I found the village hall where I was doing last night's talk easily enough, and there were no traffic jams, so I arrived with loads of time to spare. I'd rather do it that way round, and go through my talk again in my head sitting in the car, than be sitting in stationary traffic or hunting for an apparently non-existent venue as the minutes tick by. It was a nice village. There was a sign outside the pub on the way up to the village hall that read 'Beer runs out soon. Please panic buy'. As I sat in the car I saw a small bird with a very dark patch on top of its head, and no other obvious markings, flit about in a tree and then suddenly swing upside down below the branchit was perching on to pick some morsel out of the top of the hedge below, so I wondered if it was a blackcap, given there is such a thing. I looked them up on the RSPB site this morning and it could have been. Apparently the song is very distinctive, but I didn't hear it singing, and the RSPB didn't say whether it was likely to hang upside down from branches. The talk went fine, though the hall had dreadful acoustics and I had to wear a clip on microphone, which meant I had to be careful how much I moved my head.
Today I returned to working on the back garden, and kept away from the new deck, since it turned out that the reason the Systems Administrator hadn't pressed on with construction the other day was that it was impossible to move beams around with my face centimetres from the work. Which is fair enough. It is going to have a boardwalk path to it, design to be finalised after the rest of the deck has been built and we can see what it looks like. I fancy a Japanese style one, with two lengths parallel to each other but offset, overlapping in the middle. Apparently witches can only run in straight lines and so can't manage the corner and can't get across. I'm sure it would be a useful precaution to keep witches off. Alternatively you could say that by forcing people to pause and take a sideways step as they approach the deck, you slow them down and make them focus on the moment. The SA is not too fussed about witches, and is not sure about doing a sideways step while carrying a deckchair and a gin and tonic, so we'll see. The SA's idea is that the boardwalk could be curved. The deck is going to have a back, to give protection from the south-westerlies, and to stop the hedge growing out across it, and to make it feel slightly enclosed and more of a place. The design of the back also has to be decided once the deck is in place. I don't know if it should have an umbrella of some vaguely oriental design. We are not really designers, making each bit up as we go along when we can see the effect of what we have done already.
I finally found a home for three glass ornaments I bought at least year's Chelsea Flower Show. They are solid glass, quite thick and roughly egg shaped in outline, in blue and green, and they come with metal loops at the top for hanging them up. They were from a brother and sister team trading as Hayhoe Designs, and I'd been eyeing up their stand for several years before settling on a trio of what they call glass leaves (I think they look more like fruit myself) for starters. Then I couldn't immediately see exactly where to put them. The back garden is starting to get quite full of ornaments, to the point where in the not too distant future there won't be room for any more, except small details that you only see when you're right on top of them. Some people, famously Christopher Lloyd and Beth Chatto, loathe sculptures, ornaments or eyecatchers in the garden. I love them, but it's essential to avoid becoming cluttered. Each needs its own space and frame, and they mustn't be allowed to obtrude on each other.
The glass leaves, or fruit, needed to hang from a tree, which reduced the list of possible locations, and I wanted to put them somewhere so that, if they fell, they wouldn't either break or get lost. I finally settled on a crab apple in the front garden, near where I already have a Whichford bespoke egg shaped obilesk with an inscription on it. They're suspended using fishing line, which is almost invisible but difficult to tie in a tight knot, so if they do come undone they'll just fall on earth, or ground covering plants, and I should find them again. I like them enough that I might buy some more, if the people are at Chelsea again this year. The news on their website is still for 2011, but they're probably still in business and just haven't updated the site. I really liked their glass panels, but they were quite expensive, and the SA was bullish about how it would be possible to make them at home. Whether we'd have time is another question.
The 'Taihaku' survived the hail storm, by the way, though the lawn is becoming littered with fallen petals, and its days of glory for this year are numbered. At least it came out. A good friend of the SA lost all of the flowers on his magnolia, hit by one cold night at critically the wrong moment.
