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| British gardeners at the recent RHS Spring Garden Show |
The rooms at the Royal Horticultural Society’s spring show last month were awash with tweedy, rubber-booted Brits, ferociously focused on expertly and beautifully arranged spring flower displays and green walls, and vendors selling everything from potted bulbs and seed potatoes to tubular garden furniture and artificial grass. (The artificial grass vendor had to be the owner of the Smart car parked outside, entirely covered in faux-turf, right?).
I was there to meet my friend and former colleague, garden designer John Brookes, (www.denmans-garden.co.uk/jb-design.asp), who was giving thirty minute garden design consultations along with several other British designers. When I caught up with him (after lusting over hepatica x schlteri, primroses, iris reticulata, and all kinds of delicious hellebores) he was busily helping a client sort out a garden design for a small townhouse garden.
As I hovered discreetly nearby, John listened to his client’s description of his garden and what he wanted before drawing a design based on the man’s preferences. Typical John, it was bold and clear without fuss, and he took pains to explain the importance of keeping things simple, a rule to which every owner of a small urban garden should adhere.
And there I stood, the proud new owner of a small urban Georgetown garden that is in serious need of a complete makeover.
Remember that my last garden was in Connecticut, two acres of sun and shade, lawn and orchard, woods and terrace, perennials and shrubs (and the occasional herd of deer eating everything in sight, but you can’t have it all). While I eventually became better disciplined (that word again) at designing first and planting second, I could still indulge my plant impulses and did. Often.
The trick with a small garden is that you really can’t have everything. There is no room for indulging plant impulses. You have to pick and choose what you include in your garden based on site orientation, circumstances, needs, etc. You learn that in Design 101. Then you design the garden. Only then, when all of that preparation and thinking and planning is finished, you get to pick the plants. To me, this is like having to plan out, buy for, cook, eat dinner and then clean it all up, all before you eat dessert.
The discipline, the discipline ….!
As spring lurks around the corner and we have these amazingly warm days, it’s time to start thinking about the garden makeover. I am determined to be disciplined and live up to my training and years working with John, who is a committed designer first and plantsman second (this was, sometimes, a point of friction in our many years of working together!). In coming installments I will share this journey on this blog. I wonder where I put the 100-foot measuring tape?
As I hovered discreetly nearby, John listened to his client’s description of his garden and what he wanted before drawing a design based on the man’s preferences. Typical John, it was bold and clear without fuss, and he took pains to explain the importance of keeping things simple, a rule to which every owner of a small urban garden should adhere.
And there I stood, the proud new owner of a small urban Georgetown garden that is in serious need of a complete makeover.
Remember that my last garden was in Connecticut, two acres of sun and shade, lawn and orchard, woods and terrace, perennials and shrubs (and the occasional herd of deer eating everything in sight, but you can’t have it all). While I eventually became better disciplined (that word again) at designing first and planting second, I could still indulge my plant impulses and did. Often.
The trick with a small garden is that you really can’t have everything. There is no room for indulging plant impulses. You have to pick and choose what you include in your garden based on site orientation, circumstances, needs, etc. You learn that in Design 101. Then you design the garden. Only then, when all of that preparation and thinking and planning is finished, you get to pick the plants. To me, this is like having to plan out, buy for, cook, eat dinner and then clean it all up, all before you eat dessert.
The discipline, the discipline ….!
As spring lurks around the corner and we have these amazingly warm days, it’s time to start thinking about the garden makeover. I am determined to be disciplined and live up to my training and years working with John, who is a committed designer first and plantsman second (this was, sometimes, a point of friction in our many years of working together!). In coming installments I will share this journey on this blog. I wonder where I put the 100-foot measuring tape?
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