LANDSCAPE CAUGHT MY IMAGINATION

This little garden found on Aesthetes Lament stole my heart. A centuries old style. Do you see only a woman standing in gravel? Ha!

Gravel is cheaper than stone, doesn't require skilled labor and lasts as long as a stone terrace. Creating a planting bed in gravel is simple, place cobblestones as edging and presto---a planting bed.

The bed, below, is lush and has stakes ready for tall blooms and twine ready for, most likely, clematis.

A solid urn is a wise choice atop the brick column. Who wants to water a pot that high? Do you want to climb a ladder and replant a pot up there?

An iron gate contrasts materials, shapes and has a keyhole view to another garden room. Ooooooh mystery, I must go thru that gate. Does your garden have mystery? No disgusting foundation planting ruins the front of this home. Obama should have included, Americans cling to their foundation plantings as a source of security. Lushness is espaliered on the house. Easier to maintain espalier 'whatever' than foundation plantings.

A pair of iron clamming baskets frame the sitting man. (Made that up, don't know what those iron baskets are.) Without plants they will hold the design-decorating together.

I want to smell this garden, hear the gravel crunch, meander thru the gate and ask to use the toilet (the English look at you funny when you ask for the restroom) then I can see inside the house. Assuming I'm on a garden tour of course.

Cecil Beaton's eye, the photographer, is knowing. Movie-set designer, gardener and writer he adored decadent amounts of fresh flowers in his home, cut from his garden.

He wrote, Here was the garden at its best & I lay in bed & saw the Picasso & Hockney engravings framed on my side wall, & the pictures were alliterated with the reflections from outside the window of roses blowing in the breeze, & the green marvel of the garden beyond."
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Photo from National Portrait Gallery