I can see that my book expenses could go up... :-) The local library doesn't have any of the three you list so I'm going to check to see if they can order them in for me before I resort to laying out cash! If I was to buy just one, which one would you suggest? (The problem with library books is that you have to give the books back!)

I spent a few hours this afternoon starting to draw the front garden to scale, using the property survey to get the main space/building outlines. This is going to take some time - spring may catch up to me and I'll end up 'winging it' as usual :-)

There's always a reason for whatever it is I'm doing in the garden but it's not always obvious to someone looking at the garden. My disablity needs sometimes force things into odd layouts etc. Back in 2006 when we were a host garden on the local tour, we got a lot of questions about what certain metal structures in the front garden were. They are more or less arrayed around the sundial and guesses as to their purpose included that they were something to do with a sun clock or that they were something to do with the zodiac! What they actually are is supports to allow me to walk around in the bed to deadhead and weed. So sometimes the right question/right answer is obscure and only obvious to a few people 'in the know'. I think all that fits into your conceptual view somewhere. It also demonstrates that 'reading' the garden can be not a straightforward thing unless you know the starting point. What I struggle with at times is trying to address the functional needs in a way that satisfies design principles to make a space that is both beautiful and functional. It is sometimes easier said than done!

I suggest you get The Poetics of Gardens as it is the most accessible. I will try to write something coherent about the other two and the conceptual in general and post it on my blog.

OK - I've just ordered that one and will try to get the other two through the library. Can you give me the link to your blog please?

I thought I would e.mail you but you don't show your address so here you go:

Here is a link that might be useful: beyond a garden full of colour

Tony,

Thanks for finally including the link to your blog, the expanded content suits your abilities so much better than what has appeared here on the design forum. Do you actually do all your writing so very early in the morning, as the time stamps on your entries would seem to indicate?

The level of interchange on almost all the various forums I read seems so uninspired lately, I have mostly stopped posting at all, and stick to reading news from various sites around the world, in-lieu of having the actual spare change to do much traveling this year, although a short trip to Baja California in May is in the works...

Thanks for the link. I don't show my e-mail address because I make an effort to avoid spam. A key part of that is being careful to try to avoid displaying my e-mail address. When I have no choice, I often use a secondary one that I can ditch if it attracts spam. I haven't had spam in about 2 years now....

Ink - I finished The Poetics of Gardens a day or so ago. I am undecided what I think of it! It's an odd book in many ways. It reads, in part, like a particularly erudite travel guide for the gardens they describe:-) What the reader is supposed to learn from the examples is less clear. What I came away with mostly strongly is confirmation that the gardens that appeal to me most are those with strong patterns, particularly geometric ones. I really like the Islamic chahar bagh style. I had read a fair bit about them last winter as part of educating myself about the garden culture of a friend who had just bought her first house here and wanted to incorporate her culture into her garden here. The Chinese and Japanese imperial gardens that were described/drawn looked much more chaotic. Certainly some of the described Japanese ways to manipulate perception of space make a lot of sense and I do like the look of the more natural looking small scale Japanese gardens. The raked gravel and rocks though don't do a thing for me :-)

My taste has certainly changed over the years as the formal style garden with strong geometry didn't used to appeal to me very much. But now I look for ways to incorporate the stronger, clearer lines that tend to lend that formal feel.

Of the gardens they describe, I've only seen Bowood, Sissinghurst and Blenheim in person. If I was still travelling, next on my list would be some of the French and Italian formal gardens and Alhambra and Generalife. I would also like to see Shalamar and the Taj Mahal.

I found the 'Amerikanergarten Chats' section very awkwardly written and the designs produced unsatisfactory. They were interesting as patterns/drawings but looked to me like they would be awkward spaces to actually live in - i.e. they seemed more intended to be looked at than lived in.

So what should I have absorbed by reading this book?

Probably the first part of the book is the most valuable. There is another book in the series called "The Meaning of Gardens" by Francis and Hester and this is what I was hoping "Poetics" would lead you to. I think you should have absorbed that garden making is more than arranging plants and stones and trees and that there is more than one way to make one. If you have a grasp of what your garden means to you and why, the realisation becomes a deep personal journey. As an alternative to the ubiquitous 'garden full of colour' you will find the journey enlightening.

"garden possibilities are further shaped and suggested by the balance (or tension) found at a site between natural growth and the artifices of man."

from 'The Poetics of Gardens'

I did get that too - but then my garden has always been about a 'deep personal journey' - even though it probably looks like it's just a 'garden full of color' to an average viewer.

I did like the opening paragraph of the second chapter (The Designer's Place) which ends: 'To compose is to adjust the balance and tensions of yin and yang, - water and mountains, human order and the Tao of nature, sun and shadow, breeze and stillness, sound and silence - and create new relations that have meaning for us.' A bit mystical-sounding for practical me but I get the drift...
:-)

That does sort of imply though that it might be difficult at times to fully understand the meaning of someone else's garden. I think that gets expressed on this forum when people (including me at times) react badly to what is perceived as criticism that has a personal overtone. An 'objective' viewer of the garden is reacting to the balances of things without knowing the underlying subjective meaning to the garden-maker that makes the garden personally meaningful - and beautiful - for them even if the balances are less than ideal in an objective sense. I think my 'journey' of 'study and contemplation' over the past few years has helped give me a more balanced view of my garden. It's a bit easier now to step back and try to look at it more objectively - to try to see it through a 'stranger's' eyes'. The goal being keeping the garden's meaning for me while making it more satisfactory for the 'objective' viewer who may not be interested in looking for or understanding the personal meaning that is there for me, the garden-maker.

