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Evergreen Theatre

I deliberately chose to follow up yesterday’s post about the pitiful state of my garden with a discussion of evergreens in the landscape. This garden I planted many years ago; it has been maintained with distinction. I will post this picture every so often as long as I live-is this garden not the most beautiful?  Evergreens play a lead role in those transitions between the seasons.  They shine in the late fall, winter, and early spring in my zone.  Were I gardening in Florida or Spain, I would still give plenty of consideration to evergreens-the broadleaf ones in particular. Were I to find myself gardening at the equator, I would not be happy.  I have had my seasons too many years to give them up.  How to handle the transitions of the seasons-the evergreens do the work.   Yesterday’s post was all about dirt and desolation, but in fact my landscape has green structure.    

These buxus sempervirens topiary balls arrived from Oregon yesterday.  This species could be hardy in ground for four straight mild winters, and then burn and die over the fifth.  Why do I buy them?  They are incredibly beautiful in pots; I do not fault them for needing to be stored in an unheated garage or building over our winter.  This mouthwatering and luscious green sculpture in April-I cannot take my winter weary eyes off these plants.  I have a pair that have been in giant French terra cotta pots for some years.  They do fine in my unheated and unlit garage-outdoors right now, they focus my attention away from dirt, debris and the otherwise deadly and depressing.  Gardeners are a hopeful lot, are they not? 

Boxwood of this size on standard-I never see this form in boxwood hardy in Michigan.  It would take so many years to grow to this size, you would need to allocate your child’s college fund to buy one.  Buxus sempervirens grows like a weed in mild climates; these came from Oregon.  They will flush new growth twice in a growing season.  They are an investment-but given our 6 months of garden off season-worth the expense. 

Evergreen hedges are pedestrian in the summer garden; this arborvitae hedge is the last thing you notice in this picture.  They make a solid and quiet green wall onto which a gardener can sculpt their own idea of beautiful.  Evergreens do a great job of serenely enclosing spaces.  The center of interest in a landscape space can be encouraged, enlivened, made more special, via an evergreen backdrop.  

These trimmed topiary evergreens ask for a more starring role. Comfortable in the lights-yes, they are.  Can they organize a space, provide star power, hold their own-no doubt. 

Though I published pictures yesterday of my pitiful rose and perennial gardens, and what the corgis have rent asunder, my landscape is by and large defined by its evergreens.  Much behind the scenes workhorses in July, they are the star of my show in April. All of my landscape spaces are structured with plantings of those plants that stay green all year long. My public presentation looks presentable all year long.  Behind these yew hedges I have perennials and pots-none of which look like anything right now.  Better that I deal with what does not look great in April, than my neighbors.  I do feel it is my responsibility to present a dressy and neat appearance every month of the year to others in the neighborhood.  This is good manners.  Those people that plant vegetable gardens in their front yards-I am happy to not be living next door to them; that would be tough for me.  The beauty of a garden is year round, given committment and imagination.  The neighbors aside, evergreens provide structure, privacy and peace.  They break the fierce fall and spring winds-many of your other plants might prosper from the big brother or older sister an evergreen hedge might provide.  Those six months I cannot garden in Michigan-my evergreens tide me over.  

I took this picture today-the first week of April.  The needles of this dwarf scotch pine on standard are are not just green-they are juicy and saturated green.  Should you be planning a new landscape, or a landscape renovation, consider the evergreens.  Broadleaved, needled, the topiary forms, the towering trees, the hedging evergreens-look into them.  Their individual forms, their collective forms-they are a brass band that will warm your heart in the coldest months of the year.   

Though I took this picture on a July day last year, in my heart was a big thanks to those impassively dark green evergreens that scooped me up, and made my love of landscape a reality. Most of these plants were planted fifteen years ago.  Don’t delay: plan, go so far as to master plan.  Plant a few evergreens, or plant lots.  Plant little plants or plant a few big ones.  Think about where evergreens might provide a focus to a space, screen an untoward view, describe a space, break the wind, provide a beautiful backdrop.  Today is the best day of this gardening season to think about putting a plan in place. The evergreens-they can help you.

Posted on: April 6, 2010 2 Comments
Filed Under: Garden Design, Landscape Design Tagged With: ,

The Big Picture

I have been consulting with a client who has an existing landscape.  They know it is unfinished, and unresolved.  They gave me their drawing in tandem with a request.  We cannot really explain what is not working here, but can you help us get a little room for something colorful and lively?  I plan to help them.  So what do I not like about this drawing?  The drawing is not color coded. I can read lines, but I do this for a living.  A group of lines-not friendly to a client.  Would it not be good to differentiate the like trees from the grass from the like and the different shrubs?  A landscape drawing may make me think about the artful signature that is a line-but a landscape schematic needs to explain clearly its idea to its intended.  Where is the house?  What part is the driveway, and what part is the living landscape? Where will the tulips go?  Four rectangles at an angle strongly suggest the parking scheme-at least to me.  But where is the living and breathing part?  Where in this drawing is what will make architecture and nature intersect, beautifully?  Everyone wants to come home, and be glad for where they live-a good landscape plan fosters this.  A clearly drawn plan will show if this is working, or not.      

