My name is Judith Fetterley. I live, write, and garden in upstate New York. I am also the owner and manager of Perennial Wisdom, a garden design consultation service.
“Gardeners harbor a longing for beauty and perfection. Because of
what they do, they never lose sight of the small but vital place that each individual holds in the great fabric of nature. Being a gardener stops you from the willing destruction of the fragile world on which we all depend for food, health, and the air we breathe. And if gardening doesn’t make you a better person, at least it reveals the best that is in you.” Sydney Eddison, Gardening for a Lifetime, 2010
“Without an image, you can’t design a garden. To design is to transform — taking one place and making it into something else, into more than what it once was. To be able to transform something means that you must be able to see beyond the existing scenario to something quite new: to an image that appears in your mind’s eye. It is in this leap from reality to imagination that the design process becomes magical . . . ” Julie Messervey, The Inward Garden. As we settle into our winter gardening lives, imagination takes over and we create the dreams that will in the spring and summer become our realities.
Joyce Kilmer is known for writing, “I think that I shall never see/ A poem as lovely as a tree.” I don’t know what it means to “see” a poem, but I do have some thoughts on what it means to “read” a tree. Truth be told, not all trees are “lovely.” Some are messy, dropping leaves into gutters and branches on lawns and houses. Some are misshapen and some are a pest, sending roots into sewer systems and upending sidewalks. And talk not to those of us who have to clean them up of the cascades of maple seeds and cottonwood puffs. Yet trees are crucial to our economic, physical and mental health. They address climate concerns, adding oxygen to our atmosphere and tempering the effects of climate warming. They create biodiversity and provide shade that reduces reliance on air-conditioning. And they can indeed by “poems” — visual events of extraordinary beauty and complexity. We should all be looking to plant more trees. The trick is to pick the right one for the appointed site.
If perennial plants, especially trees and shrubs, do not get sufficient rain in the months of September and October, they will be less able to withstand the stress of winter and you may experience spring death or severe die back as a result. It is essential that you water your trees and shrubs well before winter sets in, even if this means doing it by hose or bucket. Just remember: unlike children, plants need to go to bed wet!
My customers are always surprised when I insist on looking at the space they wish designed from inside the house as much as from outside. But most of them quickly recognize the logic of my emphasis. We see our gardens through windows and doors much of the time and it is important to plant with an eye to these view lines. This is, of course, particularly important when we are planting for winter interest, a major element of garden design in the northeast.
In a similar vein, I pay attention first to certain features of hardscape when called in to design gardens. From my perspective, there is little point in a client’s spending a lot of money on an entrance garden or foundation plantings if the path from the driveway to the house is a narrow concrete strip that takes the shortest possible route and ends in a stingy landing backed by steep stairs. Movement and landing are two of the primary elements of the garden experience and for this experience to work both paths and stopping points need to be generous.
I love tulips. If I could, I would spend several days every spring at Keukenhof, the Dutch equivalent of a Disney theme park for tulips. The moment you can buy tulips in the store, I bring home bunches. I love them even (especially?) when they have died and the petals lie in random patterns on the table that holds my vase. Recently I spent some time hiking in Greece. There I saw the original, native, species tulip. At first I did not recognize it, the plant was so small and so low to the ground. But I was enchanted by its delicacy and the purity of color in its red and yellow petals. And I was mesmerized by the vision of a field of these still unrecognized flowers growing in the wild amid rocks and greens and other plant cousins. When it hit me that I was looking at tulips, I had to ask, “What have we done?” We have cultivated tulips to the point where they bear little relation to their ancestor. While we have gained much from this process, my Greek experience tells me we have also lost something. Sometimes more really is less.
I find plants awesome. I mean this seriously, literally, spiritually. They inspire me with awe — for their tenacity, their complexity, their beauty, and above all for their commitment to their own survival. They keep me humble, particularly when I remember that I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them. As a garden designer, I am awestruck and humbled by the those accidents of design that just happen by plants doing their plant thing. Often these accidents are as successful as the combinations and patterns that I have spent hours creating. I do not feel one-upped by this. Rather I feel that with my own small gift of eye I come into harmony with some fundamental principle of life. Humbled and exalted at the same time? No wonder we gardeners love gardening.
Snow and ice create their own kind of beauty in the garden. They outline and emphasize the structure of deciduous shrubs and the remains of herbaceous plants. This winter landscape also allows you to see the relation between your trees, shrubs, and winter plants. In February, the bones of the garden become visible, making it a perfect time to consider changes to your garden’s design.