I’m a big fan of ThinkinGardens, the British website edited by Anne Wareham. While the bulk of the posts relate to gardening and gardens in England, posts also cover topics of wider interest. As the website itself says, it’s a website “for people who want more than gardening from gardens.”
ThinkinGardens isn’t modest or retiring, and neither is its editor. Both aim at controversy, or at least at generating discussion about gardens, garden design, garden practices and philosophies. The website is a compendium of writing that challenges assumptions and makes readers think. It also entertains.
So I am particularly pleased that a blog post I wrote for this site has been re-posted on ThinkinGardens.
You can find it here: http://thinkingardens.co.uk/reviews/art-or-science-a-review-of-througham-court-by-pat-webster/
Why not read the article again? Or if you are a new subscriber, why not read it for the first time? And then let me hear from you. What are gardens for? After taking a virtual tour, do you ache to visit Througham Court or does it turn you off?
Pretty flowers drape over a pretty stone wall beside nicely curved stone steps, at Througham Court, England
or explore the meaning of this?
Unusually strong colours and a dynamic design characterize this viewing platform at Througham Court.
Or, like me, are you greedy and want to have the best of both?
At Glen Villa, my garden in rural Quebec, I want beautiful surroundings. And for most of the year, even when we are buried beneath huge piles of snow, I have them, in spades. Much of the beauty is natural, much is cultivated.
The band of muscari whips its way across the grass at Glen Villa. I call it the Dragon’s Tail.
But even the most glorious beauty is not enough. I believe that for a garden to be successful, it needs to mean something. It needs to go beyond aesthetics, to deal with questions that matter.
The sundial clearing is the culmination of an installation I made for Glen Villa. Titled In Transit/En Route, it raises questions about time and being present in the moment.
The American landscape architect Fletcher Steele said it well: “The chief vice in a garden is to be merely pretty.”
Do you agree?
Love your Dragon’s Tail! And yes, I do like a garden that makes me think, although even the pretty ones do that – I love to try and figure out precisely why it is so pretty.
I agree, Janna. It is so important to try and figure out why something works, and why another something doesn’t. Your recent comments about texture and balance dealt with this extremely well.
So are you following the snow plow up I95? These Muscari whips look a lot like lupines?
Lupins come later, Robert, and I’ll run a photo of them when the snow melts. Which surely it must do by June???
Thank you – for this and for the review, Pat.
Your Dragon’s Tail took my breath away. (a rare event, as I’m sure you are aware). I wish more people made gardens like yours – or rather, not like yours, but in the same spirit of adventure and searching. Xxx Anne
The dragon’s tail is the first unusual planting I did, and it remains one of my favourites. In the autumn it turns fuchsia with an astilbe… but the astilbe is gradually taking the nourishment from the muscari. This fall I will probably replace the bulbs, something I never expected to have to do.
O, I know that one! I have one brilliant part of the garden which I fear has been killed. Continual loss and renewal, gardens. Can be hard, I think.
There are comments on thinkingardens you may wish to respond to…
Xxx Anne
Thanks for the heads-up, Anne. We’ve been travelling, unfortunately heading north into snow.
Wow – stay safe! (and warm) Xxx
O, and Fletcher Steele is on to something.
Yes, he is!
I look more for an emotional response to a garden than an intellectual one. This may be because so much of my life as an academic has revolved around intellectual ideas and responses; I look to the garden as a place of renewal and reconnection with nature.
I don’t know if you are home at Glen Villa yet, but here in Maine, even with temperatures still mostly below freezing, the sun is now strong enough to melt snow. Yeah!
Jean, I understand the pull of emotion over intellect when it comes to gardens and the natural landscape. I feel more awe walking through a forest than anywhere else I can think of. For me, the best gardens are the ones where meaning and emotion are both present. One of the places where this came through for me was at Rousham in England. Another is Il Bosco della Ragnaia in Italy. I’d have to spend a lot of intellect on understanding why!
I’m on my way north now but not encountering much sunshine. Thankfully I have my winter boots in the car.
Congrats on being reblogged on thinkingardens – an achievement to be included among those writers. I believe that Fletcher Steele’s comment is too simplistic. If we believe the scientific evidence being reported recently, exposure to nature, to gardens, improves human mental and physical health. So even, god forbid! – a gardener creates a garden with no agenda other than to create a pretty space, s/he is improving the plight of mankind, providing shelter and food for some insects birds and plants and so by default no garden is just pretty. And I will point out – one of my distinctions and perhaps a pet peeve – Fletcher Steele was a landscape architect, not a gardener.
I’ve read similar studies and I agree, the evidence that exposure to nature improves our health is very strong. I know I feel better when I get outdoors for a wander, whatever the weather. Whether the exposure negates Steele’s comment is a fruitful topic for discussion.