that evoke emotional response. I think of tossing currents, heaving waves, sea metaphors to capture the movement, implied and real ...

... and depending on the light and time of day, you may find yourself in a world of magic, nature made unreal, touched by artifice.

Layers--Eupatorium perfoliatum, box wood, Hydrangea quercifolia, Miscanthus adagio, Salix britzensis, then forest.

With this kind of naturalistic, "pseudoecological" gardening, combining many different plants in close communities, editing is very important BUT it must be balanced with a willingness to experiment, to "take a chance on chance," to wait and see if an emerging plant or group of plants can work.

Below, for example, the mid-height plant at the front is an easily self-seeding native, Eupatorium perfoliatum (Boneset). I wanted it in the garden, and it appeared on its own about four years ago. Now it's spread, but not so vigorously that I need to bother about it much. In early fall, when there isn't much other color, the off-white umbelliferous  flowers of this plant are a pleasant ornament and they add bright spots of light as darkness comes. I'm glad to give it the run of the place, and can easily pull it out when it appears where I don't want it.

One of the challenges of a naturalistic garden is the potential mess if plant growth isn't carefully edited.  Since this garden needs a feeling of fullness and abundance, most editing is limited to removing self-seeded plants that don't belong in positions nature chooses for them. Only rarely do I  need to clear an area and replant but that does happen.

Here, in this tunnel-like planting of Miscanthus, dry, leaden spires of Inula racemosa 'Sonnerspeer' add a mysterious touch, a somber note, that's an emotional highlight of this moment in the garden. The Inula is self-seeding wildly. I'm sure I'll have to eliminate many seedlings next spring, but it has such an extraordinary structure and presence, I wouldn't be without it.

Though modeled on natural environments such as the banded appearance of grasses seen across a wild field, the horizontal layering in the garden is a combination of accident and intentional planning. It's important to accommodate accidents of growth and self-seeding, but also to edit when necessary. From front to back (below), Liatris spicata, Panicum 'Shenandoah', Aster tartaricus, seed stalks of Rudbeckia maxima, Filipendula rubra, Thuja, then the forest trees with their network of limbs jutting this way and that ...

... all rather precariously balanced between chaos and aesthetic order. An almost Japanese effect. Another person might want to edit this to make it simpler, but I prefer letting the pattern and organization emerge as you analyze the component parts.

The path below adds three-dimensional depth, suggesting a narrative of travel or a story.

More examples of horizontal layering, some closely cropped from the fabric of the wide view, looking very two dimensional ...

A simple example of layering--Rudbeckia maxima seed heads, mounded Filipendula, Thuja, background forest.

Rudbeckia maxima, Joe Pye Weed flower heads and yellow foliage, Thuja, forest.

... while the next is clearly three-dimensional, as signaled by the out-of-focus Silphium perfoliatum foliage in the foreground ...

Silphium perfoliatum, Aster tartaricus in flower, Filipendula.

... and again with the focus changed.

Same image, different focus.

Moving back to the scale of garden landscape, the next images show horizontal layering across much larger areas. I think one thing that makes this layering distinctive is the figured ground field created by the forest background--a texture of trunks, limbs, leaves, colors that lends an almost painterly quality and an even greater sense of fullness, particularly at this time of year.

The same Silphium, Miscanthus giganteus, various Panicums further back, then forest trees.

And in the next images, contrasting shadow and light contribute another kind of differentiation.

Layering on the large scale, looking across from shadow to light, a distance of perhaps 300 feet to the trees.

Another close-up abstract composition, Ligularia japonica and Panicum 'Cloud Nine' ...

Two layers--Ligularia japonica, Panicum 'Cloud Nine'

Hydrangea quercifolia in foreground, Miscanthus on the bank up to the house.

The image below is an especially complex example--Aster tartaricus in the foreground and a stalk of Silphium on the left, then behind from left to right, Panicum 'Dallas Blues' and the leaden brown of Joe Pye Weed, with the orangish foliage of Filipendula behind, then a still green willow (Salix sachalinensis).

Does it hold together? I think I'd put it on a postcard. But it's a picture, not a garden.

Here the open simplicity of fine grasses in sunlight.

More complex patterns. Perhaps too wild looking for some.

But move in closer and order emerges.

Taking a view from the distance you can't tell where the garden ends and the woods begin. A reminder of how close the forest is, and the garden's transience. In forty years this garden would completely disappear if I didn't burn in spring and edit, edit, edit.

You can find the full photo set at this link (click on Slideshow in the upper right when you reach the link).

Field

This field, on a sandy hillside outside Oxford, Mississippi, spills down from the front of a new house recently built. A traditional American landscaping approach would be to bring in soil and lay sod to create a lawn. The sandy soil would require tremendous quantities of water to keep the lawn alive. Fortunately, this has not happened.

The field is beautiful in itself, and an ornament to the house. The question is, can the field be maintained  always to look this good?

The plant community we see here is in part a result of disturbance during construction of the new house. Some of the most significant and beautiful plants are ruderals, pioneer plants that quickly come in to  colonize open ground, and thus likely to be replaced by other species over time in a natural process of succession.

The first and second photos show feathery dogfennel (Eupatorium capillifolium) in bloom with broomsedge (Andropogon virginicus), the predominating plant in the field. Broomsedge is a keeper and is likely to stay a long time. It's a beautiful field grass, especially in the fall and winter, common throughout the area, well adapted to local conditions. But the dogfennel is a pioneer plant, and is likely to disappear as other, more stable plant communities establish over time. Though it's considered a highly undesirable weed by agriculturalists, it's a striking perennial, with delicate, feathery foliage that captures and reflects light and a flexible structure that allows it to move about in the breeze. It's an animating plant, taller than broomsedge, providing vertical accent, aesthetic interest, and tactile pleasure. If touched, it has a distinctive, highly aromatic odor I find pleasant.

It may be possible to manage the field to retain its ruderal species but that would probably require repeated disturbance of the land surface, perhaps by rough mowing in the late winter, just enough to break the ground surface and expose seeding area for the ruderals to take hold anew each year.

Another option might be to let plant succession occur with minimal intervention (mowing once a year to clear the field for regrowth and prevent its reversion to forest). A third option might be strategic planting of cultivated species appropriate to the environment, actually managing the landscape, almost like a garden.

A fountain of dogfennel laden with seed.

Dogfennel and wooly croton contrast with the thin verticals of broomsedge.

Above, in front of the dogfennel, is another ruderal that adds textural and color interest. Known by various common names such as hogweed and wooly croton (Croton capitatus), this plant is an annual with grayish foliage and distinctive gray flowers and seed heads. Here it appears to be growing in linear patches that follow the wheel tracks of heavy equipment.

Below you can see a "river" of wolly croton running up the hill from the road.

A river of wooly croton running up the hill.

Here, a close up of wooly croton. It's a very attractive plant though not likely to be used widely if it has to be seeded every year. Some experimentation may be in order.

If this were my field, I'd roughly mow it once in the spring, making sure to break up the soil surface where I want the ruderals to reproduce, and watch what develops over the next two or three years. On second thought, I recommend that to the owners. I'd probably start by adding one or two large, distinctive perennials right away.

That's just my inclination.