I'm still waiting for the other books you recommended to arrive via inter-library loan...

Woody & Ink,

I don't believe we have ever discussed the various multi-level viewing perspectives that gardens can/should provide. Doubtless, gardens will own a deeply personal perspective of the designer. However, I am of the opinion that few well-designed gardens take only this perspective into consideration.

I certainly try to create a design that is appealing on many levels while yet, perhaps the multi-level design is only perceived by few. To be honest, I am always intrigued to hear a garden guest's interpretation of my work. I learn so much from just listening to impressions tangential to my own.

IronBelly

Woody, I have just discovered an excellent new-to-me magazine titled "La Vie Claire" which is published four times a year. Although available on-line I would encourage you to locate a hard copy of the present Spring issue and read Tovah Martin's aricle about Barbara Damrosch and her landscaping philosophy. She may be your kindred spirit.

IronBelly, why should I care what others think of my gardens? They reflect my varied interests and experiments. Is it okay to garden for one's selfish interest or must we also worry about public comment? Just what is the 'heart' of a garden? Can it be planned or does it evolve as the gardener experiments with his own creativity?

Dan, if you remember ' Study and Contemplation' had your name on it so it comes as a surprise when you say that "few well-designed gardens take only this perspective into consideration." Because you will note that this thread is specifically about the "Conceptual Stuff".

If someone wants to make a garden to show others, this would be part of the process of 'study and contemplation' that would include personal motivation.

Would you invite a stranger into your garden but not let them into your bedroom? Both say something about who you are but what do you want to share, to expose?

Nandina - I can't seem to read that article on-line but I searched on the Barbara Damrosch name and found her web site. From the photo gallery, I'd say her style really appeals to me! So I'll see if I can find that magazine article. It didn't seem to be listed yet in the articles on her site.

IB - because the colorful garden is in the front yard, I am conscious that there are other viewers of it vs the woodland garden in the backyard, which is primarily just for our pleasure and for that of close friends and family. The two different 'audiences' does have an impact - many people do like a flowery garden and one in a highly visible place is a guaranteed way to get to know your neighbours! And some passing strangers too! (When the wisteria tree/bush blooms, there usually is at least one stranger each year stop to ask what it is...) The retired neighbours on the south side and their large family of daughters and multiple grandchildren always comment on how much they look forward to various of their favorite plants starting to bloom. So feedback like that tends to drive you towards an over-the-top floral display just for the fun of it! But I have increasingly become more interested in bringing a stronger sense of balance and order to it all so that is what is largely driving my efforts in the past few years.

It is interesting to get feedback about your garden - even if it's not something that affects what you do with your garden. In 2006 we were asked to be a host garden on the local tour. My first reaction was to say 'no' because the garden wasn't in a state I felt comfortable to have 700 or so strangers walk through! We got talked into it though and it turned out to be an interesting experience. The most common comment was that it must be a lot of work. I consider it pleasure.... The second most common comment was regarding a Vyvyann Pennell clematis that was in full bloom on tour day. I still have strangers approach me and ask if I am 'the lady on the garden tour' and then proceed to ask the name of that clematis and where to get it! Flowers, for all that they get disregarded/looked down on, make a lasting impression and have a strong emotional appeal to a lot of people. I think for the average person, when they think 'garden', they think 'flowers'. The deeper you get into gardening, the more the challenge becomes not just growing flowers well but presenting them in a coherent setting that works on several levels. I rarely read gardening books now that are just about plants; I prefer to read about garden design, garden history, biographies of notable garden related persons, 'biographies' of the making of various gardens. But my garden journey started with flowers in my maternal great-grandmother's garden when I was only a couple of years old. And flowers will be an important element in my garden as long as I'm gardening.

Whew ... talk about "impressions tangential to my own"! Perhaps I left the thrust of my thoughts dangling in mid-air through poorly chosen verbiage.

Perchance it is my upbringing in the skilled trades. However, I (we) feel an obligation to pass our skills on to the next generation. It is also an unrelenting commitment to self-police and hold the standards high although, often technically, not required to get the job accomplished.

Although I know Nandina's comments are not meant this way; I have always thought the oft-heard comment on these many forums, "As long as I like it, that is all that matters!" was quintessentially snotty. It is a shallow comment often used as a churlish response to "justify" poor decisions. With NandinaÂs depth of background and experience, I would be hard pressed to believe that even her efforts that "reflect my varied interests and experiments" would not hold interest for many others as well.

On a personal level, I have always felt that every citizen of this good Earth has a common responsibility that behooves each of us to leave this place just a little better than the way we found it. I also hold to a Native American philosophy that we donÂt own the Earth, we are merely allowed to temporarily borrow it from our grand children. While I donÂt really care, per say, "what others think of my gardens", I care very much that gardens afford others an opportunity to think. If they cause one to think; so much the better. The concern is selfless and squarely juxtaposed to grooming oneÂs ego.

