Alongside the coast of Maine as we’re readying for Christmas, our out of doors cultivation has come to a screeching halt as the bottom is roofed by a foot and a half of snow. So as to add emphasis to this being the time of the shortest days of the yr, a half inch of ice fell the previous couple of days, making a pleasant, preserving crust on the snow.
For a gardener, it is a time of planning, organizing, and preparation. For me, I’m looking for a theme for subsequent yr’s backyard designs at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. We’re redesigning our entry stroll, areas round our entry garden, plus seasonal shows all through the gardens. In on the lookout for inspiration, I begin operating by way of the same old candidates: Victorian carpet bedding schemes, Beatrix Farrand along with her free-flowing perennials, Roberto Burle Marx and his large flows of brilliant colours, and Piet Oudolf’s visions of grass inflorescences dancing with salvias and alliums.
The issue is that every one of this has been finished earlier than. Most gardens want to replicate certainly one of these designers or some variant of their designs. A part of the rationale I got here to Maine was to be at a younger backyard the place we might do issues in another way. A part of doing that is to be taught which vegetation will survive and which vegetation will battle. I discovered final summer season that tropicals that thrive within the south and mid-Atlantic, will sit round like a dozing canine all summer season, solely to peak in mid-September because the summer season crowds have moved again to their occupations which afford them the flexibility to summer season in Maine.
Lengthy-story made quick, I began fascinated with what sort of house interiors I like one of the best and was drawn to the furnishings of Hans Wegner. If cash have been no object and we didn’t have 4 youngsters, our house could be an assemblage of Scandinavian fashionable design. Aha, that’s after I started looking for Scandinavian backyard design. We share considerably related climates and quick summers, I assumed, so the vegetation and designs is perhaps value investigating.
Proper now, I’m poring by way of the gardens of Ulf Nordfjell. Nordfjell has a easy aesthetic with clear strains and blocks of vegetation. The colours are refined and used with restraint, when used in any respect. Like a Wegner wishbone chair, the look is definitely understood but relaxed and cozy. Nordfjell entered gardens on the Chelsea Flower Present in London in 2007 and 2009. I noticed his backyard from 2007 in individual and thought it was sensible. The entire different gardens appeared to be competing with each other to have the biggest buildings and vegetation simply seemed to be filling within the gaps. Nordfjell’s backyard was structured across the vegetation. From what I recollect it used inexperienced, white, and a little bit of purple for coloration. Not the garish mixtures of his opponents. He gained a gold medal for this backyard solely to come back again in 2009 to take a Greatest in Present award.
The problem within the coming weeks is to determine how you can take this inspiration and make it match our present context. The strains of our gardens are extra natural and curving. Our company are drawn extra to paint than shades of inexperienced, gray, and white. I’ll proceed trying by way of his designs, studying about his inspirations, after which developing with plant mixtures which are our personal.
How about you? How do you design? Who’re your inspirational designers? What cool issues are you considering of attempting to drag off for 2014?
–Rodney
Photos: englishgarden.se, Shoot Gardening, tradgardsform, grysigurdsdotter