My resume once included in my "interests" form vs. function in all matters. This "interest" is actually something of an obsession to me. If a thing doesn't "do" something, what good is it anyway? This idea doesn't actually exclude much, and is, naturally, extremely subjective. The efficient use of time has become a more and more significant "interest" for me as I "mature".
The dimension that has become more and more relevant to my garden endeavors is time: "how fast does it grow? and what exactly IS it's lifespan? These questions have myriad applications. I find the most important to me in my pending dotage, is "how big/mature/productive will it get while I still care (or can see it, or get to it, or prune it)? After all, "a sense of urgency" attends "time is of the essence". The desire for robust growth to fulfill my dreamy garden imaginings...just exactly how long will it take for the cornus controversa variegata to achieve it's second tier...the pricey plant in the 5 gallon pot, once planted, is hiding amongst the bearded iris...
A delicate path we tread, we gardeners. Fast growth, slow growth, no growth...
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| Tier one, cornus controversa variegata, yea. |
When selecting plants for our gardens (not them selecting us...that's a whole 'nother subject), we spend a lot of time chewing our collective lip, reading the tag (if any), researching the comments and recommendations of others, envisioning the "mature" height and spread of the subject at hand, and the other useful but sometimes contrived design rules to consider (how does this plants texture or form or structure or color associate with what's already there, or that will be there each season...ad infinitum). The terse comment often read, "mature height/width, 25X15", doesn't tell you how long it will take to achieve this dimension!
Many of my friends who have smaller gardens than mine, freak out over purchasing a shrub that at maturity may reach 10 feet. But what if that shrub is extremely slow growing, like osmanthus or buxus for example, and won't reach that height for 20 years? These same people will be either dead or 100 years old (at which point they may not be gardening anyway). I say, if you like it, plant it. Enjoy it for your time and let the next gardener (or sadly, developer) prune, limb up or bulldoze as required for their time... This may sound irresponsible if taken unilaterally...there are as many caveats to this attitude as there are situations. But I must rush to say that...time is of the essence.
I just read Nancy Ondra's blog, Hayfield, which I thoroughly enjoy and learn from. Her wonderful photographic skills allow you to glimpse the development of her garden over more than ten years. This is a good span for me to consider. Ten years from now, I will be 77 years old (God willing and the creek don't rise). I hope to still be gardening my entire little 1/2 acre, harvesting apples for my pies, herbs for my gumbo and roast chickens, and enjoying the sweet scent of the magnolias. I may not be able to bend over to smell the pink convallaria, but perhaps if I sit on the bench in the stumpery, I'll catch a waft from the lovely colony intermingling with the hellebores that I can admire from my perch below their beds.
Nancy talked about effective spacing. How I struggle with this...how often I have failed. Over the years, many shrubs and trees began jostling for space a couple of years after I planted them out. My most infamous example was the magnificent multi-trunked ficus nitida retusa, which took me months and many forays all over southern California to research and find, for my first real landscaping job, my own home. My sprawling tract house new construction home in San Fernando Valley had a lovely L-shaped front facade and an elegant brick approach. My careful research led me to the ficus as the perfect centerpiece for the space. We measured carefully to get the angles and sight lines perfect, dug a Rolls-Royce hole, blessed it with the proper amendments, and planted it with great ceremony. It thrived. I was proud. Many years later, marriage long over, house sold, I drove out to the house to see how my landscape had faired. Much to my dismay, my amazing ficus had far exceeded the space allotted it, was encroaching horribly onto the guttering and roof of the house, and clearly looked like Shrek in a port-a-potty...it's days were numbered. How sad I was, shocked, even, but I learned a critical lesson that in my enthusiasm I hadn't been able to absorb from all the books I had read. Know your plant. Consider carefully the adolescent and the adult it will become. Site it appropriately. Note I did not say plant it according to directions, either.
In our eagerness to "see" results of our labors, we tend to plant way too closely our shrubs and trees, conveniently forgetting the directions, or that they are not static unchanging objects, although permanent, yet we plant our perennials, bulbs and annuals way too far apart, following the directions faithfully. I say, modify as needed, to taste, just like any good recipe. Nowadays, thirty years and several gardens after the ficus debacle, I have learned to fill in with expendables and polite support players while exercising patience with the divas, who take time to reach their destiny.
I have only recently begun planting parts of my garden that I cannot see from my windows or the deck. These first three seasons, my focus has been on the areas immediately surrounding the house. As I continue to bring plants home, however (I now know this will never stop...there will always be more plants I have to have...purchased, rescued, graciously accepted pass-a-longs, and tag-a-longs), it dawned on me that it is now impossible to plant everything within sightline of the house. A good deal of juggling goes on when a new kid comes on the block. In addition to the new arrivals brought onto the site, existing players sometimes need a new spot. Shrubs and trees that have lived for years in containers, to be admired up close, are now teenagers, needing to stretch their limbs...these too must find good homes in the larger community. Indeed, time is of the essence for all these, too. If not planted out, they languish and succumb. Know when to thin, prune, limb up and choose compatible partners that won't jostle for the same space.
My rambles to find the perfect home for my new acquisitions take me all the way to the creek and the bog and the campground (and sometimes what I call the DMZ...on the property line where my neighbor won't notice). I've had to embrace the "garden room" and "secret garden" idea as much out of necessity as anything (I'm a "sweeping vista", "broad expanse" kinda gal). This turns out to be really good. I have added the element of anticipation to my garden rambles, and the allotment of time to explore the unseen. A new tall perennial glade has developed in the woodland for all the stuff dug out of the long border to make room for the fruit trees. The japanese iris behind the gunnera can only be seen from the bottom of the creek path. The paris yunnanensis greets you when you turn the corner at the last azalea, in the lower hosta bed, on the last terrace...
I have also discovered a way to "trick" time...to make less seem like more. My meandering through design books found a practical use in my garden for creating proportional distortions to my advantage. In discussing the creation of an allee with a longer perceived length, I realized that by planting my gorgeous metasequoia glypostroboides 'Gold Rush' at the terminus of the bog walk, which descends gently down the slope, I could create an effect of greater height and presence. Now, at 20 feet, and with some judicious trimming of the cornus sericea around it, it looks more like 40 feet, at a much greater distance...and simply glows.
Oh, joy! Time, it turns out, is also relative!
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