"If a woman has a closet full of clothes but nothing to wear, she doesn't know herself very well." Bill Blass. "Our lives are about getting the outside to match the inside." Karl Jung. What does your landscape say about you? What do you think of the landscape, below? Words, not thoughts. Can you write words about the landscape, below, and its mechanics of being? How old is this landscape, below, in the realm of landscape design? Is this a 'done' landscape, below? Is this a landscape not-done, below? How do you know the difference?
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Historic world class landscapes, after centuries, if they exist at all, present a unified trinity, Wildwood, Meadow, Stone Focal Point. Varies little across cultures/continents. Until the 20th century peoples were mostly agrarian/pastoral. Born ca. '60, I was raised in a subdivision, pure industrialized landscaping. Nothing agrarian/pastoral in my personal life.
How is this landscape, below, considered? What words does an industrialized human, especially American, have to use, describing the landscape, below? No worries, took me 2 college degrees and decades of studying historic landscapes across Europe/America to find the words for this garden. Worse, it was only in the past few years, I learned the 'why' of this landscape, below.
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(Canopy, understory, meadow, focal point, flow, contrast, texture, layers, pollinator habitat, no chemicals needed. You, you are needed, here, to enjoy the garden.)
Drama with the garden, above, evolves, below. Enter, the hedge and a focal point. Do you know what you're looking at, below? I know, it's a book on new modern landscape design.
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Focal point, below, shot at a different angle could look freshly installed at MoMA. Yet there it sits in a centuries old agrarian new modern landscape.
Industrialized landscapes don't function upon the myriad layers of this landscape, above/below. Do you know what functions are missing? Do you know what happens in industrialized landscapes, that do not happen in the landscape above/below? What if you think you know what happens, but your answers are wrong? Are you sure your answers, so far, to all my questions, are right?
Those hedges, below, be still my heart. At the front end of my career, industrialized learning, worse, industrialized living, I was taught hedges create garden rooms. Decades accepting hedges create garden rooms, as the sole answer. Why not? Good industrialized parrot, I was. Looking back, cringing, at the shill an industrialized narrative and life had made of me.
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No worries if you don't have answers to my questions. Most people are not born Garden Whisperers. I was. Few are born each century, and what joy when we find each other. Some of you, reading this, may be realizing you are a Garden Whisperer too. Welcome ! Conversely, I know life having lost several Garden Whisperer friends. Beloved knows them too, though they died before I met him. That's how much they mean to me.
Hedges do create garden rooms, and more. Hedges next to meadows create a safe haven for insects/wildlife and are Earth's maximum pollinator habitat. Life happens in the margins. We're not separate from these facts. We evolved with microbiomes in the landscape, without them, we die. More, studies showing how much microbiomes within us affect our mental health. Won't go further, you can extrapolate for yourself.
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Enter stage, too exciting, Stick Trees, below, hedges in the air. Centuries of design with Stick Trees. Beginning when we 'lived' in our landscapes, not merely drove thru them into the garage, or look at them from inside our HVAC homes.
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Canopy trees, oaks/maples/etc, are
Rivers in the Sky. Water transported from the ground high into the air, Earths first
Swamp Cooler. More, pollinators are at all layers from ground to tops of canopy trees. Stick trees, in addition to allees for walking, or adding privacy, are a layer beneath understory trees, for pollinators.
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Has it struck you about this garden, above/below, that it's a garden for meandering? Noticed how showy it is, yet all green? Noticed flowers are not the objective, yet entirely the objective? This garden is agrarian flowered vs. industrially flowered with greenhouses, big box nurseries, bagged potting soil, transportation issues..... Further, it is what a Garden Whisperer 'knows' as flowers vs. flowers sold as the industrialized ideal. Flowers, above/below, millenia in the making for man/beast/insect/fungi.
Agrarian based landscapes vs. Industrialized landscapes teach lessons. Agrarian landscapes invite us into their world. Industrialized landscapes invite us to look. Agrarian landscapes need no chemicals, are not toxic to groundwater & wildlife/insects/people. Before humans, Earth made itself a garden. Following agrarian templates, inviting us into the garden vs. the template of industrialized landscapes, keeping us out of the garden, while selling their upkeep, is the post/modern choice. Where to take language at this point? We are post modern with our industrialized landscapes, agrarian gardens are the new modern.
A recent study on those who live the longest concluded with the top 3 things about why they lived so long, gardening was one of them.
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"...sometimes the world disrobes, slips its dress off a shoulder, stops time for a beat. If we look up at that moment, it's not due to any ability of ours to pierce the darkness, it's the world's brief bestowal. The catastrophe of grace." Anne Michaels. Agrarian based landscapes are thin places, where catastrophe-of-grace is designed to happen.