My client has no end of boxwood-strikingly well grown, and maintained.  Miles and miles of it.  Well grown plants do not necessarily make a coherent and beautiful landscape-I tell them.  I have plenty of personal experience.  My perfectly grown clematis, the hybrid known as  Sho-Un, was planted in a spot the most rank amateur gardener would avoid-what was my problem? Five years later, I had to move it-and in moving it, I killed it.  I understood my clients concern about changing up many miles of beautifully grown plants., but in this case, I think it is worth the trouble.    

The dominant feature of this entry landscape drawing is a drivecourt of monumental proportions.  I could stage a rock concert here, or a reception for four hundred people, and have room to spare.  As much as I admire its bold scale, it seems natural to key the landscape elements in recognition and reinforcement of the shape it describes. There will be no ignoring it.  It is large enough that a landscape feature could exist in that oval of paving stone, and not obstruct traffic in the least.

This photograph may give you a better idea of the drivecourt square footage in question. The center oval detailed in a different material from the rest of the asphalt drive was a good move. Nonetheless, we are looking at a giant space here.  A sweeping move of this scale needs friendly and solid company.  The existing landscape pays no mind, does not follow up a gesture of this scale.  The drivecourt as it stands-lonely.  The boxwood look very small, and not as visually important as they should.  Some larger growing plant element backing up that boxwood will add weight and visual heft. 

The walk to the front door needs to set a mood.  Hello, and welcome to my home-this idea does fine, for starters.  Beyond the welcome, that walk should represent a distinctive and strong hello.  A house is a very large object; the landscape should help sit that structure down onto the land.      

These gorgeously grown diamonds of boxwood are just that-gorgeously grown diamonds.   This shape and configuration is outside the language established by the architecture of the house,  and its attendant drivecourt. The drivecourt, in my mind, is all about beautiful curves, and not much about diamonds. What will I do with these boxwood diamonds?   

The original drawing is focused on the drivecourt, with no indication of how that landscape would sit on the property as a whole.  My perspective?   Every landscape composition needs to be detailed with all the edges in evidence.  The foreground space implies a midground space-and a far view.  I orient my drawings to the primary view-from the front door out. I redrew their landcape plan in an effort to make the house, drivecourt and landscape more harmonic, and less fussy.  What would you want to see every day? My idea-emphasize what is already there in such a way that the big picture is clearly stated. 

This drivecourt-of massive proportion and clear design-I have a mind to go along amicably, and reinforce its big statement.  The big statement in any landscape-I would advise you to figure out what that statement is, and go for broke-in support.  I come in contact with plenty of statements not of my choosing or design-this does not bother me in the least.  Any existing big statement implies consent.  I have no need to go back to the beginning.  I like to put my weight to any idea a client felt comfortable consenting to. If you have inherited a landscape, what are the strong elements well worth keeping? 

The both of them understood the difference between beautifully grown plants, and a beautiful landscape.  We spent the better part of two hours going over their issues.  Hopefully moving some plants, and adding a little of this and that will better serve them-and showcase all those beautiful plants.     


What they see, near and far,  should provide visual exploration of the big picture.

Posted on: March 29, 2010 Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Landscape Design, Garden Design Tagged With: , ,

Budding

I am writing this Friday post late Saturday afternoon; sorry, it has been a busy week.  The warm weather has brought in  friends and clients -for a spring hello, and for spring work.  I am so glad to be back to work designing. Every project has its own 3″ by 5″ card-they go on my bulletin board wall.  This way, I can see everything I have going on at a glance. I get messages; “please put me on the board for….” -I like this. Green cards for design.  Blue cards for design going into the build phase.  Lavender cards for spring plantings.  Pink cards for summer plantings.  Yellow cards for parties and events. This may seen archaic to most, but it works great for me.   Having a stack of design and build cards-each design project benefits the other.  Design is very much about rhythm and regular engagement, and I am engaged on a number of fronts.  Everything is budding-I am sure you have noticed, as I have.     

This green flowered primula “Francisca” was discovered by Francicsa Dart on a traffic island in Canada in 1995. Green flowers look good for a long time-as their petals photosynthesize just like leaves-the info from the new issue of “Gardens Illustrated”.   Many older green flowered primroses have been propagated too long, with attendant viruses that weaken them. This primula is an exception- remarkable for its robust growth.  Budding is about anticipation, and expectation; people and plants share this come spring. This late wait- just one of a list of rewarding things a gardener has to look forward to.  This late winter wait is a vast improvement over the post holiday wait-I’ll take it.

The forsythia in the outlot has budded and swelled in the twinkling of an eye; this is its habit.  The recent night temps in the twenties has not damaged the emerging flowers, but it has thrown them into a cryogenic state of inanimation.  I am sure this terminology would make any biologist laugh-but whatever.  These buds are at a standstill. If I cut and brought these branches inside, they would pop overnight.  Watching them move ahead, and then screech to a halt outdoors-a good lesson about how good timing helps any new venture.