Although I am sure that many will not embrace my belief (and practice) that all gardens (Not bedrooms, Tony.) are meant to be shared, I will respectfully defer to otherÂs choice to reserve certain areas as personal and private. However, I find it a sad thing indeed when perfectly lovely gardens remain hidden behind locked gates and tall fences. To my way of thinking, it is the enforcer of such behaviors that is the big loser. Quite simply, people act differently when in a garden setting. They have a strong tendency to expose aspects of their personality that often remain hidden. I have been able to enjoy some truly wonderful moments with total strangers, simply because they were in my garden landscape. I also know that it is a superior place to negotiate.

To be sure, I make some design provisions both appealing and protective of children. Blooms suitable as cut flowers are grown near the sidewalks for instant bouquets. Balloon Flowers within reach never fail to capture a small childÂs curiosity when shown how to pop them. The blooms of Iris pallida  which smell like grape bubble gum  are sure to bring evermore children because their young friend (who came last year) just canÂt wait to have his/her buddy smell one for the first time. Poisonous plants are relegated to less accessible areas.

Many of the early bloomers (crocus, daffodils, tulips, Pasque flowers, etc) are planted in the front. It is amazing how many people make a special point of walking and/or driving past just to capture a moment of springtime  real springtime  as we emerge from the doldrums of winterÂs grip.

Am I wrong or is this just good citizenship? I donÂt see citizenship or good design (coupled with study and contemplation) as being an either/or choice. You can delightfully enjoy both.

IronBelly

Some heavy stuff there IB. I don't think anyone (apart from you) could infer that getting in touch with your gardens personal meaning has anything at all to do with 'good citizenship', back in the day we would call that 'laying a trip'. I have no doubt that yours is a very personal garden and when people visit they feel a connection not to a disconnected arrangement of plants and things but to you.

If I wanted to take what you are suggesting to the extreme, I see someone making a garden of delights for a fickle audience which would not express my personality even slightly, perhaps yours?

I lay on no trip but will concede to striving for a representative example. I consciously avoid the examples of poor design encountered on countless garden walks and tours.

To a large extent, I believe I can attribute the potential success or failure of a landscape design largely upon how well people are conveyed around the landscape. My first design consideration is always, "How am I going to get around the landscape?" Good, safe pathways, thoughtfully lain out will provide solid basis for excellent results; even for "someone making a garden of delights for a fickle audience".

Spending some thoughtful time focusing on conveyance should also force one to consider the various aspects of presenting a view -- both pro and con. It also encourages one to incorporate grading, hardscape and special features into the design considerations.

This thread is about conceptual stuff -- is it not? Should one not have a personal philosophy which drives and influences those concepts? Perhaps others use another starting place (and that is OK) but we all have to start somewhere.

As but one example: If you will remember back a number of years ago, Linda Engstrom provided details of an award winning design created by her. It was a small property that was essentially layed out in diagonals. When boiling this design down to basics, I saw pathway conveyance as one of the driving forces. (I will concede that, perhaps, she may not have thought of it in these terms.)

She was trying to add a sense of distance and depth to the small backyard. A perfect way to perceptually add distance across a square is to travel corner to corner at 45 degrees.

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These "longer pathways" were instrumental as one traversed to a "remote" raised patio seating area. To be sure, there was a lot more to the design than just pathways. However, even you should concede that consideration of those can, and often do, play a seminal role.

IronBelly

Iron Belly we may be talking at cross purposes here. In my opening diatribe you will note I ended with "The drawing of the line then becomes straightforward" and I see pathways as falling into that category. I do not see pathways as having an influence on the concept or motive for making a garden but as a tool to facilitate it.

Let me put it like this: if there is no destination, why have a pathway? If your idea is to move easily to multiple destinations you arrive at "How am I going to get around the landscape?" Why you are getting around the landscape comes before a diagonal arrangement of squares. If you want to lead the eye and the feet to the horizon for some reason the path would be different.

There is more than one way to skin a rabbit, the question I am posing is: why do you want to skin the rabbit in the first place?

I want to skin the rabbit so it will taste better. A small effort to clean the rabbit yields culinary rewards far in excess of the amount of effort required.

Why do people make music? Why do people make art? I guess the root is that it makes living more rewarding. A little effort and contemplation spent on landscape design also makes life more rewarding.

The abstract term "concept" can have almost unlimited definitions. Most anyone can conjure up a concept of their own. Some concepts may be clever and others might simply be espoused to justify their efforts. Truthfully, even that may be subjective to the viewer.

Remembering back to the far fetched definitions a garden that Ms. Derviss provided examples of a few years ago, one could certainly ask; What is the concept? ... that is if you even accept the notion that the examples provided qualify as a garden. For example; what is the concept behind the Blue Tree by Montreal's Claude Cormier. A single pine tree is camouflaged with 70,000 sky-blue Christmas ornaments outside of Sonoma, California.

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IronBelly

The blue tree doesn't do a thing for me - and doesn't fall into the category of 'garden' either in my books! But then my garden tastes are primarily practical and simple.

