Re: Garden Philosophy LARGE

I don't personally see the conflict between architectural gardens, architectural use of plants by massing and repetition that Gay alludes to in her article.  Maybe it has much to do with enjoying the creation of spaces in an outdoor setting as much as I enjoy the creativity of using plants to create those spaces.  I also feel that a contemporary landscape design that uses hardscaping and materials to set off the plants can actually give the plants more interest than they would receive if they were simply part of a plant melange.  I must admit that my approach to garden design is biases by my visual approach to design, my plant collector's tendencies, and a desire to create visually memorable spaces that also function well for the client, even when the ultimate client who may buy the property remains unknown at the time of the design/installation.  I include a link to a web site for a garden that I completed for a spec home remodel here in the Berkeley,
 California hills, as an example of my approach that I think is representative of Gay's lament about "architectural gardens", but I think it also represents other interests as well.  I leave it to others whether it was successful, but it gave me a lot of satisfaction in the design and installation, and I was particularly happy ot have been able to share it with my partner, Ernie, who was able to see if completed before he passed away from cancer, and was certainly an inspiration to me while designing and installing it.  It was especially meaningful to me to have been able to share the garden with Ernie's family and Ernie a couple of weeks before he passed away.

Garden is at:  www.28vallejostreet.com

--- On Thu, 7/10/08, Gay Klok <gayklok@gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Gay Klok <gayklok@gmail.com>
> Subject: Garden Philosophy LARGE
> To: medit-plants@ucdavis.edu
> Date: Thursday, July 10, 2008, 10:43 PM
> medit-plants@ucdavis.edu
> Dear all
> I am sending an essay on New Age gardens I wrote several
> years ago - Rather
> long, beware!    Gay
> 
> Mary, Mary Quite Contrary
> 
> How does your Garden Grow?
> 
> With Silver Bells and Cockle Shells
> 
> And pretty Maids,  all in a Row
> 
> When I was a little girl and I heard this nursery rhyme, I
> always had a
> picture of little girls with milkmaid bonnets on their
> heads and their legs
> and feet planted in the soil. The silver bells were
> imagined as like the
> little bells we hung on the Christmas trees and the cockle
> shells were as
> the shells we found washed up on the beach Now as a grown
> up gardener, I
> know these are all common names for delightful perennials.
> Or do I? The
> ditty states that Mary was contrary. What can that mean?
> What does the
> "contrary" gardener place in the good earth? It
> is very possible that some
> gardeners somewhere have literally planted such a garden. I
> suppose they
> would use kewpie dolls though and not real maidens. It is
> almost impossible
> to pick up a garden magazine, journal or book about the
> "modern" garden and
> not see an illustration of an
> "architecturalscape" garden full of textures,
> shapes and colours, with hardly a plant or flower in sight.
> 
> And I begin to worry that I am so old-fashioned and passe,
> I am not a
> gardener anymore, just a grower of [real] things. Shame on
> me for growing
> old-fashioned roses, foxgloves and delphiniums. "Off
> with their Heads" as
> the Queen of Hearts ordered in Alice in Wonderland No
> longer may we place on
> our coffee tables, books full of photos of wonderfully lush
> gardens to drool
> over. Put Ken Druse back into the dusty old bookcase at
> once and place the
> small, mean and serious tomes that instruct us to never
> grow water hungry
> plants [ no matter what your average rain fall is] and to
> rotary hoe the
> grass, immediately! The books inform me that to call myself
> a "new
> millennium" gardener, I must turn [with tears running
> down my cheeks] to an
> architectural lanscaper who will take me screaming into the
> twenty-first
> Century. He/She or both, will allow me to leave the
> moss-covered boulders
> but the herbaceous borders must go. One tree with distorted
> trunks and
> branches may stay [that has managed on its own to create
> that romantic and
> aged look because it was planted one hundred years ago] and
> we will make a
> concrete courtyard around the tree, to emphasise the
> importance of the
> venerable plant. [Help! More peacock mess to wash every
> day!]
> 
> If I don't own an aged tree, I am given a list of
> nurseries that create
> "pre-aged" trees and I am assured that I will not
> miss the silverware that I
> will have to sell to pay for it. Think of the time I will
> save not having to
> clean the knives and forks. I will be able to spend hours
> sitting on the
> concrete armchair, in the patio, and contemplate my
> Queendom. All those
> young trees I have planted, so lovingly over the past
> fourteen years, will
> make wonderful mulch, chopped up by the electric muncher
> [There goes the
> genuine four poster bed] and, I am ordered, those dead
> shrubs must stay,
> they will look wonderful spray painted bright blue. I am
> reprimanded, most
> severely, for falling in love with so many living plants
> with wonderful,
> scented blooms. I am told to choose five species or less
> and plant these and
> only these in my "new" garden. I replace the
> books on my coffee table and
> sit, worried and perplexed. Rebellion is in my heart.
> 
> I look over to the hastily gathered lilies that are
> perfuming the room. I
> glance out the window and note that the roses are excelling
> themselves this
> Autumn. I can already feel that Summer is over. A subtle
> change of mood is
> creeping into the garden. Will I note the seasonal changes
> in my modern
> garden? Will I hear the birds telling each other that
> Winter is not too far
> away? Will I welcome the Autumn rains after the
> exceptionally dry Summer?
> What will I do with my time? No more deadheading, no more
> weeding, no more
> secret visits to my favourite Nursery friends, which means
> no more chats on
> the seeds collected on the South African trip. No more
> backaches and will my
> arthritis vanish with my plants? I will be able to grow my
> finger nails
> again and paint them blue, to go with my lurid dead branch
> sculptures. And
> what may I call myself? Horticulturist is out, too many
> water loving plants.
> I am certainly not a landscaper, someone else created
> "my" garden. I will be
> unable to call myself a gardener, I will no longer be able
> to garden. I
> know, I shall call myself a "new naturalist" and
> tell myself that it is
> ridiculous to feel bored. I will rename my new articles
> "The New
> Naturalist's Garden" and silently have a nervous
> breakdown because I don't
> know what to write any more, that has not already been
> written
> 
> "Gabriel, Gabriel, who is Antagonistic" will be
> the start of my ditty
> 
> How does your garden grow?
> 
>  With concrete seats and bits of iron
> 
> And bright blue poles all in a row"
> 
> and I will slip into old age with a weeping heart
> 
> -- 
> Gay Klok Tasmania
> http://members.tripod.com/~klok/WRINKLY_.HTM
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