It’s a well known fact that artists draw inspiration from travel; new
scenery, new people, new cultures all heavily influence artistic
impression. So it stands to reason that we gardeners – who are, after
all, at our most basic “plant artists” – would benefit from changing
vistas as well. And it’s true. Over years of exploration, first as
private citizen then as PBS host, and now guest lecturer for the Harvard Alumni Association Travel Program,
I’ve had marvelous opportunities to visit gardens all over the globe,
and many have heavily influenced not only my own landscape, but also how
I design gardens for my clients. Transoceanic flights, however, are not
necessarily required. Here are three of my favorite gardens in the US
with some very important lessons to teach.
Indoors as Out: The Getty Villa in Malibu, California.
To my mind, one of the most remarkable landscapes in the United States, perhaps the
most remarkable, surrounds the Getty Villa in Malibu. For those of you
unfamiliar with the place, the Villa, constructed by oil magnate J. Paul
Getty in the 70s, is an exact replica of the Villa of the Papyri in
Herculaneum, which was buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79.
(The original villa, which still remains largely entombed in hardened
volcanic rock, was excavated and mapped by tunneling during the 19th and 20th
centuries.) The Getty structure, which steps down its sloping seaside
site, is probably humanity’s best guess at what Roman gardens looked
like. In neat, box-lined beds, ancient herbs and flower bloom,
surrounding bronze sculptures and punctuated by flowing fountains. Along
the colonnaded walls, frescos of country scenes and imaginary
landscapes blur the distinction between architecture, garden, and the
hilltops beyond. While the scale of the garden is immense and outside
the range of anyone except multi-millionaires, the take-away lesson here
is simple and applicable to almost any garden: link indoors and out.
What strikes the visitor immediately is how gracefully the Getty gardens
flow in, out, and around the structure, and how the house returns the
gesture, embracing the gardens within its walls. Now granted, not all of
us are blessed with a Mediterranean climate like that found in Malibu,
but many are, and even in these places, modern construction is rarely
successful in uniting house and garden the way the Getty Villa does.
Each time I visit the Getty, I return to my own New England garden, and
work on ways to improve how I see the garden from within, and how the
garden sees the house from without. (The Getty is now split into two
separate sites. The old villa in Malibu, which houses its extensive
classical collections, and the new museum, strikingly situated on a hill
overlooking all of LA and surrounded by modern gardens of great beauty.
Both are well worth the trip. More information on visiting the at
http://www.getty.edu/visit)
Order and Unity: The Gardens of Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia
The product of another oil magnate, this time John D. Rockefeller
Jr., the gardens that surround the restored homes and shops of Colonial
Williamsburg provide an entirely different type of lesson for the garden
traveler. In many ways, these small, enclosed gardens are far more
accessible to modern visitor than the grand scale of the Getty. In fact,
they aren’t too terribly dissimilar from the ¼ acre lots that surround
homes all over the nation. What sets them apart from their modern
brethren, however, is their sense of order and unity. Tour the various
gardens of Williamsburg (and there are dozens) and in each you’ll be
struck by how harmonious the relationship is between the various
architectural features, the plantings, and the homes themselves. Fences,
whose design derives from some element of the house architecture, move
out in orderly lines from the house, and then conclude in logical ending
points, so unlike many of today’s ill-conceived fence lines. Hardscape
elements – walkways, arbors, trellis – share common materials and
colors. And the plantings, so different from the messy masses that
surround today’s homes, are in scale with the structures, and related to
them by axial lines. In short, these gardens are comfortable – not to
mention comforting – to spend time in, and my visits to Williamsburg
have taught me always to be aware that when laying out a garden, the house
needs to be the starting point for any garden design. So many
landscapes today are conceived as if the house didn’t really matter,
when in fact, it’s the style of the house, the color of the house, the
situation of the house, the access to the house that must dictate the
elements of the design. Think about it: without a house, you’re
landscaping a field. It’s the house that drives the garden, not
vice-versa, and that’s a lesson easily appreciated in Colonial
Williamsburg. (More information at http://www.history.org)
Working With Nature: Dumbarton Oaks in Washington DC
Just a few hours away from Williamsburg, and a just a few miles from
the Capital, sits one of the most magnificent gardens on the eastern
seaboard: Dumbarton Oaks. Designed by the renowned landscape architect
Beatrix Farrand for owners Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss in the 20s as
their country home, the property now belongs to Harvard University and
the Federal Government, who work jointly to preserve the 20 odd acres of
gardens. Of course, when visiting a garden created by a true genius
like Farrand, it would be easy to take away any number of well-taught
lessons, and Dumbarton Oaks doesn’t disappoint. Clever aerial hedges
surround grassy walks, custom designed furniture nestles among native
plantings, terraced gardens lead down from the lovely Georgian home. But
what strikes me as a professional designer is not so much what was
accomplished – the Blisses after all were millionaires who could have
instructed Farrand to create whatever style of garden they wished – but
rather what wasn’t. The house is located on difficult, hilly terrain that borders Rock Creek (emphasis on rock),
and instead of leveling vast stretches and clearing immense vistas to
create a classical layout, Farrand worked within the constraints of
nature, nestling garden rooms into the hillsides and connecting them
with forested walks. That’s not to say the undertaking still wasn’t
immense, but the garden plan works with nature in a way that few modern
landscapes do. (One other success that immediately comes to mind is
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin, in Spring Green, Wisconsin.) The
take-away concept here is that whatever your site or climate, gardens
succeed best when they co-exist with their surroundings, rather than
attempting to dominate or control them. Dumbarton Oaks reminds us to
embrace whatever conditions we’ve inherited – sun, shade, bog, desert –
and make the most of them. (More information at
http://www.doaks.org/gardens/virtual_tour)
So this summer, wherever your travels take you, do yourself a favor:
bring along a camera, a small notebook, and spend some time visiting
gardens. You, and your backyard, will be glad you did. http://michaelweishan.com/gardenblog/
No comments:
Post a Comment