A library is an important design tool. A library can be as simple as a folder stuffed with pictures of everything you ever saw or read that you liked. I find books irresistible, and I have collected them as long as I have gardened. They expose me to other people and places. What I see when I read becomes a part of what I bring to my work. It reminds me that I am part of a community of a certain sort. Would that someday I could write one essay the caliber of those written by Henry Mitchell. The long time garden writer for the Washington Post, until his death in 1993; his books I read over and over again. To follow is one of my favorite essays by him-this spring it seems especially timely. His book, The Essential Earthman, is a much have garden tool.
Anyone who has come to Detroit Garden Works the past 15 years has probably dealt with Rob. He manages, buys, designs, arranges, and generally oversees the store. He does display, he pulls weeds, and waters. He arranges purchases from nurseries in Ohio, Tennessee, and Long Island, and every place in between. He buys for DGW all over the country, and in Europe. In recent years, he has made a concerted effort to shop our country. We two agree that every city, every region in our country, has people making beautiful work. We just need to find them. His latest purchase, custom made plant towers in a weather resistant acid washed finish that looks like lead. Many of them are his design, and they are being manufactured by a local ironworker.
I garden in the winter, in one form or another. This past fall, on my mind were show auricula primroses. Their flowers are as beautiful as their forms are varied. The English exhibit alpine auriculas at competitions like we Americans show African violets, and matched topiary pairs at the Philly flower show. The English derive such joy from their gardening, and a dose of joy was what I was after. They even build staging for their auriculas in pots, known as auricula theatres. Wow. Only the English would find such drama in a series of little potted primroses, perfectly grown.
Tools are useful. This does not mean they are precious. My landscape plans are a two-dimensional description of a sculpture which is to come. They are not an end in themselves. I go over them with my superintendent; we do a layout. That plan usually ends up in a lunchbox, a back pocket, or after it is irreparably wet and mud smeared, in the trash. They are a means by which to communicate.
There are computer programs which help projects to get drawn quickly. I use them to draw very complicated structures. They are very useful in detailing changes to this and that-without having to redraw everything. But I am most interested in the evidence of the human hand. I draw by hand, as that drawing is part of a process which is distinctly my process. My clients find out that as I respect the evidence of my hand, I have the ability to respect theirs as well.