Re: Beware Long Tale

Thanks Gay!
That's very close to the philosophy William Morris had, and why he objected to the 'restoration' of buildings, and why he set up the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. Will try and find some good quotes... 
Cheers, Rowan
Ventnor, Isle of Wight, Britain

On Tuesday, Jul 26, 2011, at 16:02 Europe/London, Gay Klok wrote:


For those who are interested - A piece from my journal re "Gardens?"



Nov 27, 2002  - © Nov 27, 2002

"The Garden is a Living Thing"

A garden should be in a constant state of fluid change, expansion,
experiment, adventure; above all it should be an inquisitive, loving
but self-critical journey on the part of its owner.
H.E.Bates

It is nearly Christmas time and that is hard to believe. Such a lot is
happening in all our lives, the time seems to rush by. It only seems
yesterday that I was busy cooking the Christmas ham and plum pudding
in between rushing out to the garden to see what had come into bloom
in the last hours. It is nearly a year since our good friends, Maggie
and Jack, Suite101 members, came to meet us and the gardens, all the
way from chilly Canada.

But when I rush out into the garden now, I can see that twelve months
have passed. The garden has grown up! And all that hard labour of last
Autumn is paying off. The torn clothes and bodies from trying to force
the rose bushes into some semblance of order have been worthwhile, it
is certainly going to be a good year for the roses. The back aches
from digging up and carting the huge, over the top bushes or trees to
a new bed, are also just memories. The smugness and delight I feel on
observing their freedom to grow tall and strong and the liberation of
their neighbors may be seen in the lushness of new growth with room to
stretch their arms. That is worth every little twinge of rheumatism.
Why do gardeners not learn to give ample space when planting? We show
we are patient when, at the age of sixty something, we buy a tree that
takes twelve years before producing its first bloom. Yet we never
quite give enough space between the trees and bushes we plant in our
new gardens.
The garden has been open to quite a few garden clubs this year and the
new [enforced] paths worked well. We had to create new ways around the
garden because plants were beginning to grab the passing visitor or,
in the worse instances, stop them completely in their tracks. We built
new paths around the frustrated plant and now everyone is happy.
Over the past years, Kees and I have attended conferences arranged by
the Historic Garden Society. Themes have included restoration of
historic gardens and it was many a 'discussion' I became embroiled in
as to what would have been the correct manner in our replacing and
refreshing our city garden. The original garden may have been more
than one hundred years old. The English oak is certainly quite
ancient.
The first question I would ask the young, enthusiastic landscapers was
"What plants should the sticky weed and docks be replaced with?" and
the answer was always "Take the garden back to its best period"
This answer always puzzled me. How was I to know when the 'best'
period' was? I was not lucky enough to have found any old photographs.
There had not been many owners of the property. We are only the sixth
in nearly two hundred years. We did find some cobblestones buried
under four feet of soil. Was that the original carriage way? If it was
and we were to restore it, it would mean digging up the whole of the
narrow and extremely long garden. Should we plant only the trees and
flowers that were obtainable from the nurseries fifty, eighty or a
hundred years ago? And what about all the lovely plantings that may
have been created forty years ago? And our own plantings over the last
thirty years?

No! I cannot accept that! By its very nature, a garden is a living
thing. An old garden always retains the story of the many gardeners
who have toiled with love in its borders. Their likes, their dislikes,
the fashions of their time and their personalities may all be read as
each new caretaker comes to work in the garden. The 'new' gardener
will leave their own personality as a stamp in the history of the
garden

The garden that is finished is dead
H.E.Bates



--
Gay Klok Tasmania
http://members.tripod.com/~klok/WRINKLY_.HTM
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