Simply Grow has perhaps more posts than any other category in this blog (next to Simply Live which is my kind of default category) and I think I will be adding to their mumber as I am not doing much other than gardening for the foreseeable future!
As I mentioned yesterday I am looking at how the garden has matured and has it's own personality and relationship to the wider landscape. I do tend to see it in architectural terms as well as from a botanist or horticulturalist view point.
It is like a three dimensional composition of shapes and forms. There are circles and ovals, rectangles and squares, horizontal and vertical elements, straight lines and curves - all playing off one another. They could be likened to floors and ceilings, walls and openings, exits and entrances enclosures and open spaces, light and shadow and even furniture, and it might be fun to lake a look at the front garden in those terms.
As I mentioned yesterday I am looking at how the garden has matured and has it's own personality and relationship to the wider landscape. I do tend to see it in architectural terms as well as from a botanist or horticulturalist view point.
It is like a three dimensional composition of shapes and forms. There are circles and ovals, rectangles and squares, horizontal and vertical elements, straight lines and curves - all playing off one another. They could be likened to floors and ceilings, walls and openings, exits and entrances enclosures and open spaces, light and shadow and even furniture, and it might be fun to lake a look at the front garden in those terms.
I especially like horizontal forms - I think they create a tranquil atmosphere - and here is the second of the cornus controversa, smaller than the central one
The third one is slightly smaller still and set in grass. I spent a long time positioning them - think in plan of a triangle with three sides of different lengths - and I like the dynamic between them.
They were all the same size when planted and I love that they now vary in size - pure chance of course! The fact that they will grow makes placing long term things even trickier.
We also planted the lovely Viburnum plicatum Maresii with its tiered layers and it did wonderfully then, inexplicably most of it died. It went from about 6 feet wide to about 18 inches. It may recover, but slowly.
If I call these shrubs furniture they are the long elegant sofas or coffee tables, but as they mature into trees they will play a different role. The challenge of designing with living things is that they wil change.
I have mentioned before the garden I designed around an existing broom which promptly died! I didn't know at the time that brooms are short lived shrubs.
I hope you are able to enjoy a garden, park or open space during lockdown.
One of my favourite books on landscape architecture is The Landscape of Man by Geoffrey and Susan Jellicoe.
They were all the same size when planted and I love that they now vary in size - pure chance of course! The fact that they will grow makes placing long term things even trickier.
We also planted the lovely Viburnum plicatum Maresii with its tiered layers and it did wonderfully then, inexplicably most of it died. It went from about 6 feet wide to about 18 inches. It may recover, but slowly.
If I call these shrubs furniture they are the long elegant sofas or coffee tables, but as they mature into trees they will play a different role. The challenge of designing with living things is that they wil change.
I have mentioned before the garden I designed around an existing broom which promptly died! I didn't know at the time that brooms are short lived shrubs.
I hope you are able to enjoy a garden, park or open space during lockdown.
One of my favourite books on landscape architecture is The Landscape of Man by Geoffrey and Susan Jellicoe.
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