Yesterday’s New York Times espoused daydreaming as part of a series on fostering creativity, and the Berkshire Botanical Garden has an exhibit focusing on daydreaming as well. Perhaps the zeitgeist is trying to tell me something. I often daydream when I am working in the garden, thinking about life, but also about the garden and what it may become in time.
Over the years, I have designed a number of gardens for people, always following the standard rules I learned in my training at the Chelsea Physic Garden, The New York Botanical Garden, and the Kyoto School of Art and Design: First assess the site and the desires of the client, then create a plan on paper that takes into play every detail, and finally install the garden following the design. For years, I enjoyed the process of planning, discussing, and creating such designs, presenting them to the client, and then watching them implement the plan, either with exceptional precision, or more frustratingly in spurts and bits that eventually came together. I look back at some of those projects and am proud of them, but when I was recently asked to donate a garden consultation to a charity, I realized I did not want to work in this way anymore. It felt impositional and uncollaborative—lording my ideas over a client—and, while the end result may be aesthetically pleasing (especially to me, as it would meet my desires), I felt it never truly reflected the genius of the site or the personality of its owners.
With this in mind, I said yes to offering a consultation on someone’s garden as an auction item for a benefit at Dewey Hall, but with a different perspective. I did not want to tell someone what they should do with their site; I wanted to work with them to envision what they wanted and to encourage them to implement it, not from a detailed plan, but over time, one step at a time. Good gardens can be created from above, engineered and built by others, especially if you are building Versailles, but most of the great American gardens I know were not drafted into place but drifted into place, matching not only the creator’s initial interests but their evolution as a gardener.
When I met with the “winner” of my garden consultation (I imagine the bid was as much about generously donating to the cause as it was about having my advice), I was delighted by what took place. As she and I walked about her property, newly purchased, we talked about its strengths and weaknesses, and she shared her daydreams and ideas about what she hoped to do there. She shared images of other sites that she found inspiring or romantic, or simple details that charm her, such as a collection of containers set up by the back door of a house. The consultation turned into a conversation, and the ideas that followed felt fluid, connected both to the site and her personality, and my own ego was assuaged not by dictating what should be, but by watching another person find her own way forward.
We talked about actions that could take place over time and some that would be ideal to move forward first. Removing unwanted garden features and plants, masking a neighbor’s fence with climbing hydrangeas, pruning some overgrown woodies, relocating a few young fruit trees, and defining a space for growing vegetables were the first steps. And why not set a collection of herbs in containers at the kitchen door? They will be handy when preparing dinner. Over time, a fence may surround the vegetable garden, the area near the climbing hydrangea may evolve into a mossy lawn with an area for dining, and the driveway may be transformed into a gravel garden.
Like with so many things in life, some of these ideas may take hold, others may evolve, and others may never happen at all. Over the years, visits to other gardens may inspire new ideas which will contribute to the garden’s feeling personal and temporal. The process will be creative, ongoing, and leave room for daydreaming for years to come. And a garden is a perfect place for such creative free thought.
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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.
