Aside from creating something that is ‘beautiful’ to look at and fore fills the brief and pleases the client. What else can we hope to achieve when we do planting?
1. Small Scale and Large scale considered. We hope that the planting works in the Macro and the Micro. What does that mean? It means we hope the planting works and feels successful and is interesting and stimulating, whether we see it from a distance as whole in a wide view, or whether we look at the intricate details up close. I will ask, in the wider perspective is this going to create form, texture and colour as a ‘feeling’, that works with the overall identity of the place we are creating (the CONCEPT)? Do the plants create meaning that work with the place itself? Personally I work with how the plants feel in relation to the wider concept? This is more a sense, is this landscape mostly native? Does it have a sense of being a natural space? Are there natural flowing forms in the landscape and how can the planting enhance that. A classical house below, and the planting needed to reflect that by creating gravitas with the large topiary, simple geometry, some vegetable areas to create a sense of kitchen garden.
In the Micro, or very close perspective I would ask the same question, how do these combinations make me feel? Do I feel soft and vibrant and shimmering, or upright, in the project below wanted to create a sense of ‘natural’ with the planting, which I think comes from softness in the plant choices. There was a large wall behind and I wanted to not take away from that architectural form but to soften it by adding a much needed sense of the more natural space.
2. Telling a Story with Planting – Giving Borders an Identity….
I have always loved stories. As I looked for a felt meaning in the landscapes I designed and created, I realised it felt right to me that gardens and garden design should tell a story (of sorts). As I was asked to work in the larger spaces, there was a greater sense of moving through different spaces with an individual identity, and so making the planting feel like it manifested the feelings of that particular part, and also related to other areas has felt consecutively more important. The key to this is does one space lead to another, is there something new to discover in each place, is there a sense of crescendo in planting as we reach a central area, is there a reveal? One of the most obvious short examples of this is an entrance gates. Entrances introduce us to a place they should communicate the vibe and concept of a design and have a sense of place all of their own. There should be a Wow factor in a front entrance but I feel that is best if toned down rather a lot, because otherwise if we put a huge effort into creating a complex planting that is very high maintenance that people were to say about, “That is the most wonderful planting scheme I have ever seen I am speechless!” when they are at the front gates, then where is there to go in terms of an emotional journey after that? I believe people want to hear a story and making a garden is like making a movie, people want to be told the story. To be clear, I am not saying create poor planting that gets better, I am saying create simplified planting. Front gates lend themselves to single species or wild areas, or small groups of repeating species, with a focus on lower maintenance, some wow, and being in keeping with the place and concept, but as this is the first thing people see, as a designer try to tantalise and create curiosity with this border, this is the beginning of the story. In the borders that surround the important main seating areas, that are often a central part of the story, we can then introduce more complex dynamic planting that creates more sophisticated impression (or more ‘wow’) but with less year round appeal because we always drive into a house or see it from the road all year, but in winter we drastically reduce the amount of time we sit outside.
3. Reliability Over the Years. Planting ideas continued.
Choosing plants that will live for many years while allowing other shorter lived plants for specific reasons in small numbers, for example plants we feel offer huge impact, like biennials, is a good reason to veer from this suggested rule. I find people do not mind whether I create a matrix or swathes in terms of the planting style and they often are ok to leave those choices to me. But what people seem to want in every landscape is that the planting is reliable and keeps returning year after year, if we choose annuals, they should be noted where they are so they can be managed, people don’t like plants however beautiful that seed everywhere (this is a rare like), and if we choose biennials they like to understand why and what they need to do (digitalis -foxgloves for example).
Of course there are perennials that are less reliable and they have their place if they deliver so much in terms of beauty so there is a balance to strike.
4. Long flowering – Succession of the seasons.
I try to create schemes that effortlessly change throughout the season providing areas of green lush backdrop, with an interplay of repeating combinations at 3-5 times of the the year. This can almost unnoticeably create transitions that means there is almost year round interest (for 7-8 months including bulbs). I personally have found this works best with swathes and so regardless of whether I am personally interested in matrix planting as a complex , rewarding and stimulating creative process, I feel swathes works best with many varied sizes of planting spaces and it is more reliable in terms of the impression it gives.
Here are some examples of how a border can succeed with longevity in mind.
Generally and here are some ideas such as movement and form reflected in the planting when foliage changes colour.
5. Detailed Planting
I believe planting plans should be very detailed. This is necessary for ordering and being able to successfully implement the design on site in a timely fashion. I design and we detail every plant by hand drawing them and how they relate in swaths in every plan. We then can show options for when the plants will flower.
