Blirthday or would it be Blogiversary?

Whatever you call it out here in the blogosphere, today is the first birthday of this blog.

205 posts and 332 comments later, I've learned that a blog takes on a life of its own. I'm grateful for every one (well, nearly every one) of your comments, your support, your questions and participation in what for me remains a new adventure. Most special thanks to my son Spencer who has been my technical adviser and repairman, frequently called upon, in matters large and small...

While posting regularly is a bit like housework (you finish and then begin again....) "Plant Talk" continues to engage my attention, and I love learning from, and hearing from all of you......thanks for encouraging me to write about more than just plants and more plants. Please comment, comment, comment...and I'll try to answer every one...

In that vein, here's a little birthday gift for you, a quote in the new Gardens Illustrated from garden designer Arne Maynard on the hottest new design trends.  I love the images it evokes, and the possibilities for an earthworks approach in even the smallest gardens:

"Rather than everything being hard landscaping there's a craving for a more subtle approach inspired by nature - such as earth sculpture. A lawn is an artificial but often necessary space, so why not try replicating the ridge and furrow of a field, or create a shallow spiral down to a fire pit, or even something as simple as a turf maze cut or mown into the lawn?"

Comments

[Ray Larson]

Hi Val,
This is a great idea. I continue to think that adding some sort of earthwork, even a small one, gives our landscape spaces added interest and drama--no matter the season. There is no reason, unless a site is set aside for an active use, that everything has to be so flat. In this city and region of hills, valleys and so much topography, our gardens are often devoid of this sense of our surroundings or what the land would naturally be if it had not been scraped, leveled or filled. The early "ecological art" movement in the 1970s used earthworks to great effect. However, even the subtle rise in a flower bed, or a contoured instead of straight edge to a planting area, can give this sense of a larger nature. A good reminder to think in 3 dimensions in the garden--and not just in terms of plants. Soil is generally inexpensive compared to plants, though granted the labor can be more intensive at first. But one thing I learned from landscape architect Keith Geller, is that even small elevation changes can have a great effect in how we move through space, and how a garden "feels."

[kate]

Somehow, earth furrows and mazes and of course the famous ha-ha all seem like very English ideas. Sort of like the English sense of humor, the gardens of England seem... sillier. In a very nice way. Perhaps we need sillier gardens, too!

[Carol Hill]

I have sculpted my lawn into a river flowing around my house. When we moved in seven years ago, there was just lawn, huge horrible junipers that came out immediately, and a few great old trees. I've carved away most of the lawn and planted many things, leaving (besides some new plantings against the house) a swath of green about 6-10 feet wide circling the house. Sometimes I think of it as a moat, but it's not a barrier - it's a lovely swimming stroll with interesting things growing on both sides.

[valerie Easton]

Hi Kate,
So interesting your comment on how the earth sculpting ideas seem so English to you - I get it with the mazes, which are more formal, but mostly earth sculpting seems to me so modern, graphic, and naturalistic in that it mimics nature despite its man-made sculptural qualities. So I guess it seems anything but fussily British to me...although I did see my first full-scale earth-sculpted landscape outside the modern art museum in Edinburgh,its smooth hills and furrows a startling contrast to the very old and ornate building....
Val

[kate]

Oh, I see. Of course you're right about the traditional formal, fussy English gardens of yore. Maybe it's been wishful thinking on my part but based on the pages of Gardens Illustrated in recent years, I see heartening signs of non-fussy, site-sensitive English (and Euro) design. I thought of it (hopefully?) as engaging with the agrarian history of England, with sweeps of meadow plants, and preservation of hedgerows, bluebell copses, and even historical earth sculpting projects like ha has! The more ambitiously designed European gardens also seem more "planty" (a good quality) to me than their American counterparts, which have tended towards ostentatious in their expanses of hardscaping, highly engineered walls and overabundance of outdoor furniture. Too technical! But maybe I'm being optimistic about developments overseas - and I know there's some great design going on in the US, too. I wonder what Fergus Garrett would say?