Gardeners and Designers at Odds
My inner gardener and inner landscape designer have been at odds the last couple of weeks but have finally reached a detante so I thought I would share the story with you.
My husband and I purchased a home July 08. We bought the antique colonial home (built 1725) and property that tugged at the heartstrings. The one with 'potential'. Yes, I know, this is always a dangerous word. It means you need lots of money and time and energy. Well, then we had our first baby November 2008. There goes all the money, time and energy! Nevertheless, we finally got up our deer fencing this autumn so the garden is now gardenable and the dogs can safely explore. And, of course, my inner designer has 'grand plans'! However, we are going to renovate the house this summer and the way the garden plans work out, most projects would be affected by this future work. I'm sure you can quickly see the designer in me was saying to plan things out, maybe just plant some specimen trees in the lower garden this year, do the work in phases, that way everything is done logically (this is of course what I would tell my clients). However, my inner gardener has been becoming increasingly frustrated. She is tired of container gardening. Yes, it's versatile, you can move the plants around, play with different heights and staging but it's not the same as gardening in the ground.
So, my inner designer offered up the following stand-alone project, not affected by construction, as a compromise. This is a meditative space behind the barn- a garden area that we would like and that will also be an experiment for future designs for my business. Stepable plants and native grasses. Very simple, very clean, somewhat modern. It offers the opportunity of a small, bubbling fountain, maybe some sculpture, maybe some textiles. The contrast against the pre-Revolutionary barn would be delightful.
"Well hang on there", said my inner gardener, "stepable plants and grasses. . .that ain't gonna cut it!" "
"Why not?" asked my inner designer. "You get to plant grasses, ground cover, watch them grow over the years, etc. etc."
"Yes, but exactly how exciting is it to garden grasses? You get them in the ground and then . . . .that's it! I want to play in the soil. I want to poke at my plants!"
So, after much to-ing and fro-ing the following agreement was made and I rather like it:
There exists a small, border of Potentilla and ferns at the moment. It is rather sparse. The inner designer has already decided that this will be the site of a future hedge of Korean Lilac (Syringa patula). However, this hedge is not going to be planted this year but those Potentilla will need moving anyway. So, my inner gardener has free reign to grown any vegetables or annuals as her heart desires as long as the planting is also aesthetically pleasing (playing with at least one design idea, whether color, form shape, etc). Furthermore, the front of the house (which is actually the back of the original tavern but so it is with old homes) looks like a wasteland as we removed some large, poorly sited spruce and cedar trees and it is a very sunny spot now with no grass or anything. So, this season the inner gardener will be planting a variety of sunflowers to represent the 'grand plans' of the inner designer. For example, the future European Hornbeam (Carpinus betula fastigiata) hedge will be a hedge of 4-5' sunflowers. The specimen trees will be represented by 10-15' sunflowers (such as Kong or Mammoth Russian). Some Escholzia might get thrown in there to represent the future spaces or patios. . .we're not sure yet. And finally for a bit more fun, the inner gardener is going to grow some birdhouse gourds over the existing arbor (which according to the inner designer MUST be moved according to the grand plans!).
From this negotiation there are a lot of winners. The inner gardener will be happy and messy throughout the gardening season (including winter armchair gardening now), the inner designer is happy because she gets to see a full scale mock-up of the designs, the dogs are happy because they will spend many an hour 'helping' in the garden, and the birds will have a ton of food!
Pictures: 1. existing Potentilla border, 2. a gardening Westie