On the issue of paths, I'm not sure where my views fall into the IB-Ink range of opinions. Paths are, for me, an essential element that are both practical and have a charm on their own. I find that paths call you insistently to walk them, just to see where they go and see what there is to see. (Years ago when travelling in England, those signs that say 'footpath' with an arrow/finger pointing off across a field proved hard to resist!) Mostly my paths go where I want to walk - or the dogs want to patrol/run. But then they become places that demand that you plant with things to make attractive pictures. So, to some extent, the needs of the paths drive the garden too.

I like the pictures of the checkerboard garden - particularly that the diamonds are made up of smaller diamonds so they look like an argyle pattern. But paths they aren't in my books because I couldn't walk on those. I have always wanted to make a checkerboard garden but don't have a suitable place for one. The geometry appeals to me and I can think of lots of intriguing ways that color and plant texture, scent etc. could be used in one.

Where does the idea and the reality intersect?

I've heard others say, "My best gardens are the ones in my head in January."

Funny though, that my own head gardens never seem to pose the problems of my real, more humble ground. In my head, even though I try to be "realistic", I often "think" as though there were no financial barriers to needed improvements, no stupid ideas that will later require effort to rectify, no disappointing plants that fail to live up to their catalog press and none that are too puny or overgrown for their desired role. Also, the garden in my head has a singular lack of finite space restrictions, heat in August that makes garden work nearly unbearable, and, of course, mosquitoes.

Some of my internal gardens are inexpressibly beautiful and satisfying. The fact that activities related to gardening seems, for me, to stimulate visualization is probably one of the reasons I keep trying. It was a surprise to me when I discovered that descriptions of plants and gardens paint pictures in my mind. It's a pleasurable side effect. Even more pleasurable is the visual impressions that come for me in direct connection with a garden. Oddly enough, just walking a path can't do much for me unless I know the particular garden well. Which means that most garden visits...say to the Chicago or Missouri Botanical or homes on garden tours...are too incoherent for me to get any clear picture. Yet, I still love visiting gardens...Hmm, maybe because they seem to attract other gardeners as well as bees and butterflies.

I don't really think I'm staying with Tony's topic here. Just rambling. It's just that I'm fascinated by the connection between the imagined garden, the internal vision of a garden, and what ends up built and growing in the garden. My head gardens rarely make it into reality. I imagine that some designers manage to marry the functional and possible fairly intimately with their own internal perspective. I can only do so in a rudimentary way.

Charlotte

Aha! dragged you out of retirement Charlotte: good.

"the internal vision of a garden" has a particular resonance for you doesn't it and far from rambling I think your thoughts expand upon mine because it is that inner garden I am talking about. You are absolutely right though when you suggest that the real design is when trying to reconcile this unfettered 'dream' with the restraints of climate budget and space. Perhaps we need two sets of eyes, one for looking inward and the other set for looking out.

It's discussions like this one where I feel my English fails me. I'll try...
A few notes from the present moment:
Not sure if it's the state of the economy, or the fear that my apple trees are ill, but somehow, my approach to gardening has leaned towards the utilitarian. I can close my eyes and imagine gardens that are smart, glamorous, deeply meaningful.. yet, I cannot see myself ever having a garden without apple trees. Take them out of the picture, and all beauty becomes empty. I guess those trees are the 'heart' of my garden. They must be over 70 years old, planted by my husband's grandparents; it seems those people put the most effort in the orchard - they've turned sand into deep soil in this area, while elsewhere it's still sand.
Is gardening, for me, about connecting - to the past, and to Earth?

Exactamundo timbu.

If one day a handsome prince from Kanadja whisked you off to a far off land on his white charger and there you were in his castle with a barren garden the first thing you would want to do is plant an apple tree. Naysayers would arrive from the flat land of grass and sneer at your lack of walkways and you would drift off into a reverie of ripe red apples. Your dreams would remind you of home and family and where you came from and connect you with your roots. Your garden may not be smart or glamorous but it will have heart and be deeply meaningful.

Thank you, Tony, for the welcome. Haven't really retired, but have been away from internet access off-and-on for several months.

Nice of you to give me credit for suggesting "that the real design is when trying to reconcile this unfettered 'dream' with the restraints of climate budget and space." I really like the "unfettered" part. Unfortunately my unfettered dreams have a tendency to become messy plots of chaos when they take form in the real world.

Timbu- I think your apple trees work Tony's question from a different, and very powerful, starting point. You have me wondering whether for some of us "garden making" is a way of expressing some sort of answer to the core question: Who am I? In a way, I think that's also what Dan-Ironbelly is describing.

I love the way you put it: "I can close my eyes and imagine gardens that are smart, glamorous, deeply meaningful.. yet, I cannot see myself ever having a garden without apple trees. Take them out of the picture, and all beauty becomes empty. I guess those trees are the 'heart' of my garden...Is gardening, for me, about connecting - to the past, and to Earth?"

I can picture you "visiting" those apple trees. Someone else might, I suppose, tell a different story about a garden that might include leveling an old orchard to put in a swimming pool. Nothing wrong with swimming pools, but different lives create different meanings and so, ultimately, different gardens.

