Alan Armitage, the noted garden writer, teacher, and Director of the horticulture reseach gardens at the University of Georgia, spoke at the Independent Garden Center conference in Chicago this past August. Of most interest to me was his brief mention of a marketing trend he had detected in the nursery industry aimed at convincing customers that gardening was not only pleasurable and satisfying, but really not that much work, either.  He went on to emphatically state that gardening was indeed plenty of work, and any suggestion to the contrary was ridiculous.  Those advertising photographs depicting a smiling gardener, outfitted in white sneakers, clean socks and outfit unsullied by dirt or water, brand spanking new garden tool in tow, bear no remote resemblance to the truth of it.  Gardening is dirty, sweaty, buggy, and overwhelmingly hard work.  Backbreaking, and heartbreaking.  Gardening is work ad infinitum, until you could drop over from it.  I suspect he was partly referring to the Proven Winners brand of annuals and shrubs.  PW is a plant marketing empire based on the unspoken idea that if you buy this particular brand of plants, you will be guaranteed success.   The PW consortium has presumably tested, and selected, only the rugged, the beautiful, the carefree, and the foolproof. The final implication – it will be little or no work at all to have a lovely garden; these plants will virtually grow themselves. They even go so far as to market their plants in white buckets.  Some nursery people have commented about how difficult it is to keep those pots clean in an environment where soil, water and weather rule. White containers aside, he is right; if there’s gardening going on, there’s dirty work going on.

I understand the impetus to characterize gardening as a benign and not too demanding pursuit.  It is hard to tell people that a landscape and garden is expensive to create and install, and in the next breath inform them that the work of it is only beginning and will likely go on indefinitely.  The orthodontist can divert your attention away from the expense, discomfort, tweaking and cleaning of your braces with the  prospect of the permanently lovely smile you will have when the work comes to an end. Anyone can bear anything-given a start and an end. Such gloom-broaching the topic of how everything in a garden quickly tends towards perennial dissolution; who wants that job?  The pots unwatered over a weekend, the grass unmowed in a May week, the perennial garden not weeded, the Japanese beetles not squished-any of these experiences can provide a rude awakening as to the reality of the work of a successful garden.  Though I watch over and coach, once I have laid up the stone, mulched the last tree, and washed the driveway, the work gets passed on.

I make no distinction between my clients that put the shovel to the ground, and those who hire someone else to do that job.  Some people are after all working at something else that enables them to hire out the gardening work. The work of gardening is not more demanding and difficult than any other kind of work. The noun work implies the committment, self discipline, and energy which results in that action verb, work.   The work of an elementary school teacher or police officer would flatten me far faster than shovelling dirt or pruning roses. Plenty of work is far beyond my capabilities. But I find people who know what work is, and  see to it day after day, have common ground with me.  Some clients take the baton that is passed to them with little effort on my part. Others I need to pick that stick up, and place it firmly in their hands.  There are those people who have too many other batons in their hands to even think of taking on one more; they have services of one kind or another.  I have to address the reality of the work from the beginning. At the first meeting I am likely to ask if they are a gardener, and all else that goes along with that question.  A client that handles the work successfully makes me successful at my work.  If they should go on and decide that the work of gardening is interesting, entertaining and supremely satisfying, the pleasure is all theirs.  This may be the best part of doing the work-owning the satisfaction.

I buy books and read as time and money permits; I make an effort to be educated. Design work that doesn’t work gets done over. I do my own drafting; even if it isn’t the most gorgeous drafting on the planet, it’s my hand.  When I finally go home, I water and tend my own pots.  It is such a good feeling, when they look good.  When I do not have one ounce of energy left at day’s end, I do the work of persuading Buck to help me out. (This is not much work, by the way.)  All of this makes me better able to appreciate the work of others.  I think I have a good understanding of what it takes to push a idea or project from one point to the next. 

I have met a very few people that seem to have little understanding of what it means to be willing to work. It may be they can’t or won’t make it work, or work it out.  It could be they don’t understand the importance of good works.  Perhaps a working knowledge of something doesn’t interest them. They might lack the confidence it takes to rely on their own work.  They may not appreciate the work of others.  They may have not found something worth working for.   Interestingly enough, not one of those few was a gardener.

