The big picture
He asks to be left alone to explore a garden by himself, at least on the first outing. The fun is in the discovery, says MICHAEL McCOY
One of Australia’s grand old dames of gardening used to take visitors around her truly lovely garden by exactly the same route each time. At a predetermined point, she’d make sure that everyone’s attention was drawn in a specific direction, and then, at just the right moment, swing through 180 degrees to reveal an entirely new and unexpected vista, to gasps of delight and surprise from her guests. It worked every time.
Not that we need any further evidence that gardens are among the greatest players of the game of conceal and reveal. At best, they’re a living sculpture that very deliberately opens and closes around us, inviting exploration. One minute we can be looking down a long, shaded tunnel of trees to a splash of light at the end, with no idea what we’ll see when we get there, and the next we can be approaching a door or gate in a wall that can’t help but suggest almost Narnia-like possibilities on the other side.
It’s for this reason that I’ll do anything to not be shown around a garden the first time I see it. There’s nothing more instructive than to walk a garden with its owner or custodian, but it should be your second walk around. The first should be a journey of discovery.
The garden of Ninfa, south of Rome in
Italy, is widely considered to be the most romantic garden in the world. Its odd collection of ancient crumbling buildings, bridges and streets makes a setting like no other for rhythmic revelations of scenes of stupendous, drooling beauty. I’d anticipated hunting among those medieval ruins, with the much-photographed wisteria-draped roman bridge as my goal, and discovering endless joys along the way. But it wasn’t to be. Due to the fragility of the garden, you’re not allowed to wander at will. You must be with a group, and you must be guided. I’m okay about that now that I’ve visited a few times. But the first time, it nearly killed me.
The garden genius of concealing and revealing isn’t just about views. It can allow you to tell what can only be described as spatial jokes. There’s a moment in the garden at Hidcote, in the UK, when you’re walking along a double flower border of a scale you’d expect from a large, private garden. You then climb a set of appropriately wide steps, which are flanked by matching summerhouses big enough for three or four people to sit in. Your headspace is firmly in a language of largish gardens, when suddenly, without warning, you find yourself looking through one of the summerhouses to a lawn walk of such enormously disproportionate width and length that you’re thrown off balance. The drama and surprise of that moment is about equal to finding a portal in your own backyard which steps into Versailles. And, as long as you discover it for yourself, you stand there and laugh.
Even the smallest gardens can play this game. It can be as simple as making sure you can’t see everything at once. But please, if I come to visit, let me walk through your garden, the first time at least, on my own. Michael blogs at thegardenist.com.au