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"Researchers analyzing soil from Ireland long thought to have medicinal properties have discovered that it contains a previously unknown strain of bacteria which is effective against four of the top six superbugs that are resistant to antibiotics, including MRSA."
Macro views, above, of the garden rooms. Where a Garden begins, below, from inside views. Industrialized landscapes originate from the street view, looking at the house, not being in the house looking out. Often, that is why a client hires me, they tried for years to DIY, not realizing their point of origination was wrong, with a few layers after that wrong too. No worries if that is you, it was me at the front end. My excuse? A horticulture degree teaching me. What we unlearn, sets us free.
The Well Placed Chair, below. Centuries of The Well Placed Chair. What did I learn after putting them into my own garden? The Well Placed Chair became a part of everyday life. Great for setting things on if I was fluffing the garden, best for a spot with lunch, and phone calls. From the first, having lunch in one of my Well Placed Chairs I learned the garden came into me, as I had never allowed it while moving about. Sitting still, hummingbirds swirl about my head, butterflies land on me, as if I was merely another part of the garden, sounds and their variations, not heard before, are heard, the level of my eyes, taking everything in is different, richer, and 'rest' while in the Well Placed Chair intensified, now learned to be
Earthing, aka, Grounding.
You didn't get the heads-up about this garden, above/below, it's famous, the owner at bottom. Had to smile seeing the livestock, above, the owner probably has the property in an agricultural easement for taxes.
"Elegance is refusal.", Coco Chanel. Simplicity.
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This garden, all pics, above, belongs to Catherine Deneuve, below.
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Pic, above,
here.
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"Life foists roles on us all; the challenge is to accept these costumes without letting the private core of you become pure quicksilver.", Thomas Browne, 17th century. When you have an agrarian styled new modern landscape for your life's stage, costumes come & go, and don't matter, you're working with the best director, Providence.
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Quote, above, from, Aeon.
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Pic, above,
here.
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Grace is not a commodity. Grace is active, on its own initiative and timing. A real stinker when you're needing grace, and it's no where to be bought, grabbed, coerced. Without intention of finding a place for grace to be found, I did. And it's there for you too in the new modern agrarian landscape.
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Pic, above,
here.
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Notice Hubert Reeves, "Nature", above? Within the past decade it became the same for me. A singular epiphany about nature being truly Nature.
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Pic, above,
here.
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Agrarian new modern landscapes are the unspoken at the edge of the spoken.
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Pic, above,
here .
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Ralph Austen, above, I certainly have a to-do list for heaven, meeting you is now on the list ! Orchards have meant a lot to the evolution of my Garden Design career, in the agrarian new modern landscape. Culminating after touring Israel, with my parents, in the foot steps of Jesus for 2 weeks. Specifically, the garden of Gethsemane where Jesus went before being crucified, to pray. Imagine my shock discovering the garden of Gethsemane is an orchard. Once home, planted my orchard. BTW, an orchard can be a single fruiting tree. If you can't have an orchard you can certainly have the metaphor. Though I did manage 6 espaliered fruit trees on my less than 1/4 acre, and named my home, Orchard House.
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Pic, above,
here.
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Isn't it best when we remove our own veils of ignorance? Away from the world, in the loving preserve of Nature. There, it's accepted as epiphany, appreciated as a gift, change is wrought, in joy. At least, that is what my garden does for me.
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Pic, above,
here.
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Everyone has a unique learning method. Gardens, oddly, are mine. If you've understood this post so far, gardens are your teacher too. We put our time to what we value. Growing up my father was the lion of the Serengeti. Had to pay attention, lions bite. Kept my butt off his Serengeti. Created my own world, away...away from the lion. Ironically, I was the one helping him with the yard and pool. Gardening was an arena we could co-exist. More proof, oh garden how great thou are.
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Skipped my senior year of high school for college, more getting away from dad's Serengeti than brains. Lion, above, looks a bit like my dad the day he dropped me off at SMU freshman year. Of course you can guess who I look like now, dad.
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Pic, above,
here.
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Humility has many teachers, the garden is a teacher of humility, if you pay attention, it's also a stage to heal the wounds from other teachers of humility.
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Pic, above,
here.
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Need to forgive someone? Perhaps you knew this was coming? Agrarian landscapes teach forgiveness. If you doubt that, trust that an agrarian landscape is a place to go pray for forgiveness. 2018 was my year to learn about a forgiveness given in 1986, while in my garden.
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For this sole fact alone, I would garden.
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Garden & Be Well, XO T