Showing posts with label design. Show all posts
Showing posts with label design. Show all posts
Friday, 13 April 2012
Wednesday, 25 May 2011
a very pleasant lazy day
I had lunch today with some beekeeping friends, plus one honorary beekeeper. It was very pleasant sitting in somebody else's garden in the sunshine. Our host tells me that I should sit and contemplate oftener, and she is probably right, but when you are at home things that need doing always catch your eye. My friend's garden is beautifully tidy, much tidier than mine (though I suppose it helps at this time of the year not being infested with mares tail), but even so I couldn't resist teasing a tiny piece of annual meadow grass out from between two paving slabs in the otherwise almost weed-free patio. There were a couple of bigger bits under the garden table, but it seemed too rude and eccentric to crawl under the table to pull them out.
I have seen my friend's garden develop over the past several years into an enclosed space with a real sense of place. It is a good sized town garden, that runs gently uphill away from the house. When she first lived there it was divided half way down its length by a small retaining wall and narrow flower bed. There was a great expanse of lawn, and a little planting around the edges. She says that there used to be almost no birds, presumably because there was no cover for them, and not much in the way of forage. With the help of two designers (Writtle trained, I was happy to hear) and a sympathetic landscaper it has been gradually transformed. The bisecting wall, thin bed and steps have gone, replaced by a grass slope so that the eye can run smoothly from the house to the furthest point. The narrow borders around the edge have been made wider, which allows for decent planting, and brought forward around half way up the garden to divide it so that you can't see all of it at once from any single point. She has planted quite a few birch trees, which went in as semi-mature specimens in high summer a few years back. She followed her landscaper's instruction to keep them well watered diligently, and lost very few, an example I cite now to customers who ask if they can plant trees in the summer.
Birds have come into the garden, and it feels more secure and comfortable for people too. It is unsettling to be marooned in the middle of a large blank space. As a child I was never too keen on recreation grounds, apart from the fact that I disliked sport, and much preferred the woodland gardens of Killerton. My friend's garden has achieved a sense of being in a place by dint of putting limits around it, in the form of shrubs, birch trunks and pergolas. Putting an object in the middle of a space, either a specimen plant or some sort of sculpture, can achieve the same effect, which seems to work for animals as well as people. I have noticed if we have a vase of flowers on the dining room table and one of the cats is lying on the table (sorry, but we do wipe the table before serving food on it), the cat will lie next to the vase oftener than not.
The winter plant casualties were about as I would expect. Sweet bay, cut to the ground but sprouting from ground level. Daphne bholua 'Jacqueline Postill' also sprouting from very low down, which did not entirely surprise me, given how mine suckers. Ceanothus mostly dead, though I was surprised to see one branch of one shrub throwing leaves from the actual trunk. Whether it will ever make a decent shaped plant again is another matter. Choisya ternata battered but coming back from low down.
The latest project has been to make a paved area behind a rolling bank of soil, held back by a stone retaining wall, at the very top of the garden. This is a good idea, as it means that your walk up the hill leads to a definite place. There are some boulders and ferns, and I see scope for artworks as finances permit and the right object crops up.
We were royally well fed, and had a thoroughly lazy afternoon, apart from our host. It is very nice to relax in a garden, and so much easier when it isn't your own.
I have seen my friend's garden develop over the past several years into an enclosed space with a real sense of place. It is a good sized town garden, that runs gently uphill away from the house. When she first lived there it was divided half way down its length by a small retaining wall and narrow flower bed. There was a great expanse of lawn, and a little planting around the edges. She says that there used to be almost no birds, presumably because there was no cover for them, and not much in the way of forage. With the help of two designers (Writtle trained, I was happy to hear) and a sympathetic landscaper it has been gradually transformed. The bisecting wall, thin bed and steps have gone, replaced by a grass slope so that the eye can run smoothly from the house to the furthest point. The narrow borders around the edge have been made wider, which allows for decent planting, and brought forward around half way up the garden to divide it so that you can't see all of it at once from any single point. She has planted quite a few birch trees, which went in as semi-mature specimens in high summer a few years back. She followed her landscaper's instruction to keep them well watered diligently, and lost very few, an example I cite now to customers who ask if they can plant trees in the summer.