I build a structure of large trees and plants to begin with when I start imagining planting. This layer of the design is very often in place already with at least very specific visual ideas in my mind (in 3D because that is how I think, perhaps something to do with being dyslexic) and on the plans, already for how the space will be living (soft) and be three dimensional. As landscape designer we are unique among architects and designers that we design with living things. If we didn’t have a clear idea of how that structure would create the identity and be central to why the place feels like it does when the project is finished, then we would not be creating cohesive designs.
6. Structure
7. Identity from balancing between hard landscape and Soft (planting) – What do we need to do with plants and trees we could not do with built structure.
Striking a balance between hard and soft is for me a key feature of successful design. To me some poor although ‘fashionable’ work, can look incredible with amazing details, it can also look and feel cold, hard or empty , even lacking a clear identity of it’s own. I like to squint my eyes when I look at a site and see how the hard and soft and light and dark areas are exaggerated to stand out. In my mind I am proverbially squinting my eyes when I design, I am asking does this need more foliage, will it be too hard, how can I achieve that without taking up too much space etc. Often clients want to achieve something like blocking or obscuring something, or opening something. We can open a view by framing it with plants and trees, and creating identity for the design at the same time. Often we live in a built dense environment and people want to block other houses or views. This is obviously best achieved with planting because it doesn’t require planning, and we don’t want to add any more built structures because landscapes generally require enough hard surfaces anyway to be functional and so I prefer to weight as heavily a possible on planting in most cases as that rights the balance which feels important. There are specific trees such as pleached trees (these are expensive and can be unreliable) which are designed to create a full frame at height. They are often used to create a an internal sense to a garden and a background, but I prefer to design in subtle ways using a technique I call ‘Slight of Hand’ which means we focus the client or users attention on internal parts of the garden or on views, I feel by using structured trees that are notable like pleached trees, we actually draw peoples attention to the tree and as it inevitably cannot fully block what we may be trying to hide behind, then what it actually achieves is counter productive. I prefer to interplay large structural trees and plants in a delicate balance. I don’t feel this is naturalistic although it could be interpreted as such.
What I am trying to achieve when I do that is to take the users eye attention away from the item or area the client doesn’t wish to see. This understatement is because I believe the holistic sense of a place is more important that the visual ideas clashing with one another, is something I talk more about in this blog, and it shows itself in a lot of areas of my work
I will talk more about how I feel about naturalistic planting in the next planting rules blog, but I would like to be clear that I don’t specifically try to create naturalistic planting.
8. A looseness that allows us to breathe – Naturalistic planting or Blended.
Sometimes people say my planting looks naturalistic. I don’t specifically try to do that, I just love seeing trees and shrubs creating a beautiful form, often this can be done with some specific pruning to encourage a beautiful umbrella or canopy, I very much like multi stem trees and evergreen structure as a back drop in a garden. This strikes a good balance for me in the garden having understated structure, but also year round interest in winter. Most importantly when I go to places I love, I see trees and plants that are just being the best they can be, thriving in an enhanced natural form. When I create gardens I am imagining in 5-30 years time when that place will have the presence that those places I love have. I find it is best to strike a balance between maturity of the trees we buy. I like the naturalistic shapes as in the Amelanchiers lamarkii’s below (as multi stems). But to the left you can see one planted 10 years before we left in the structure (to not kill a living thing) but you can see how ineffective it was to plant the same tree small as single stem and how little it changed in 10 years, so here is a good example of buying a naturalistic shape and buying large so we don’t have to wait to make that shape.
Structure here in the form of naturalistic multi stems, is good for spring to have intense flowers, and complex perennial planting in summer can follow.
In terms of perennials and borders, as I mentioned in my curves article, I think we have a longing to return to the wild, where we can breathe. I like to use actual wild spaces such as lakes, ponds and wild flower meadows in my designs, as these seem to imbue the landscape with so much sense of place and presence. However in most gardens where I create borders I am not trying to achieve ‘Wild’ or naturalistic, I am trying to achieve a blending, or an overlapping quality that feels like the architectural landscape (with flowing or formal shapes) is really taken over by these ‘blended’ borders that feel loose and vibrant.
9. Planting can be fun.
Planting can sometimes be fun. Sometimes people want vibrant colour or interesting shapes. Sometimes this is a step away from serious cohesive concept to realisation, but that’s ok. Gardens are for people.
10. Advice After the Fact. Gardens need designers with specific knowledge.
I think it is important that the designer continues to visit a garden as the years pass and gives advice about the details of the maintenance. I prefer to show with the secateurs. and I think this is far more effective than writing a long winded document which the gardener reads, or forgets, or looses. Complex planting is not difficult to maintain but it does require following some specific instructions for How and When to prune things. Larger shrubs and things which have structure like Perovskia’s and Hydrangeas can be pruned so they form beautiful shapes when flowering at varying heights. Some plants die if you prune them early, ie Penstemum, and other plants need to be cut back very hard. The list goes on.
