As much as my age can be irritating and inconvenient to me, the age of my landscape is suiting me just fine. I do think it is as good looking as it has ever been. Even better, no one could possibly be enjoying it as much as I do. We have had a cool summer; even my lawn looks like a lawn, and not field grass. Buck obligingly hauled the ladder out into the middle of the road, so I could take this picture; I am sure my neighbors were amused.
For the better part of six years I did nothing to this yard except bark the existing perennial beds, and mow the grass. It took all my energy to handle my work-or so it seemed. I am embarrassed to say that somewhere along the line I got an anonymous postcard in the mail: “It is hard to believe that a person whose career is landscape would have weeds six feet tall in her front yard”. No matter the delivery, the person had a point.
But perhaps even more importantly, I was ignoring the fact that whatever I did at home would need time to come of age-and that perhaps I would want to still be around to see that. Planning my own landscape was agonizingly slow. I had no problem designing for others; I was a wreck designing for myself. Slow turned out to be fine; who can do everything at once anyway? Getting started-that was the key.
The one hundred Hicks yews across the west and down the north side came first. Given the slope of my property from the south to the north, time would prove to be an essential element. The hedge is 4 feet tall on the south side, and nine feet tall on the north side-but every one of them is level with the horizon. This hedge took eight years to grow in.
The boxwood was even slower growing; the 18″-24″ plants I put in the ground were already seven years old when I planted them. The shaggy densiformis yews are the newest evergreen addition; they have only been in four years. I like all this evergreen; I can successfully maintain it. I knew I could never devote the time needed to a big perennial garden-why come home and be frustrated about what isn’t done? Two giant blocks of Limelight hydrangeas, and 6 pots of flowers give me perennial garden pleasure, in a manageable form.
I planted this city-mini allee of Yellow Butterflies magnolias for Buck-he loves yellow. The boxwood is a big evergreen groundcover. The petals falling on this boxwood is one of my garden’s best spring moments. The mini-boxwood strips in the foreground-this year’s landscape project. The slope of the ground here made it difficult to mow the grass. The magnolias have grown considerably, and the shade they cast was not optimal for lawn. Wall stone behind them retains the soil, and in a few years, will be invisible.
The magnolias were planted to frame the view to the side yard. It is hard arrange a long view on a city lot, making visual use of the neighbor’s mature elm adds much to the illusion of distance.
The big Yew hedge divides my public landscape, from the house landscape. The big pots are centered in front of big panels of windows; I have good views from inside. The ground is carpeted with herniaria glabra-rupturewort. This plant grows like thyme, but is much more water tolerant.
The herniaria has no need for as much water as the flowers in my pots; the granite gravel handles that problem for me. This garden is in progress. I haven’t a clue about how to finish it, I do have the patience to wait until something suggests itself.
Fifteen years into this landscape project, I realize inertia is the most difficult problem I ever have with it. Once I put a burst of energy to my doing nothing state, and get going, things happen. Once in motion, I tend to stay in motion. Though I once thought it would be forever to see what I had in my mind’s eye come alive, it didn’t. Best of all, it has been worth the wait.
Everyone makes decisions about a life’s work. Whether they think it through, or not, decisions get made. As a landscape designer, I realized part of my life’s work was to plant magnolias-all manner of magnolias, every where it made good design sense to plant them. I am a designer who in part came to design via a love for plants. Plants are part of the vocabulary that helps give voice to a point of view. Every designer needs heart, soul, and nerve-but they also need language.
Phil Savage, lived on almost 8 acres-most of which reflects a lifetime growing and hybridizing magnolias. He also grafted magnolia cuttings onto ash tree root stock-these trees are 70 feet tall on his property, as we speak. He hybridized “Yellow Butterflies”; when the spring weather is perfect, it is a dream come true in bloom. Later, it is sturdily and robustly green. His property had magnolias of a size, with flowers in colors, I have never seen-yellow, peach, orangy pink. It was like a visit to another planet. But no, just a visit to a man who knew and lived his life’s work.