In the big scheme of things, Americans are relatively new to gardening.  One of my books,  “European Garden Design from Classical Antiquity to the Present Day” by E Kluckert, is 2.5 inches thick, and weighs six pounds.  Mr. Kluckert begins with the myths of Paradise, moves on to gardens of antiquity in the Middle East, takes a side trip to Islamic gardens in Spain, discusses Renaissance gardens in Italy, Germany, France and England, moves on again to Baroque, Roccoco and classicist gardens in many countries including Austria, Russia, Spain and Portugal-and still has words left for the history of the English Landscape Garden, and its influence on gardens of similar ilk in Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Eastern Europe. Wedging all of this information into what surely must be the longest sentence I have ever written gets me to the end of his book, and the beginning of my discussion.  His last chapter -some 27 pages- is entitled “Forms and Aspects of Gardens from 1850 to the Present Day”; the book in its entirety runs to 496 pages. By my calculations, he devotes only 5% of his book to gardens created after 1850- all of them European as indicated by the title. Heavy on the musty history, yes?

Penelope Hobhouse, in her 468 page book “The Story of Gardening”, has written 38 pages on gardens of the Americas, and 34 pages on gardens of the 21st century-of which 4 are made by an American. My library has 17 inches of shelf space devoted to the history of gardens and gardenmaking; only 1.5 inches of space are given to books on the history of American gardens-both of these books cover a span of time, post 1890. Even though my library  includes but a fraction of the books that have been written on gardens, it does reflect an attitude I have seen a number of places.  American gardens lack an identity which is distinctly American.  There are those who believe the gardens of Jim Van Sweden and Wolfgang Oehme represent a garden style which one might describe as American. In my opinion, this idea is more media driven than accurate; the publication of the book entitled “The New American Garden” invited reviews of that sort.  I actually believe the job of assessing what exactly makes an American landscape American might be impossible. It’s too hard to get all of us under the same umbrella. The country is huge; its garden identity tends to be regional rather than national – for good reason.  The climate in Florida is a far cry from that of Michigan, which does not in any way resemble weather in New Mexico, Maine or Alaska. Landscape and garden design here is somewhat ecologically driven. I do not design ocean-front, mountain, or desert landscapes; I do not design German or Spanish landscapes either.  European countries are very small in comparison to the US-does this give their gardens a national identity?  Not incidentally, a country which is 233 years old just does not have the depth of history of a country almost twice that age.  American are young upstart garden-makers.

I do have clients who want French gardens, or English gardens.  I have an occasional request for  Japanese garden.  As I am a product of western culture, I could not design a Japanese garden.  Eastern cultures I appreciate, but I would not presume to say I understand them. On what basis would I make a Japanese garden? Some clients who ask for European gardens do so in the spirit of addressing an attraction for spaces with a sense of history.  Some do so with the idea that anything from out of town has more style and cache. Some more or less define an expert in any field first and foremost as someone from out of town. This is by no means an unusual attitude. I distinctly remember my teenage embarassment having to wear clothes my Mom made for me; the reputation of anything handmade or home grown has improved dramatically for me since then.  Some judge my store in a way that has nothing to do with its breadth and depth-nor the scholarship and work it took to get it there.  They only see it is located in the Midwest. I do however completely understand a request for an English or French “style” landscape.

European gardens are part of the history of American gardens.  At one time, everyone here was an immigrant from another nation.  My grandparents spoke eleven langauges between them; they were shopkeepers in a part of Yugoslavia whose national identity and borders shifted frequently.  I most certainly draw from what I have learned about design from other countries and cultures.  Everything I have seen or read about or experienced fuels my design sensibility.  But this does not mean I would copy Versailles given a property of sufficient size and a French style house. I absolutely might go for grand scale and beautiful proportion.  I would not attempt to reproduce Sissinghurst for a client with a vintage English style tudor home, but I might pit formal boxwood hedging against perennial and annual borders with that just on the verge of untended look-in the Vita spirit. Inevitably I have to bring my own sensibility to bear, as I do believe authencity of spirit and place is absolutely key to good landscape design.  That French style landscape may have locally designed and manufactured tuteurs, or that English style garden might have contemporary sculpture.  Another garden might be seasoned with an unexpected dash of Italian style romance. 

My library includes plenty of volumes on landscapes and gardens. Perhaps this is telling- 56 inches worth of shelf space for American gardens, 54 inches worth on English gardens, 51 inches for the French volumes, 37 inches for Italy, 11 inches on Belgium-and 11 inches for every other country combined.  108 inches is devoted to plants, 14 inches to pools, 45 inches to landscape materials, and 79 inches worth of flowers and floral design.  Another 45 inches goes to garden antiques and ornament,  26″ to contemporary landscape design, and 112 inches to landscape and garden design in general. I have indeed read them all.   My hope is that at some point all of what I have absorbed, attempted, and experienced will be enough to free me such that I can make the work I was meant to make. I can hardly wait.