Birds have come into the garden, and it feels more secure and comfortable for people too. It is unsettling to be marooned in the middle of a large blank space. As a child I was never too keen on recreation grounds, apart from the fact that I disliked sport, and much preferred the woodland gardens of Killerton. My friend's garden has achieved a sense of being in a place by dint of putting limits around it, in the form of shrubs, birch trunks and pergolas. Putting an object in the middle of a space, either a specimen plant or some sort of sculpture, can achieve the same effect, which seems to work for animals as well as people. I have noticed if we have a vase of flowers on the dining room table and one of the cats is lying on the table (sorry, but we do wipe the table before serving food on it), the cat will lie next to the vase oftener than not.
The winter plant casualties were about as I would expect. Sweet bay, cut to the ground but sprouting from ground level. Daphne bholua 'Jacqueline Postill' also sprouting from very low down, which did not entirely surprise me, given how mine suckers. Ceanothus mostly dead, though I was surprised to see one branch of one shrub throwing leaves from the actual trunk. Whether it will ever make a decent shaped plant again is another matter. Choisya ternata battered but coming back from low down.
The latest project has been to make a paved area behind a rolling bank of soil, held back by a stone retaining wall, at the very top of the garden. This is a good idea, as it means that your walk up the hill leads to a definite place. There are some boulders and ferns, and I see scope for artworks as finances permit and the right object crops up.
We were royally well fed, and had a thoroughly lazy afternoon, apart from our host. It is very nice to relax in a garden, and so much easier when it isn't your own.
Saturday, 21 May 2011
musings on a Burle Marx moment
Customers are still shopping, despite the drought. It felt quiet, but we keep putting plants out for sale and there are spaces to put them in, so they must be selling (either that or the boss needs to keep an eye out for plant rustlers). The tally on the tills at the end of the day was quite respectable. It was quiet enough, though, that I had time to think while putting plants out for sale.
I was given the mandate to titivate some of the display tables, and had a little Burle Marx moment with blocks of colour, a swirl of lime-green santolina and a chunk of a dark purple form of Geranium pratense. I enjoy that sort of planting in public gardens, without feeling the desire to do it at home, which set me thinking, after yesterday's outing, about the difference between public and private gardens. I was chatting recently to somebody who didn't like the walled garden at Marks Hall. She found it too impersonal, and liked gardens that felt as though they were loved. She was also not keen on modernism, and liked shaggy gardens, which is fair enough, as it is a matter of personal taste. I like both, and find it's the drearily tidy that get me down. I did once go on a tour that had a major designed garden, as featured in garden magazines, as the main feature, and the private garden of a botanical illustrator as the filler, and found to my surprise that I preferred the latter. I did respond to the emotional warmth of the loved private garden, but I also found the famous design heavy and ponderous, seen in the flesh.
I think gardens that are designed as public spaces should be judged on their own merits, and not on how closely they approximate to a private garden. They have to meet different needs and cope with different pressures, for a start. On the last two occassions that I've been to Anglesey Abbey, designed as a (large) private family garden and now owned by the National Trust, significant bits of the garden were closed because they could not cope with the pressure of visitors' feet. The first time we went was in autumn, and we discovered, to our irritation and after the NT had charged us 50p at the entrance for a photocopied plan of the dahlia planting, that the lawn between the dahlia beds was roped off, and we could only view them from the ends. The second time we went was in snowdrop time, and every grass path and lawn was shut, so we had access to about one quarter of the site. The National Trust says that they are keeping the layout as designed by Lord Fairhaven, but the trouble is the original design can only cope with a fraction of the visitors that will fit into the car park and cafe.