Charlotte

I know you girl and somewhere in here is next Sunday's sermon. Who am I?

What we do is take what is given and put our own stamp on it.

"A garden is a place and conceptualizing the design of that place needs some understanding of the sense of it and where you fit in and what you want to do there. The drawing of the line then becomes straightforward."

Come to think of it, Tony, I think it'd preach. Getting a sense of this place...understanding how we fit in...and what we're going to do here.

Yep, massage it a bit here and there and I'd have something for Sunday.

C

Handsome princes from Kanadja come a bit late, I'm afraid... If I found myself in the plains with a prince, I'd certainly plant an apple tree - or papaya tree, if the prince was more exotic.
Now Ink, how did you guess the lack of (paved) walkways?

Just a little note to add: "The Poetics of Space" is by Gaston
Bachelard, not Abelard (12th century churchman). A great book it is too.

Both the other two books came in today on inter-library loan. I've started reading The Poetics of Space - heavy going in the introduction (academic prose and philosophy are not my usual reading materials :-) but there appears to be interesting stuff to come if I persevere...

I don't know, Tony. If Poetics of Space is anything like the reviews and/or introduction mentioned by Woody, I really have to wonder.

Perhaps others can relate to "concepts" like my friend espoused in her blog. (See link below.)

IronBelly

IB - it get's better after the introduction... (although what, exactly, phonemonology is about still escapes me.... :-) Some of the French poetry quoted is lovely! (Fortunately translation is provided as it would otherwise severely tax my always-limited;now-vanishing French vocabulary!) So far, at least, I'm getting the sense that the development of my garden, with it's strong roots in my childhood home and garden dreams and reveries, has close parallels with what the author is talking about. I suspect your friend might not find it not incompatible if she waded through the dense stuff! (It would be nice if academics could express themselves without the need to descend into mind-numbing/eye-glazing verbiage so frequently :-)

While the guise might be to provide a public service and enlighten the masses with a review, foreword or introduction; in reality, this is rarely true. Writers (particularly when writing reviews) often write to impress other writers. Unfortunately, this practice can often reach levels of the absurd in high academia. Excessive florid language tends to define things by remaining so abstract and ethereal that it is hard to argue against -- especially when you don't have the foggiest notion of what has been said. Convenient, huh?

Is this where we are going with "The Conceptual Stuff"?

I am always a believer in discovering the root cause. Sometimes when we try too hard to embellish things, we lose sight of the important things. I included the link in my posting above because I think my friend Cathy thoroughly understands and explains the root concept of gardening.

Clearly, her photo of the "No Trespassing" sign is the antithesis of any worthy garden concept. She runs a you-cut flower farm of two acres. By most anyone's standards, high-end design is clearly lacking. It is an old Iowa farmstead -- and shows it. However, the place is magical; as shown in the smiling faces of everyone who graces her driveway off of a simple, country gravel road.

Her garden beds are arranged in straight, "corn row fashion" to accommodate customers wielding shears and a water jug. People come and dont want to leave her gardens. Isnt that a worthy concept to strive for? Is "neighborly" a concept or just a value?

And by the way: So as not to suggest rejection of what others have already contributed; I am awaiting arrival of the book, Poetics of Space in the next day or two. I am just trying to keep an open mind here and develop a better understanding. Sometimes the best approach is not the normal approach.

IronBelly

I have no idea how that "No Trespassing" garden is relevant to a general discussion about the conceptual side of garden design. I can however see how it might be relevant to the garden owner though and no amount of "should's" and "must's" from a gardeners blog is going to change that, who knows what the story behind the sign is. When you say that this garden with the sign is the "antithesis of any worthy garden concept" you sound like a garden Nazi so no wonder you support someone who says that a "Gardens, like hearts, should be open to all" no they shouldn't.

If that is what you want your garden to be IB then I see great merit in it and if you arrived at that decision through study and contemplation this is also fine. Your study and contemplation does not trump all others ideas though. Just imagine that the lady with the sign lives on a corner lot and doesn't want kids cutting the corner and trampling a track through her hedge and grass, do you see how she might prefer the sign to your "open to all" attitude?

I suggested those, admittedly heavy books to woody because she was interested in the inner journey that leads from the universal why to a personal why. There are no "you must or must not's" in any of them.

IB - I pretty much guarantee it'll be a struggle to get through the Introduction :- ) Beyond the Introduction, there's some beautiful writing - athough still on the 'dense' academic side at times. I'm not sure if the meaning that is growing on me as I read it is the one that is intended but there is much that resonates for me. There seems to be a lot of emphasis on the childhood home as the source of a lot of the feeling and importance of images. My childhood home - and surrounding property/garden - was a very important part of my life. Elements of my childhood home definitely echo strongly through the house we built (renovated extensively rather than built from scratch..) and the garden we're making here. It does make me wonder though - in today's mobile society where people move quickly from place to place; house to house, and where properties are small and time spent in a garden is often short or non-existant, what memories of a childhood home mean/will mean for kids growing up in these decades. (I'm getting old I fear :-) I think your friend's business (a) appeals to me a lot and (b) speaks to peoples yearning for a largely imaginary, romantic past/idealized garden - and flowers; flowers really do seem to 'speak' to people. Your friend's business taps into all that I think.