My hellebores have sent up buds very cautiously-there is something in the hellebore internal clock which hedges the bloom time bet. How plants interact with weather is incredibly interesting, and beautifully complicated.  No stalks will push these buds skyward until conditions seem optimal.  After all, the purpose of the flower is to make itself available for pollination, set seed, and thus insure the survival of the species. An inauspicious start out of the box doesn’t speak well for a good finish. That those flowers thoroughly enchant me; I am sure nature is rolling her eyes.  Make what she will of my naivete, I like the enchanting part of spring blooming.    

I am so fond of willows-in any and every form.  Their most amazing moves come right about now.  Their branches tell you when the spring sap is rising-branches dulled and browned by winter come alive-before the leaves bud.  Willow tree branches will go intensely yellow green, and glow, in early spring.  These trees light up, when the season turns-like no other plant.  This is a gift to the garden.

My rhododendron flower buds have been in place since last season. All winter they impassively withstood every insult the Michigan winter had to serve up. They are still tight and tightly closed.  It is much too cold for opening day. A few 60 degree days does not impress them-they need to be sure winter has let go-before they let go.   

No one could fault Rob for lacking a sense of humor.  These budding bulbs are made of wax, and have wicks.  Planting them in wood trays and candle holders in natural and preserved moss; this represents a wickedly funny hope for budding.  I have seen a lot of second takes at the shop this week.  This budding out is all about how just about everyone is searching for any sign that the winter is over. Some have succumbed-and taken them home for spring dinner parties; our warm weather is dicey at best, until June 15.

On every gardener’s mind- is it time?

Posted on: March 27, 2010 6 Comments
Filed Under: Detroit Garden Works, Landscape Design, Spring Tagged With: , ,

At Close Range

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I have talked every which way, and in every language I am familiar with about composition and space; can you tell it is a topic close to my heart?  My space has been very limited the past six weeks-so I am more than familiar with what goes on at close range.  I can describe in every detail what I see out the one window at home where I spent the lion’s share of my time the past 6 weeks.  The rhodies right outside that window were a green version of a thermometer. If I had my way, what would be up close to my view, every day?

What is up close and important for Buck is his kitchen-and everything else that goes on at the dinner table.  People sitting down, relating over a meal-this may be his idea of life’s most important moments.  Everything gets discussed and decided-at close range.  In his work life, his eyes are focused, via a magnifier in his welding helmet, on laying down via his mig welder, a perfect and smooth bead of E-70s silicon bronze wire-that perfectly laid bead welds one piece of metal to another.  He is twelve inches from that work. The Englishman Phillip Thomason, arguably the most influential garden pot maker of the twentieth century, could not have been far from his work, when he carved this green man and affixed it to the wall of one of his garden boxes. Were it mine, I would want to be able to be at close range-a view like this is a good one.�
This photograph says a lot about near and far.  The front edge of this shell basin is in sharp focus. That front edge is parallel to the lens of the camera. Any object or plant, or combination thereof, which presents at close range, and at eye level, gets to be really important. That importance has nothing to do with the object or plant-it has to do with placement.  The background-how will you handle it?

Some pots can weigh in visually just fine, placed on the ground.  Others need a socle, or a gentle lift up, or a pedestal.  A pot at eye level is the visual equivalent of a finial. I define a finial as any beautiful finish to a pedestal, a garden, a space, or an entrance.   Plant that pot set at finial eye level or not, its beauty is at close range.  What you see, near and far, is all about good garden composition. Almost anything I see up close, I marvel at.  Should you want my attention far away, make that happen.    

These small terra cotta pots, waterproofed with masonry waterproofing paint and painted white, with their associated paint soaked bows, would not get a passing glance-but for their placement at eye level on a shelf.  Given a good chance to look at them, your idea about them being insignificant may take a back seat to what you see.

Contemporary garden ornament is much about shape and surface. Shape and surface up close has a much different feeling than shape and surface at a distance.  That placement within a space orients a viewer-no revelation here.  But placement is at your discretion- move things around.  Go far, get closer-move up to close range; see what you like best.  

Some plants, some garden objects, some gardens and landscapes, are best viewed from above eye level.  You can sort that out-just look, and see what view makes your heart pound the most.  If the light doesn’t go on, don’t worry.  I have been looking up and down, down and out, at a distance and up close, at my little property for 15 years-I do not have it sorted out.  I like this about gardening-Every year I bring something new to my approach.   

My garden tolerates me-amicably.  Should I bring something new home, chances are good that somewhere the landscape will invite the newcomer to dinner, and eventually ask them to stay on.  Where, how, and under what circumstances-this is your job.  Is this not a good job? 


Anything you cannot live without, and think to add to your garden-it may be more useful to ditch the idea of where, and think about its placement-relative to your eye, in the composition in question.  I know lots of gardeners that create based on instinct, and not idea. Those that create based on a genuine love and caring do just fine. There is really no need to give words to, or explicate the creative process. I only write about design in hopes of explaining my process. I greatly admire lots of gardeners that do things differently than I would-why wouldn’t I?     


Up close, every gardener gets engaged-yes?

Posted on: March 23, 2010 2 Comments
Filed Under: Landscape Design, Detroit Garden Works, Garden Design