I would not want crisp designed rows of iris alternating with neatly clipped rows of box at home, much as I enjoy looking at them at Marks Hall, because they would be boring to maintain. It would feel like outdoor housework. This is one of the other differences between the grand and the domestic garden. The grand garden is maintained by paid staff. The garden is the output. The owner of the garden is making a statement 'Look, I am so busy and important I don't do these things myself, and so wealthy I can afford to pay other people to do them for me'. The domestic garden, tended at least in large part by the devoted owner, is a process as much as a thing. When I am in my garden, weeding and planting and clipping and tying up, and looking at toads and birds and beetles, the point is being in the garden as much as having a garden. Monty Don said in his Italian garden series that one of the differences between English and Italian gardens was that in Italy a fine garden was something successful people might have, but they paid other lowly people to look after it. Owners participating in the manual work was a peculiarly English phenomenon.
That was about as far as my musings got, before work intervened. At five o'clock I stopped designing display tables and started watering again. Now, as soon as I have done my back exercises, I shall start watering here, and continue, probably, until it gets dark.
I was given the mandate to titivate some of the display tables, and had a little Burle Marx moment with blocks of colour, a swirl of lime-green santolina and a chunk of a dark purple form of Geranium pratense. I enjoy that sort of planting in public gardens, without feeling the desire to do it at home, which set me thinking, after yesterday's outing, about the difference between public and private gardens. I was chatting recently to somebody who didn't like the walled garden at Marks Hall. She found it too impersonal, and liked gardens that felt as though they were loved. She was also not keen on modernism, and liked shaggy gardens, which is fair enough, as it is a matter of personal taste. I like both, and find it's the drearily tidy that get me down. I did once go on a tour that had a major designed garden, as featured in garden magazines, as the main feature, and the private garden of a botanical illustrator as the filler, and found to my surprise that I preferred the latter. I did respond to the emotional warmth of the loved private garden, but I also found the famous design heavy and ponderous, seen in the flesh.
I think gardens that are designed as public spaces should be judged on their own merits, and not on how closely they approximate to a private garden. They have to meet different needs and cope with different pressures, for a start. On the last two occassions that I've been to Anglesey Abbey, designed as a (large) private family garden and now owned by the National Trust, significant bits of the garden were closed because they could not cope with the pressure of visitors' feet. The first time we went was in autumn, and we discovered, to our irritation and after the NT had charged us 50p at the entrance for a photocopied plan of the dahlia planting, that the lawn between the dahlia beds was roped off, and we could only view them from the ends. The second time we went was in snowdrop time, and every grass path and lawn was shut, so we had access to about one quarter of the site. The National Trust says that they are keeping the layout as designed by Lord Fairhaven, but the trouble is the original design can only cope with a fraction of the visitors that will fit into the car park and cafe.
I would not want crisp designed rows of iris alternating with neatly clipped rows of box at home, much as I enjoy looking at them at Marks Hall, because they would be boring to maintain. It would feel like outdoor housework. This is one of the other differences between the grand and the domestic garden. The grand garden is maintained by paid staff. The garden is the output. The owner of the garden is making a statement 'Look, I am so busy and important I don't do these things myself, and so wealthy I can afford to pay other people to do them for me'. The domestic garden, tended at least in large part by the devoted owner, is a process as much as a thing. When I am in my garden, weeding and planting and clipping and tying up, and looking at toads and birds and beetles, the point is being in the garden as much as having a garden. Monty Don said in his Italian garden series that one of the differences between English and Italian gardens was that in Italy a fine garden was something successful people might have, but they paid other lowly people to look after it. Owners participating in the manual work was a peculiarly English phenomenon.
That was about as far as my musings got, before work intervened. At five o'clock I stopped designing display tables and started watering again. Now, as soon as I have done my back exercises, I shall start watering here, and continue, probably, until it gets dark.
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