Here are a few of the poetic quotes I particularly liked:

A house that stands in my heart
My cathederal of silence
Every morning recaptured in dream
Every evening abandoned
A house covered with dawn
Open to the winds of my youth

A lighted lamp in the window
Watches the secret heart of night

(That one made me want to put a light somewhere in the depths of the garden...)

Oh longing for places that were not
Cherished enough in that fleeting hour
How I long to make good from far
The forgotten gesture, the additional act.

The warm, calm nest
In which a bird sings
.........
Recalls the songs, the charms
The pure threshod
Of my old home.

I think your friend's business is evocative of all that.

This line is about what a mollusk's motto could be; there's something in it of the feeling of my gardening - except my goal is to do both!:
'one must live to build one's house, and not build one's house to live'

Woody,

I read part of the introduction online. I can only guess that the author of that pap was pretty impressed with himself -- I was not. I believe I may just skip that portion of nonsense and just begin by reading the original portion of the book. What I am hoping to find (and what I enjoy in reading) is someone cleverly describing or explaining something from a unique or overlooked perspective. This approach can help one actually "see" some "obvious things" that often remain hidden or overlooked in plain sight. Quoting Robert Frost: "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference."

I have to admit that I have never cherished a sense of "emphasis on the childhood home". I have also never embraced the need for privacy, so often sought by posters to this forum. I realize that I am probably residing in a very small minority on these two items -- which perhaps explains why Tony & I seems to be at odds on this thread. I can't say that I enjoyed my childhood. To me, it was just a brutal right-of-passage on my way to becoming an adult. I have long maintained that I have NO desire to magically return to some period of my youth. I have always said, "The older I get; the better I like it." I will be 58 this summer and strongly maintain that assertion now, more than ever.

Rather than confining myself to a small space behind a fence and locking the world out (some call that privacy) I always sought large, open areas, so readily available on the Midwestern prairies, to acquire solitude -- something quite different from privacy. It will be interesting to see if Gaston Bachelard addresses that concept in The Poetics of Space.

IronBelly

IB - The childhood home's importance in the book I think is as a reference point/touchstone for intimacy. The book is about houses, not gardens but it's easy to substitute garden for house in much of it. I think the real point of the book (Ink...?) is to explore what makes for intimate space and that, in some ways, depends on what was the early intimate space for a person - hence the childhood home. If that wasn't a 'warm and fuzzy' place for you IB, you'll have to relate his comments to what was a comfortable, intimate space for you - I hope you've had one somewhere in your life... My childhood was 'difficult' by many standards but my childhood home - my maternal grandparents' farm (no longer in active production - my grandfather was 80 when I was born and the property was starting to return to bush....) was a magical place for a child. I have very warm memories of growing up there and much of my garden is about recapturing the feel of things that were special for me there. That's not always easy or possible on 1/4 acre of suburbia when the reference property was 150 acres or so on a lake and the nearest neighbour was 1/4 mile or so away!

I, too, find the obsession for 'privacy' and the desire to wall yourself off from the neighbours with 6' woden fences claustrophobic and unfriendly. Perhaps we've just been blessed with good neighbours at both of our houses... When we moved here in 1999, there was no fence at all between us and the neighbour to the north, and hadn't been in the 40 years or so that the houses had been here. The neighbours would have preferred to keep it fence-free. We would have agreed, except we had a 'rescue' dog that was unreliably friendly with strangers so we put up a fence - but 4' chainlink, which is what most of the fences in the neighbourhood are - so it looks like one large property. My biggest fear for the garden is that the elderly neighbours to the south will sell and we'll end up with a monster home with a wooden barricade fence blocking the light and view to the south. My fantasy is to buy their property, tear down the house and expand my garden south! :- )

I think you may need to slog through some of the Introduction to get a sense of what point the author is trying to make. Because it's not about gardening specifically, you need to get that overall sense of what the book is about. I'm not totally sure if my understanding is what the intent was or not... Ink - time to wade in here I think - am I wandering off the trail, beguiled by French poetry, or not...?

An update for Ink - if you're there...? - and IB... The books are due back at the library today. I finished The Poetics of Space but am only half way through the A Pattern Language one and will try to renew that one.

I think it'll take a while to digest the sense of the Poetics of Space and extract practical meaning from it. The main message I got from it was to think about what would make the space feel more intimate. And I got an appreciation for French poetry! (I'll have to find some English translations of some of it for reading next winter....!) One of the quoted lines near the end of the book was one beautifully appropriate for this time of year: 'I live in the tranquility of leaves, summer is growing.' The book was worth it just to read that line! :-)

The A Pattern Language is quite different in writing style - much easier to read and more directly practical. It does have a very much Utopian/idealistic 1960s-early 1970s feel to it that seems out-of-touch with economics and other current realities at times. But the underlying issues are valid and make sense most of the time even when you think - 'that's an over simplification and wouldn't work in reality'. I didn't expect an education in urban planning though :-) I'm now at the parts that are more directly related to individual houses and gardens and finding that interesting and directly useful. It is somewhat reassuring to find that, through trial and error and 'gut feel', many things in my house and garden actually fit quite well with the 'patterns' recommended in the book.

