As I begin to approach my overplanted garden, filled with a collection of trees and shrubs that were planted over a period of several decades several decades ago, I think about the importance of editing. My dear friend Russ, who originally planted this garden on a level three acres in the middle of town, never met a tree or shrub he didn’t like (especially if it were on sale) and had a love of allees and hedges, clipped yews and contorted azaleas, and groves and bosques, that stemmed from his love of the gardens of Europe, where he had lived after the war as the Marshall plan was implemented. And all of these whips and saplings have grown over the past 30 years into 30-foot arborvitae, towering maples, willows, chestnuts, Bradford pears, and oaks, as well as smaller hazels and dogwoods that barely have room to grow.
Looking at this overgrown collection, and visiting a few gardens in the past few days as part of the Boston Horticultural Club’s summer outing and on a trip to Olana with a weekend guest from Charleston, I am reminded of an old line from Coco Chanel. Chanel claimed, “Once you’ve dressed, and before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take at least one thing off.” Had Chanel visited my garden, she might have recommended removing a few more things. What Chanel does not tell us as gardeners, though, is what to take off. When approaching the garden, there are a series of acts, “additions through subtractions” as my friend Michael Dosmann called them on our tour of New Hampshire, which are a part of good garden-making.
Determining what doesn’t belong can mean many things. Certainly invasive plants such as bittersweet, burning bush and pokeweed should be removed (although this act often takes years to complete as seedlings continue to pop up). However, for many of us, taking out other plants can be a hard decision. My ex could barely even watch me prune a branch on our Japanese stewartia without wincing, and he is not alone. But not only can such an act improve the overall form and structure of the tree itself, it can easily allow one to be able to see beyond and to pull something out of the background into focus. In this sense, removal has added to our experience.
And occasionally, the removal of an entire tree or a row of trees is in order. I recently began taking down a 25-foot hedge that protected my house from the road. I loved the sense of enclosure that these overgrown arborvitaes provided. But as I took them down, assuming I would replant the hedge with something, such as blue arctic willow or native bayberry, that might handle the winter snow load a little better or seem a little less foreboding, I came to discover that the hedge had hidden a view of an old marble quarry across the road which had been made into a pond. Of course, I knew this pond was there, but I had no idea how much this stolen view would align with my side yard – its peaceful watery expanse, with a Japanesque artwork at the entrance to my neighbor’s property, framing my view perfectly as if placed there for my benefit. A little less privacy in my front courtyard (where I had planned on moving my driveway and perhaps even a small outbuilding as a garage) was worth forgoing. I now imagined parking my car and walking across a peastone drive while looking at this serene pond throughout the seasons (perhaps this view could hold down my blood pressure for a few more years). An old sugar maple with a girdled root may need to go as well, but I know this too was another subtraction that would end up adding to my garden experience.
Over the weekend at Olana and at gardens throughout New Hampshire and Vermont this past week, my appreciation of editing and subtraction grew. While some of these gardens celebrated subtraction (a few may have benefitted from a little), it reminded me that we should always be looking not just for a new plant to add to our garden, but to ask ourselves what didn’t need to be there. This process was as essential for a fully mature garden as it was for me in just beginning to approach my landscape. Frederick Church’s painterly editing of the woodlands at Olana was filled with affirmation that subtraction added to our experience. As I looked from his Persian home out across the Hudson, or across the view from the path leading up to the house which the Olana Partnership has been working hard to bring back into alignment with Church’s vision, I felt supported in my decision to began working on my house and garden by looking in the mirror and taking one thing off. Perhaps Chanel or another gardener would have left the last strand of pearls on, but I thought they needed to go.
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A gardener grows through observation, experimentation, and learning from the failures, triumphs, and hard work of oneself and others. In this sense, all gardeners are self-taught, while at the same time intrinsically connected to a tradition and a community that finds satisfaction through working the soil and sharing their experiences with one another. This column explores those relationships and how we learn about the world around us from plants and our fellow gardeners.
