Design: Changing Narrative

A 'simple' Garden Design, below, all the layers dramatically in place.  Starting at the top of the picture, now, in your mind, label each layer of the Garden Design, below.
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If you've come to Garden Design, age 50 up, this type of Garden Design holds significant charms vs. coming to Garden Design in your 20's.
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But I'm getting ahead of my story, most of us come to gardening, if we do come to gardening, as the song noted, 'In a heated rush'.  And, 'Seeing what you wanted to see'.
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Until Seth Godin a few days ago I taught garden design for beginners at the Atlanta Botanical Garden and local college, knowing my students needed to unlearn most of what they already knew about Garden Design, as beginners.
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Garden Design appears easy, we try it, and the results prove Garden Design has a lot of elements not readily apparent, though beautifully designed gardens hide nothing.  Excepting. how can you 'see' the process of designing a good garden, how can you 'see' what was left out of the beautiful Garden Design?  Time to switch the narrative from what you thought you knew about Garden Design, as rank novice, to learning the nuts/bolts of real Garden Design.
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Garden Design is not voodoo or feelings about what will work, it is science and art, a historical process, unchanged, since well before the birth of Christ.
 


Pic, above, here.
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"Narrating our lives, the little play-by-play we can't help carrying around, that's a survival mechanism. But it also hotwires our feelings, changes our posture, limits our possibilities.

The narrative is useful as long as it's useful, helping you solve problems and move forward. But when it reinforces bad habits or makes things smaller, we can drop it and merely be present, right here, right now."  Seth Godin

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Exactly, the narrative we have as beginning gardeners, total novices, is our own narrative.  Limiting our possibilities, doesn't move us forward, literally makes our lives smaller.
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Every historic layer of Garden Design, thousands of years worth, is, above.  Though it appears quite modern.  Bless good Garden Design for that.  It allows playfulness with abandon.
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Thank you Seth Godin, now I know it's not the unlearning of our beginning Garden Design ideas we need to do, it's literally changing the narrative.  When we change the narrative, we change our lives.
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Live a smaller life, never move forward, limit possibilities?  What's not to like about changing the narrative?
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More than gaining a new narrative and ability to create an extraordinary Garden Design, the garden once built/planted will continually renew itself, with abandon.  What does that mean?  Once you've put the effort into building a beautiful Garden Design, the garden rewards you, no effort on your part, with a larger life, forward momentum, and limitless possibility.  And with some brownie points included, again without effort, raised property value, lower heating/cooling expense, easier maintenance & lifestyle.  Not bad, for changing your narrative about Garden Design.  
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So, have you named all the layers of the Garden Design, above?  Sky-ceiling, tall trees-canopy, small trees-understory, pruned hedge-walls, low meadow-floor, urn-focal point.  A garden room.  Plant it and you'll have a moat of grace around your home.  And life.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T