The two books compliment each other quite well. The Poetics one is 'high falutin' and dense whereas the Pattern is very practical in orientation and uses plain language. But both are concerned with making space that is comfortable for people. IB - I suspect you might enjoy the A Pattern Language a lot more that Poetics.

So, Ink, thank you for adding to my education :-) I'm curious about how some of the places the authors of A Pattern Language refer to as developments they were involved in have fared over time. Do you know?

There are a number of web sites concerning Alexander and his projects, I have linked one below, but let it be said he is known more for teaching theory than for his built work. Your reaction to A Pattern Language was pretty much the consensus a while back but there has been a rise in interest lately. Asha, who used to post here a long time ago worked with Alexander, we need more input by the likes of him.

You will probably go back to 'The Poetics of Space' again if only for the poetry.

I was able to renew the A Pattern Language book at the library (it's not always possible to renew things sourced via inter-library loans...) so I will enjoy finishing that one too. It has given me lots of ideas for things I would do if I built a house from scratch and has given me useful ways of looking at garden space too. I did a Google image search just now and found pictures of some of the houses and buildings designed by him and the firms he was associated with. Very attractive, very 'liveable' places....

I'm kicking myrelf that I didn't write down the names of some of the French poets quoted in the Poetics book - some of them I have heard of before but others not. I most regret not writing down the name of the poet/name of the poem who wrote the 'I live in the tranquility of leaves' line... Ink, if you have the book and have a moment to look it up, could you please let me know the details on that? It was near the end of a chapter, one or two chapters before the last one.

It's in the chapter appropriately titled "intimate immensity" which is poetic in itself and was written by Jean Lescure nothing available in English as far as I know. In that same chapter there is a lot I relate to, I like this snippet from Rilke

....Silently the birds
Fly through us. O,I, who long to grow,

I look outside myself, and the tree inside me grows.

Thanks Ink. My French isn't up to reading an untranslated version so I will have to hope I can find a translation. (I had 'fun' trying to translate and then reading the provided translations but was appalled at my efforts! My translations, when possible at all, were very unpoetic :-)

This discussion amuses me. I posted here YEARS ago about wanting a very private and functional front yard--one that was completely screened from the street and yet provided entertainment spaces.

I was instantly reamed by no few people for wanting something weird and unfriendly--front yards should be ornamental, not an entertainment space, period, and it was WRONG to want to shut out the street view. Never mind that no one here has seen my neighborhood--never mind that there are a good dozen houses with the level of privacy I seek and about as many different total styles of house and garden as one can imagine in my very eclectic neighborhood with very large lots.

We have everything from Mediterranean houses with formal clipped gardens and sun-drenched yards to cabins in dense woods to Tudor-style houses with English cottage gardens to American cottage gardens to five-over-four-and-a-door cookie cutter colonials to 1970s geometric houses with loose, abstract juniper landscaping to lovely contemporary-traditional houses with highly landscaped woodland gardens to....well, EVERYTHING. We have people with no fences, people with 6' wooden privacy fences, people with picket fences, people with split-rail fences--in back AND front. People with no-knock policies and people with NO TRESPASSING, PRIVATE PROPERTY, KEEP OUT signs. People with naked front yards and people whose houses can't be seen at all from the street. 4500 square foot houses and five-car garages and 1000 square foot houses with no garages.

And yet when I said I wanted to screen my house as completely as possible from the street, people--including some designers--instantly told me what a horrible, unfriendly person I must be, and what a blight to the neighborhood ANY house so screened would be, and how weird it would be to have entertaining spaces in a (technical) front yard. (I'll let some of my neighbors know who have already done this. They'd be interested to hear it.)

No one, interestingly, asked me WHY I wanted this. The answer is quite logical. We have an enormous front yard, because of the shape of our lot, which serves no practical purpose. Being at the end of a cul-de-sac, we get no end of idiots who wander into the neighborhood and turn around in front of our house, staring into it and shining their headlights into the rooms. The back yard is mainly given over to a potager garden and children's play areas, as we have the neighborhood "fun yard," too, so the front is a better place for grownups. And I adore the feeling of intimacy in a garden and the sense of movement created by going from room to room--and garden rooms require garden walls, with borrowed views and intertwining paths. (These paths are fabulous for children, too--chase and hide-and-go-seek are a hundred times more fun with paths and rooms!)

Conversely, there is nothing more unpleasant to me than a flat, treeless, unscreened garden with beds bursting with 3' high perennials.

Did those who didn't like the idea ask? No, they said that obviously I hate my neighbors and should live in a place without any. (That's why I invited 300 to come over weekend after next, right?)

My main point here is that a garden can take many forms and still be a good garden--even unconventional ones in most neighborhoods. It's all about purpose and context. And those must always be considered.

Whether a garden is good or bad has nothing to do with whether it is public or private, sun-drenched or shady, practical (vegetable) or compulsive (a collector's garden) or cheap or common or....well, many things. Stella d'Oro daylilies can still be part of a very good design. It's all about fulfilling a purpose--almost any purpose--aesthetically. And that can be done many, many different ways.

