Month: November 2020

Planting in Numbers

When we plant our gardens we generally follow a rule which is to plant in
odd numbers. Threes, fives, sevens and so on. In a garden centre or nursery
we can be tempted by a herbaceous plant which looks so lovely we feel we
‘have’ to have it. Then we come home and wonder where we are going to put it without really thinking of the overall picture. However, when designing

a garden, we would never think of just planting one of something unless it
was a large shrub or tree and we have planned where it is going to go from
the outset.
Recently a client asked me why we plant in odd numbers. I replied that
traditionally we don’t tend to plant in even numbers as we want to avoid
a bed with plants all in a row lined up like soldiers. We take our inspiration
from nature which has a natural chaos about it and thus a less ordered or
managed look. When planting bulbs, natural chaos really comes into its own
and great drifts can be achieved by throwing large numbers of bulbs into an
area before planting them where they land.
This however, is not how we like our gardens to be all the time and for a
formal look it is possible to plant more evenly to achieve an ordered garden
or bed. This way of planting can also be seen in a lot of parks and stately
homes where symmetry is all important.
Many gardens that I have work on have had very enthusiastic owners who
have been taken by different plants they have picked up from either a
garden centre or a sale and have planted them not really knowing how big
they will get or whether they will blend into their gardens. They have then
asked me do my magic and transform the garden keeping odd plants they
like. This is always a bit tricky but in the end I have convinced them that if
they like certain plants so much why not buy a few more to make a
statement rather than having one little specimen. This way I explain they will
have more enjoyment from the plants they like and the overall effect will be
much better. Indeed, planting just one herbaceous perennial can be totally
lost in a large bed and is much easier to plant three rather than search for a
spot to put one in.
Placing pots in a garden to add colour and variety for seasonality has also in
the past been dictated by tradition. Two pots either side of an entrance for
example is always popular. More recently, having three large pots along a
wall is seen as more trendy. The move away from lots of small pots with
different annuals in them has been replaced with large statement pots and
containers. Tall shrubs and trees have taken over from the bedding in modern
homes and we are seeing an increase in tender plants like cannas and more
on doorsteps.
Architecture often dictates the style of garden too. A cottage garden which
is more informal is more obviously found in a country cottage setting and a
town house will more likely be formally planted which adds to the ordered
and managed environment in which it is set.
Fashions come and go in gardening like other areas as do trends. Budget
dictates a lot of our decisions but if you can plant in threes or more, and not
in a line it will give more pleasure and greater impact.
Claudia de Yong Designs
www.claudiadeyongdesigns.com
shop.claudiadeyongdesigns.com

Mark Lane kindly launched our book today with a video , please watch and then visit our website

https://www.gardeningwithdisabilitiestrust.org.uk/get-involved/book-of-gardening-tips/ to purchase your copy

THE FOREST: Design Origins? Forests are sources of calming inspiration for many people. Living in Ashfield, MA, Susan and I walk several times a week, often on wooded Bug Hill Road and similar neighborhood roads.  We always return refreshed, full of healthy oxygen and with new observations. I regularly bring ideas back to the design and painting studios.

Healthy New England forests are diverse in species and appearance and occupy all “life zones” from ground cover, to low and high shrubs and understory trees to high canopy trees.  This idea is strongly suggestive to the earth-conscious landscape designer and the conscious gardener.  They, like all of us, may harbor an urge to create a felt sense of harmonious unity perceived particularly in our nearby forests. Unlike human manipulated objects and places, we look to nature generated forests with a non judging eye accepting what we observe.

It may be argued that many of the most persuasive and compelling principles of design—and, beyond that, of community living—are a heritage of human life in or near the “primeval forest”.

Some of the ways forests guide design are obvious. The straightness of tree trunks is imitated in the straight boards and timbers from which we build. Vertical and then rectangular forms are most easily achieved using the predominating verticality achieved from trees reaching for the sun. The vertical emphasis in buildings, churches and civic structures, has been inspiring their human occupants for centuries.

The tapering of tree trunks has also been noticed and imitated, whether in a cathedral or a New England barn or church. Most buildings move from a supportive, thick base to the roof, with the size of timbers diminishing at each level. The columns of the Parthenon—or, for that matter, the New England Greek revival porch—also taper, in part to appear “authentic or natural.”

Tree branching, not unlike the branches of river systems, shows division into smaller and smaller branches, a dendritic pattern and form that is predictable and has also been reflected in the structure of cathedrals and other buildings.

Moving from the single trees to the forest, we see that villages, towns and cities have many of the key elements of the forest: edges, corridors/roads, districts, nodes/rooms and landmarks.

As in design, edges allow us to recognize an element or feature as separate from its surroundings; in this case, the forest itself.  In forests, edges are often biologically rich and visually complex. The edge is often where the action is!

The forests have within them, furthermore, special districts of a few or sometimes a single species of tree, always reflecting the influence of soil and water. Such forest districts (we might call them neighborhoods) are replicated in our civic and garden plantings at all scales.  There are more subtle but, to the forester’s eye, richly complex nodes where different forest districts merge, sheltering animal and other life. We parallel these nodes in our town and city markets, town commons and urban squares. The node is again, where the most action is!

