Re. Re. smaller lavenders

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Hi Barry,

I don't think the issue with formality is because it's labor-intensive. In my experience, a boxwood or myrtle parterre needs to be clipped 3, maybe 4 times a year: I have to mow the lawn every week.

California is the birthplace of laid-back and natural, so a garden of straight lines and clipped shrubs is probably seen as uptight and un-natural.  This could be true, although I remember years ago on a trip to the gardens of Versailles (a symmetrical forest with symmetrical lakes, and parterres the size of football fields), a Frenchman remarked that the most artificial gardens at Versailles were the naturalistic ones around Marie Antoinette's "farm".  He considered these to be the most artificial because they pretended to be natural.

I think what surprised me about that trip was that the symmetrical forest of Versailles was still a forest; it wasn't sterile, and it wasn't uptight.

As for my own developing garden aesthetic, I find the hard glossy shrubs of mediterranean climates often lend themselves to trimming into rounded, mounding forms.  Plus, the pleasant climate makes for expensive real estate and small gardens, where the privacy afforded by a clipped hedge is valuable.  Since small gardens can't have large trees, a patio shaded by a vine -covered pergola is also very useful.

Thanks for your input; tell me more!

-Ben Wiswall