Harmony of nature
Jul. 18th, 2011 22:18![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillI feel a bit like a perpetual motion machine these days -- never stopping, finish one task only to go straight on to the next one. I'm busy right up until I climb into bed, and then kick myself into motion as soon as I wake up. I'd sometimes like to have just a little time to stop and do nothing in particular.
At least some of the things I'm doing are quite enjoyable, though. I don't get as much time as I'd like (or probably need to spend) on Greg's front yard, what with the more pressing needs of the garden and prepping for the Burn, but I do go check on it, water, and make little bits of progress. Today was one of those times.
I realized that a lot of my landscaping up until now has been focused on at least partly utilitarian needs: if you want fruit trees they need to be spaced thus, we need to put a hedge in to screen the hot tub, we have to keep these trees/bushes and work around the edges. Greg's yard has so few pre-existing features, and has no function other than aesthetic, so there's a grand scope I can work with quite beyond most designs. It's fascinating.
I'm working with smallish rocks and a variety of different plant shapes; putting them together into a coherent whole is more complex than just putting them in willy-nilly, or simply deciding based on the plant's own preferences for environment. Some things will need to be planted with something to break the constant wind for them, but there are many ways to ensure that... so the rest of placement comes down to artistic sense.
Each category of object needs to have its own internal balance, and still work with the other categories. The rocks need to be placed in relation to each other, then the large plants in relation to each other *and* in relation to the rocks... There's a coarse and fine grain to the equations that all sum up to partly calculation, partly feel. Each rock needs to play off its fellows. The plants should complement each other in placement and character. The sense of interplay and cooperation is fascinating.
Add to that the difficulties of symmetry. It would be easy to place everything at logical distances, but it would feel sterile and artificial. The real challenge is in making something balanced but asymmetrical, where the eye finds harmony but no immediate pattern. The best design, which I keep working for, is the placement where not only does the eye find balance and asymmetry, but the existing objects suggest the presence of others. I had two agaves on a hillock, and wanted to add two more succulents; I fussed with placement until not only were they all balanced together, but I could easily identify the next two or three spots that could be planted to add to the structure. Feeling those come into existence, like invisible Lagrange points, was what told me I had the right placement, because I need to have something where I can keep planting without upsetting the design.
The rocks add a nice hard, clear element, playing off the more organic shapes. I like the play of the afternoon light on some of them. I work hard to find the face of each one that communicates its best character, turning it this way and that, digging it into the hillside until it suggests there's much more buried beneath. Even a rather dull cuboid I had became rather interesting when I found the proper angle for it, and now you'd never know it had looked so regular. None of these are very sizable -- I had neither a bobcat nor money to buy really big rocks, so they're only as large as I can carry myself -- but that means they accent rather than dominating, especially when they don't just sit on top of the ground like some giant bird dropped them. It looks more like they were birthed out of the ground, washed down the dry streambed in a winter storm.
I have a large range of plant shapes and growth habits to accommodate, even within the parameters of tolerance for drought, wind, and frost. Agave, yucca, and aloe come in all sorts of flavors, and then you have the lesser players like aeoniums, dudleya, echeveria, jade plant, hens-and-chicks, all the various ground covers... and that's just what a non-succulents gardener knows about. :) Century plant has a different blade shape and growth habit than Tequila Agave, though they're often confused. I need to play thin-bladed globes like Our Lord's Candle off against the chunkier aloes, and find a way to emphasize the dinner-plate look of the aeoniums. So many succulent gardens I see are just a collection of what the gardener likes, without being arranged to best effect... I want this to really highlight the plants themselves, not just be a place where I can pick out and smile at my own favorites. I'm not really a succulent person anyway, though I confess I already like some of them more than others. This is a corner lot, albeit not on a busy street, so I want it to catch the eye as a whole. Subtleties like blossom color and timing are still beyond me, so I'll just have to hope it works out. The herbs and bulbs are giving me a good show already, even in the height of summer. I found a volunteer lupine today, and it looks so good I may have to put some in deliberately.
There are times I forget I'm as much an artist as a scientist, and melding the aesthetic qualities with the biology of what the plants need to thrive is a delicious opportunity. I need to get as many succulents in the ground during the hot months as I can, as this is when they thrive, but I can't rush the placement. I just hope I can get the major players in the ground before fall, and let the ground covers and baby plants wait until next spring. In the meantime, it's very satisfying to see everything settling in.