Amusingly enough, I'd read--and, minus the hippie nonsense, largely agreed with--A Pattern Language not long before setting out on my garden design, and it, along with the patterns of traditional Chinese gardens, really inspired me in my quest! (No, my garden is NOT Asian, but it serves the same sorts of impulses.) Now, I don't remember who all condemned my "bizarreness" at that point, but a couple of the old regulars did from the outset on the basis that that kind of design could have no place in any neighborhood, period.

That close-mindedness doesn't seem like good design to me. It seems like not thinking about good design.

There were plenty problems with my initial design--its scope was to great to do at once, and it was TOO structural, especially since I've since turned away from modernist gardens, even though my house is modernist--that, too, was a big tripping point for those who could not reconcile themselves to a geometric landscape, period! THAT decision has more to do with economics than aesthetics, though--plenty of geometric modernist gardens appeal to me, but the level of hardscaping required is cost-prohibitive at this point and quite opposite the incremental approach I've adopted. It also had unnecessary elements, or rather elements that had goals that could be accomplished more inexpensively and more reasonably in other ways. But the central objections--geometry is bad/natural shapes good, using front yard for entertaining and having furniture bad/back yard good, screening front yard bad/public front yard good--didn't address truly design issues but addressed issues of prejudice or taste. (Those that addressed the DESIGN, I listened to and took into consideration.)

One of the most ridiculous arguments I got into at this site was about trees--again, years ago. A couple of people flatly declared that no tree over 35' in height had a place in a residential settings. NONE. No freaking kidding. I can't IMAGINE Mobile, Alabama, without its live oaks, among many other cities with their fabulous LARGE trees. There would be no tree-shaded boulevards in such a world! I happen to loathe neighborhoods with only "people-scale" trees, all younger than the houses. But not even I don't say they CAN'T have good design.

Design issues are about balance, grace, and function--with any number of constrictions or lack thereof. They aren't about absolute, blanket rules. Knot gardens and woodland gardens, sculptural gardens and prairie gardens can ALL have good design, even though each has a different and conflicting aesthetic. Internal rules are often the most important.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience in your previous posting here... My first time posting here was not fun either - in part due to my own attitude and reaction to comments I didn't like. While I still find comments at times that bother me, on the whole I enjoy the interplay here and am a little bit better at ignoring the stuff that doesn't appeal to me.

It sounds like you are still feeling very wounded by your previous experience. If your garden has turned out successfully for you, that's the important thing. I often find that comments that I disagree with actually are useful in a perverse sort of way because they help me define more clearly what it is that I like or what I'm trying to achieve with the changes I'm making. I quite enjoy being an eccentric rebel! It sounds like you have the potential to be one too....:-)

Nah. Takes a lot more to wound. Bemused, merely!

I'd have to be WAY weirder to be an eccentric rebel here.....

It seems strange to me that you have chosen a thread that seeks to address the notion that there aren't absolute, blanket rules to rant about "Design issues are about balance, grace, and function--with any number of constrictions or lack thereof. They aren't about absolute, blanket rules." It does sound like you are angry about having your particular bubble burst but why attack the generic forum when we seem to be talking about something you can relate to on this particular thread?

I wasn't attacking--merely observing. I have a good memory (and wish that more people would come back with their finished products so I could see, grumble , grumble), is all.

What reminded me of the past discussions was the Not My Garden article. Some people are trying to define what gardens do/are more strictly than others. I'm with the less strict (obviously). I think a garden could be very unwelcoming from the outside and still have good interior design. (The sign? Yeah. BAD design.) Courtyard gardens can be positively delicious, and you can't get more closed off than that!

But what REALLY amused me was that some of the folks now arguing for the side of any purpose have, in the past, argued firmly that a garden can't be this or have that, period, or it isn't good. One person in particular once declared that ALL designs must have lines from low near the door to high at the edges of the house. (You know what I'm talking about--Landscaping 101), and others have been firm about the evils of shaped hedges in any environment.

So I'm a bit doubtful about all this earnestness. People's true convictions will, I think, come out next time someone comes on asking for help to make a cottage garden or something else help in similarly low regard.

I'd argue, further, that the BEST landscape designers are those able to compose excellently in multiple styles. They give their clients what matches the site and the client's taste, not just their signature style stamped on every site. That really offended a few people last time I said it, too. I wonder what folks will think now. Has there been a sea change? A real one? An abstract-only one? Or will most still say that this is ridiculous?

Course, I'm no pro, just a graphic designer who dabbles in gardening, so what do I know? ;-)

(The ranty bit wat just 'cuz I find my neighborhood so much fun. Okay, I hate the statuary in the Med-style house...but the half-nekkid pitcher-pouring woman actually WORKS in such a setting, I must admit. And gazing balls make me break out in hives, but in the English cottage garden, I can't say they aren't serving an aesthetic purpose! I can even "feel" the fake well in one "country" garden. I don't think anything can redeem the black jockeys, though, especially combined with wooden figurines comically showing their rear ends... Seriously, I have more fun walking here that I have in any other neighborhood I've ever lived in. Everything is always changing!)