I’ve always loved both gardens and gardening. Gardens for their beauty and serenity, and gardening for its sense of spiritual purpose: you are doing positive work to make the world more beautiful and assisting nature with growth. When I was married and in a house I’d spend several hours each weekend on this pastime. Although I do love to garden my present day finances only allow me to live in an apartment, so it doesn’t seem likely that I’ll be planning a large yard any time soon. Still though back a few years ago I took the pleasure of attending a Garden Design talk by a Master Gardener at CSUN, and now I thought I might pass his teachings along to a wider audience.
At first I must admit I was a bit surprised that there was such a thing as Master Gardener; it must be some self-promoting title to indicate importance to the world. When I looked it up though I found that it’s a legitimate title in a horticultural studies path, and as we settled in to hear the gentleman speak I was quickly impressed by both his experiences and his expertise.
In gardening circles folks apparently get reputations as much as top musicians, potters, or architects. The Master Gardener spent a few minutes name dropping other high-profile architects, institutions, and celebrities for whom he had worked, and then cut to the chase for the design matters at hand.
He started off saying that the question he most frequently gets asked is “what tools should I have?” and his answer caught us quite offguard and made us giggle: The best gardening tool, he said, is a lawn chair. He suggested that we sit for hours and just imagine; watch how the sun and shadows move across the yard at different seasons during the year. In this fashion you will begin to understand the possibilities and challenges of your plants.
The important determinants of a garden, he suggested, was variety: one should plant something round, something fluffy, and something spiky. Along with the random coloring of leaves and flowers, providing this mix of visual pattern granularity allows the observer to vary the intensity of their inspection and concentration. Also as flowers bloom at various times with an already wide variety of color, it’s best for the gardener to focus on obtaining a broad mix of foliage. You don’t have to worry about the flowers — they will provide plenty of color when they do bloom, but the objective is to make the garden interesting the rest of the year.
Notwithstanding the previous advice however, Master Gardener warned us to avoid mixing pink-purple flowers with pink-orange flowers. Anything else though? No problem.
Yards tend to have natural pathways — this can be for example the path from the side door to the garbage bins, or the path that your dog takes from the back door to his favorite spot to bury bones. Don’t change the direction or location of natural paths, but rather design your yard to enhance the pathways already in use. Use paving stones with lots of space between them. Also for you built benches, boxes, and walls, use consistent materials, with two material types maximum. More than this makes the design too cluttered.
When you’re laying your bedding for flowers, bushes and such, use lots of gypsum. Master Gardener said that gypsum provides the correct combination of aeration and moisture absorption.
In a little more detailed sort of compatibility planning (and relying on your earlier lawnchair observations) place plants with similar soil and sun requirements near each other. This is how they find themselves in nature.
Finally, don’t overwhelm your garden with scale: pay attention to how large things can get in three to five years. Your initial planting may seem a little short and sparse, but allow room for when everything fills out.
Essays by J. Chapman 