Pictures soon; I have a running gallery, and I need to get the camera over there again.
At least some of the things I'm doing are quite enjoyable, though. I don't get as much time as I'd like (or probably need to spend) on Greg's front yard, what with the more pressing needs of the garden and prepping for the Burn, but I do go check on it, water, and make little bits of progress. Today was one of those times.
I realized that a lot of my landscaping up until now has been focused on at least partly utilitarian needs: if you want fruit trees they need to be spaced thus, we need to put a hedge in to screen the hot tub, we have to keep these trees/bushes and work around the edges. Greg's yard has so few pre-existing features, and has no function other than aesthetic, so there's a grand scope I can work with quite beyond most designs. It's fascinating.
I'm working with smallish rocks and a variety of different plant shapes; putting them together into a coherent whole is more complex than just putting them in willy-nilly, or simply deciding based on the plant's own preferences for environment. Some things will need to be planted with something to break the constant wind for them, but there are many ways to ensure that... so the rest of placement comes down to artistic sense.
Each category of object needs to have its own internal balance, and still work with the other categories. The rocks need to be placed in relation to each other, then the large plants in relation to each other *and* in relation to the rocks... There's a coarse and fine grain to the equations that all sum up to partly calculation, partly feel. Each rock needs to play off its fellows. The plants should complement each other in placement and character. The sense of interplay and cooperation is fascinating.
Add to that the difficulties of symmetry. It would be easy to place everything at logical distances, but it would feel sterile and artificial. The real challenge is in making something balanced but asymmetrical, where the eye finds harmony but no immediate pattern. The best design, which I keep working for, is the placement where not only does the eye find balance and asymmetry, but the existing objects suggest the presence of others. I had two agaves on a hillock, and wanted to add two more succulents; I fussed with placement until not only were they all balanced together, but I could easily identify the next two or three spots that could be planted to add to the structure. Feeling those come into existence, like invisible Lagrange points, was what told me I had the right placement, because I need to have something where I can keep planting without upsetting the design.
The rocks add a nice hard, clear element, playing off the more organic shapes. I like the play of the afternoon light on some of them. I work hard to find the face of each one that communicates its best character, turning it this way and that, digging it into the hillside until it suggests there's much more buried beneath. Even a rather dull cuboid I had became rather interesting when I found the proper angle for it, and now you'd never know it had looked so regular. None of these are very sizable -- I had neither a bobcat nor money to buy really big rocks, so they're only as large as I can carry myself -- but that means they accent rather than dominating, especially when they don't just sit on top of the ground like some giant bird dropped them. It looks more like they were birthed out of the ground, washed down the dry streambed in a winter storm.
I have a large range of plant shapes and growth habits to accommodate, even within the parameters of tolerance for drought, wind, and frost. Agave, yucca, and aloe come in all sorts of flavors, and then you have the lesser players like aeoniums, dudleya, echeveria, jade plant, hens-and-chicks, all the various ground covers... and that's just what a non-succulents gardener knows about. :) Century plant has a different blade shape and growth habit than Tequila Agave, though they're often confused. I need to play thin-bladed globes like Our Lord's Candle off against the chunkier aloes, and find a way to emphasize the dinner-plate look of the aeoniums. So many succulent gardens I see are just a collection of what the gardener likes, without being arranged to best effect... I want this to really highlight the plants themselves, not just be a place where I can pick out and smile at my own favorites. I'm not really a succulent person anyway, though I confess I already like some of them more than others. This is a corner lot, albeit not on a busy street, so I want it to catch the eye as a whole. Subtleties like blossom color and timing are still beyond me, so I'll just have to hope it works out. The herbs and bulbs are giving me a good show already, even in the height of summer. I found a volunteer lupine today, and it looks so good I may have to put some in deliberately.
There are times I forget I'm as much an artist as a scientist, and melding the aesthetic qualities with the biology of what the plants need to thrive is a delicious opportunity. I need to get as many succulents in the ground during the hot months as I can, as this is when they thrive, but I can't rush the placement. I just hope I can get the major players in the ground before fall, and let the ground covers and baby plants wait until next spring. In the meantime, it's very satisfying to see everything settling in.
Pictures soon; I have a running gallery, and I need to get the camera over there again.
