Wednesday 23 January 2019

Gardening.



I'm talking garden gardening here, not vegetable gardening.

Some years back, someone we knew went around trying to convince our friends that we were 'ruining our garden' by building our small 'tower' (above). In fact, of course, it has been totally the opposite, and has been the making of it.

John Brookes, the famous garden designer, correctly claimed that it is 'background' that makes a garden.

As he illustrated, if you plant a rambling rose in the middle of a field, it will look ridiculous. If you plant that same rose around the front door of a small cottage, it will look spectacular. It is the background that gives purpose to the planting, and makes all the difference.

The great houses usually built follies, bridges, and pergolas in their extensive grounds; anything that would contrast with the natural plantings, small cottage gardens can do much the same. The one compliments the other, as do paintings on an empty wall, or books on the shelves of a library.

I am NOT a flower gardener; I know nothing of such things. But I do know about design, and have always believed in John Brookes' wise words. He was right, and our critic so obviously wrong.



30 comments:

  1. Recently I discovered that gardening is a relaxing work even without knowing anything about gardening.Your garden always looks so beautiful.

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    1. I know nothing about flowers; I tend to be given things, or I ask for cuttings. I'm really a veg' gardener.

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  2. Such a good designer..and so right. Your tower is lovely

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    1. It's a very useful little building, it gave us huge pleasure building it, and it certainly improves the look of the garden.

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  3. The tower is a great addition. Would you like to come and build one here? Love those Iris.

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    1. We swore we'd never do anything like it again. It was a foolhardy project, which just happened to work-out fine. Getting up to build that roof (without scaffolding) was quite frightening.

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  4. Seems like only yesterday you were building the tower. It looks like it has always been there, it belongs.

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    1. Not sure about that, but it was a great experience building it.

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  6. The tower and garden are wonderful. Is the tower a summer house to sit in?

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    1. It serves several purposes. Junk room, summer bedroom, and store room for my preserves amongst others.

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  7. It looks lovely. Isn't it strange what bees get into people's bonnets?

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  8. Looks pretty good to me. Was that was once covered over with a vine?

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    1. It has a Wisteria and a Clematis climbing over it; they do a good job too.

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  9. Gardening (with flowers and shrubs etc) started off as an attempt to tame nature, then Lancelot Brown turned up and trained it to pretend to be wild again. They made artificial houses and installed old men in them who pretended to be hermits. I think you should grow your beard and hair, then shout at passers-by from the window of your tower.

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    1. You obviously haven't seen a recent photo of me. My beard now doubles as a duvet.

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    2. Excellent. You can now save on wages.

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  10. Talking of gardening tips Cro, you may like to take a look at today's post on Northsider Dave's this morning. I am sure you will find it useful in your garden planning for the future. As for Tom's suggestion about the beard and hair, I am assuming it is already like this as Lady M has been away for a good six months.

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    1. Not quite six months, but I understand that she's quite anxious to return to God's own corner of S W France. I shall have a look at ND's page.

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    2. I do wish that everything emanating from Scotland would come complete with subtitles. I enjoyed it anyway. Thanks.

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  11. Your tower is a thing of beauty, especially with the lovely wisteria intermingled on it. I started doing some verticle gardening two years ago on the wall in my patio area? It looked easy, but I have had problems sustaining it throughout the summer. Hopefully, this year I will be more successful.

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    1. The Wisteria is beautiful, but I do have to cut it back at least twice a year.

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  12. I love your tower Cro and those iris. I also agree that each plant needs a background.

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    1. I honestly think the background can be more important than the plantings.

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  13. You are so right about the ‘ background ‘ in a garden being important Cro ..... your tower is beautiful and looks stunning when the wisteria and clematis are out. XXXX

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    1. It looks great when they're both in flower; it's covered.

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  14. Gardening is fun, it’s more difficult than veg growing. Veg growing needs forward planning and greed. Gardening needs the ability to think in three dimensions, the cooperation of plants, the concept of taste and constant discussions with other members of the family who do not garden but walk past and say ,”That does not work” which is a challenge. Given the style of your picture you are acting like a 1930s starlet who has taken 4 hours to get ready and then looks at her outfit and says “This old thing”.

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    1. I like your analogy. I agree with you about proper gardening being more difficult than Veg' gardening; which is probably why I'm so hit-n-miss with it.

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