We all cherish the experience of a forest glade or outdoor room, and the experience is mimicked in designed landscapes from the humblest backyard to the grand estate or college campus quadrangle. Forests are, among other things, assemblées of rooms.

The path is another forests component that human buildings and communities have mimicked. Sometimes first made by animals, paths are enhanced and amended by humans. We then imitate them in our internal hallways, and, externally, in tree-lined allees of grand estates or paths through humble gardens. Canopied tree-lined streets are yet another example, none more grand than elm-lined streets, once common in New England and the Mid West before Dutch elm disease.

Forests also contain isolated trees standing alone, often an older tree, as in the wolf pine or parent oak or beech. Designers have imitated this by planting specimen trees that serve as a kind of monument, in our villages and yards.  At longer distance viewing, a group of trees can serve as a specimen.

Another helpful design principle found in the New England forests is the power of “aggregating uniqueness.”  Rather than scatter the anomalies of a forest, nature often concentrates them in a single location—the largest and youngest tree, more than one lighting condition, the rock outcrop and the small vernal pool. Imitating and aggregating similar combinations can add richness to landscape design and as with a painting, simultaneously assure focus and coherence.

The pattern of movement landing—such as a forest path as leading to an expanded open glade— is yet another principle that designers would best replicate both indoors and outdoors. Landings appear naturally along pathways, along streams, where we find large rocks, or fallen trunks. As landscape designers, we imitate and strengthen these visual and physical landings by offering benches, or widening a path, purposely interrupting predominating visual flow.

Forest lessons for human living appear limitless. In this age when pollution of all kinds is in the news; CO2, methane and hexafluorethane and more, we must recognize what the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) has professed and now accomplished, community, municipal and state nature protecting laws are now adopted by some 200 cities and towns. These measures assure that life sustaining nature has rights.

We know that forests do largely unsung heroic work in sequestering C02 and perform dozens of life-enhancing tasks, such as erosion control, pollution diminishment, shading and cooling, wind protection, flood prevention, soil building and more. They are truly the lungs of the earth.  In recent years, we have begun to understand more mysterious processes, that trees and plants have their own means of communication, warn against diseases and pests and live symbiotically as family and as community, modeling for us what we find in diminishing supply among ourselves.

We would do well by recognizing the true value and importance of forests. As with many subjects, they tend to be undervalued. We are better humans to the extent that we intimately know the forests as model, design guide, mentor, teacher, health sustainer, spiritual support, physical and recreational outlet, and muse.

High Meadow Farm Ashfield, MA  March 2020

http://www.cudnohufsky.com/

http://www.wcala.com/

Coming from a long lineage of gardeners it wasn’t surprising that I too caught the gardening bug but it wasn’t until faced with my own serious physical health issues that I took what I ate seriously and looked into where our food comes from. Retraining for a more active and outdoor life, growing our own produce and dietary changes have played a huge part in improving my ankylosing spondylitis and combined with the healing process of gardening, growing has been a blessing on my mental health as well.

Through previously working as an occupational therapist in mental and physical health I realised what an amazingly therapeutic medium horticulture can be. Through further training with the RHS, Thrive, Pershore College and Coventry University I qualified as a horticultural therapist and gardener and have run and managed therapeutic kitchen gardens ever since. I currently manage a community garden in Chichester for Grow Chichester where we run supported gardening sessions for all ages and stages, those with no outside space of their own, mental and physical health issues or those socially isolated. The community garden is a wonderfully supportive and safe space where the harvest is shared between the volunteers, offered to the public and given to the local foodbank and homeless projects. 

Due to the Covid 19 pandemic anxiety is sadly rife at this time, but gardening can help, GPs and the NHS have been and continue to prescribing gardening to help with anxiety and depression. The process of connecting with nature, focusing on a gardening task and experiencing the following sense of achievement can be so grounding and really boost our mood and sense of well being.

Being shielded I keep thinking thank heavens this lockdown happened at the start of spring and not winter providing a chance to be outside and garden! It’s no secret that as a person who likes to actively do and achieve, not being able to work for months has been a real challenge. But being able to channel the frustration, anxiety and despondency into growing and developing our new garden as a family has been a lifeline for me. It’s been a joy to potter with our 6 and 4 year olds in the garden over the weeks and to slow down and focus on the small things. Whether it’s bringing the first cut dahlias into the house to brighten up a kitchen table or seeing the children’s joy at their now 8 foot tall sunflowers towering over them. It’s these simple pleasures that mean the most and have such a direct benefit on our wellbeing.

The uncertainty we are faced with currently has the potential to overwhelm and chip away at our security, but nature has provided us with the great escape. No matter what goes on around us the plants and trees still carry on, birds sing like we’ve never heard before, the seedlings tenaciously push up towards the light, buds open and the bees go about their essential daily business. Here is the hope that life carries on regardless and all will be well again.

Website: https://www.chichestergardener.com

https://www.instagram.com/thechichestergardener

https://www.transitionchichester.org/grow-chichester