Pairing Plants, Site and Piece

Sculpture and the garden is a natural combination, one that offers almost endless possibilities.  Ideally sited, the background with its tone and texture and the quality of its light and shadow become an actual part of the composition of the piece, which in turn can make it the core of the garden design. When a piece becomes very heart of the space, the placement is successful.

The well-defined, shining marble statues of Italy find a perfect foil in the low; dark tones of the yew. Or the matted color of a hemlock hedge is an excellent background for a lighter piece. Where the desired effect is to be light against dark and placing a piece against a flat surface, as in the picture below, these plants are good choices for obvious reasons.

At times you may want a different effect. Maybe you want the work to be seen as a dark silhouette, which would make the sky an ideal background. One of the best examples I can think of is the North Salem, NY garden designed by Doyle/Herman Design Associates as seen below.

(See “ A French Normandy-style home ” on the project section of their website: http://www.dhda.com/#/portfolio/04   The walking figure is silhouetted by the sky and reflecting pool. An allee of cherry trees (Prunus serrulata) provide the frame. A lovely, uncluttered composition.  The bronze sculpture is by Dutch artist Hanneke Beaumont.

Great Fakes

The late David Hicks once wrote: “There is a great deal of false snobbery attached to garden ornaments, the feeling that if they are not fine original works of antiquity, they are not worth having. It is a snobbery I cannot share.” (My friends don’t quite have that issue!). Each person has their own sense of style and the art and ornaments they choose for their garden should reflect that. Just like a painting you might place in the living room of your home, what you use in your garden should be an expression of you.

Garden Ornament

Given the idea of directing the eye, and visually moving through a space, a well-placed garden ornament can provide accent and weight in a garden, commanding the eye to pause and take notice.  As we visually move through a space the way we might move through a drawing or painting, think about creating beats or resting places for the eye to light.  We want to create visual pauses.  Most ornaments, because they are solid and static and man-made, create a tension between and provide contrast to the livings elements around them. The tension of conflicting elements of hard and soft is interesting, and it attracts our attention. Ornaments can range from the simplest element –a small concrete rabbit by my garage entrance and planter,

Darnell/Thiel Garden

to an exquisite statue gracing a bed, (this photo was taken at The Bartlett Garden in Stamford, CT)

The Bartlett Garden

to a well placed urn. (Photo taken at Bunny Williams garden in Falls River, CT)

Bunny Williams Garden

Tickling our Fancy

This gallery contains 12 photos.

For the conclusion of her lecture to a small, grateful group at NYBG last November, Page Dickey presented images from ‘gardens that have tickled’ her. Dickey says we all need to be excited by gardens. Topping her tickle list is Bunny William’s Pool House, which overlooks her orchard and borders a wood path.  The structure is part garden folly and part Greek-Revival architecture. Its proportions are classical and timeless, while its materials are wonderful and whimsical. The pediment is clad in rough hewn timbers with the bark still attached, and the columns are tree trunks with pinecones used as the column details. Throughout her property Williams creates moments that are timeless, with sculpture, furniture placement and ornamentation, combined with plant placement. She is a master at it! Another item on Dickey’s list is what was once Nedda Lockwood’s 100-acre property in … Continue reading →

January “to do” list:

1. Develop a garden plan.

2. Make a list of the plants you lack but would like to own.

3. Try to learn something of the origin, history and habits of your special favorites. It will make it a lot more meaningful when you work in the garden next summer.

4. Learn the Latin names of your plants.

5. Paint the handles of your small hand tools in bright colors so they are easier to find.

6. Study the catalogues.

7. Put in your order for seeds and hard to find plants now, before the best items are sold out.

8. Feed the birds.

From Art to Landscape

W. Gary Smith

In the second chapter of his superb book, From Art To Landscape: Unleashing Creativity in Garden Design, W. Gary Smith discusses the benefits of building a visual vocabulary.  A large part of the book is about training yourself to see. In Chapter 2 he discusses the shapes, forms and patterns that have come together in his own work, “over years of observation and reflection”. He asks, can the world be broken down to the circle, triangle and square? Or in a three-dimensional format: the sphere, the cone and the cube? Smith thinks it is an extremely valuable approach to learn to do what artists who create abstract art do, which is pare a subject down to it’s essence—its essential form.

Technically abstract art, or abstraction, is something that doesn’t exist in the natural world. It is non-representational and non- objective. In painting, for instance, a subject is represented by color and form.

My theory along these thought lines are that there are four or five shapes inherently true for each of us, shapes that we see again and again in the world and use in our work. If I look back over my 17 years of notebooks, flipping through them I will ultimately begin to discern four or five shapes that appear in my sketchbooks again and again. These are my shapes—shapes that are permanently part of my nature and essential shapes for me.  As an artist I’ve learned to pay attention to that and to use it.

In teaching drawing and studio classes, I talk to students about the need to build a visual vocabulary. This is also true of landscape designers who need a visual, tactile and living language.

A Villain in the Landscape

With the arrival of autumn color in the landscape and the scarcity of leaves, one can clearly see the invasiveness of Winged burning bush, or Euonymus ‘compacta’ or Winged euonymus. Whatever name you use for this fast-growing villain; help to eliminate it from our landscape. It is easy to propagate, extremely hardy, very popular and wildly invasive from New England to Northern Florida and the Gulf Coast, as well as Illinois. It threatens a variety of habitats including forests, coastal scrublands and prairies where it forms dense thickets, which displace native woody and herbaceous plants. Do not plant Winged burning bush! Use manual, or chemical means to control established plantings. Seedlings can be pulled by hand. Shrubs can be cut repeatedly to the ground to control re-sprouting, or treated with systemic herbicides like glyphosate and triclopyr.

Good native plant alternatives are the exquisite Redvein enkianthus, (Enkianthus campanulatus) which has good fall color and is particularly lovely in foundation plantings. Highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) is another good choice. There are many cultivars and they vary in degrees of size, hardiness and fall color. Use this very overlooked plant in mass pond plantings or as a “spot of brilliant autumn color to the mixed border”. (C. Colston Burrell, Native Alternatives to Invasive Plants, put out by the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.)  My personal favorite plant alternative is the native Red chokecherry (Aronia arbutifolia), in particular the cultivar, “Brillantissima”. This plant has brilliant red fall color, clusters of white flowers in the spring that yield glossy red berries, which last into the winter. It can be used as a tree or a shrub, and I have seen it pruned very successfully as a standard. Use in mass plantings, or as an informal hedge, or for great seasonal interest in a mixed bed.