As a garden designer, I abhor stinginess. So many of the sites I worked on were afflicted by one or another form of it. Paths were too narrow. Decks were often so small that you couldn’t imagine sitting on them without being afraid of falling off; if you didn’t want to fall off, you were forced to sit backed up against the house.
Foundation gardens should anchor the house to the surrounding space, assuring the viewer of stability, proportion, and the naturalness of the relation between people and plants. The foundation gardens I encountered were regularly too small for the size of the house in front of which they sat, and too small to accommodate the shrubs landscapers had planted in them. What might have looked good the day the landscaper left had become oppressive by the time I arrived. Shrubs had grown, as they are wont to do; their setting had become more and more cramped, the imbalance between house and garden had increased, and the effect was one of closing in rather than opening out. As the shrubs appeared to turn on the house and attack it, I imagined my clients huddled inside in the dark, awaiting the inevitable green invasion.
My mentor in garden design, Walter Cudnohofsky, continually reminded his students that gardens require attention to movement and landing. You want to guide guests through your landscape by paths, but you want to provide landings for stopping, looking, taking in. He stressed that generosity was required to succeed in fulfilling both obligations, He was particularly fierce on the subject of landings:
“Landing places are often severely undersized or left out entirely. The result can be awkward, unsettling, or downright unsafe. If the landing in front of a door is undersized, visitors must back down the steps or risk getting hit by the door. An inadequate drop off space in the driveway forces car passengers to step onto the lawn or planting bed in order to close the car door. We need sufficient room to pause, converse, rest, or change direction.”
In other words, as he liked to say, we need generous landings, a precept that I like to think has metaphysical significance. Because generosity is also about time, about taking the time to see what is there.
Through the garden that lines the driveway and creates the entrance to the property, I have built a path. It winds from the driveway to the front door, but traversing it takes time. The path is composed of gray and white limestone, attractive to the eye but a bit rough on the surface. It must be carefully navigated to avoid a stumble. I chose rough stone on purpose to ensure that guests would not be tempted to race up the path and fail to experience the garden on either side of it.
The path is also curved to slow down the approach to the house even more and to provide view lines to specific plantings on both sides. Generous in its width, the path spreads out even more where it curves, offering stopping points, landings, where I hope guests will pause and look.
I want the gardens people pause to absorb to themselves express abundance, generosity, the conviction that there is enough of everything to go around. I loathe the economy of the pie, a model in which there is only one pie and it is finite, so if one person gets a bigger piece another person’s share gets smaller. What kind of pie do “they” have in mind, I sometimes wonder? I hope it is pecan, because even a small piece of this pie satisfies. I know the model of the pie is designed to create specific emotions that lead to specific actions that benefit specific groups, but I am not an economist and I can’t change the metaphors that govern that field. I can, however, use my garden to challenge a view of the world based on scarcity and stinginess.
I use plants that are big and that sprawl, plants that promise more and more of themselves. I rely on large Hostas and let them rub up against large clumps of the mounding, tumbling golden Japanese fountain grass. I use Hellebores because they flower early and the blossoms last, often until August, and the foliage persists through the winter. Painted ferns fill in among the Hostas and Hellebores, joined by white and drought tolerant Astilbes and by the ever-helpful big-root Geranium which covers any holes that might be left. Spiky variegated iris and feathery Thalictrum, strewn throughout, are intended to create vertical plenitude. There are no empty spaces in this garden.
“Climb to paradise/By the stairway of surprise,” says Emerson, hoping to surprise us with words that promise an exact rhyme but don’t quite deliver it. Surprise implies that there is more to see and more to learn than at first appears; it is its own kind of abundance. The large Hosta, “Sum and Substance,” sits in full sun in front of a lamp post that supports a ‘Jackmanni’ clematis. Since Hostas are shade loving plants this one, especially this one because of its size and color, should not be in the sun and it certainly should not be consorting with the sun-loving clematis. Surprise! I use the upright ‘Ghost’ Japanese painted fern to provide a backdrop against which the mounding white Astilbe ‘Bridal Veil’ can show itself off. The ghostly foliage of the ‘Ghost’ fern illuminates the whiteness of the Astilbe even in daylight. Who would have thought this possible? Surprise!
Despite my intentions, however, most guests in fact use the driveway to get to the house. It is more direct and easier on the feet. However, they often comment on the garden when they reach the side door and join Sara and me. It is a universal favorite. I like to think they are attracted by generosity and have grasped my intention.
Thanks so much for reading my newsletter. If you are enjoying it, consider sharing it with one other person you think might enjoy reading it as well. I’d be grateful if you would help me reach more readers. https://www.perennialwisdom.net/thinning/
If you aren’t already a subscriber, I’d be honored to have you as a reader.
You can sign up here.http://perennialwisdom.net.