Xanthe White talks plants
Buxus topiary
Q There’s no doubt that at the moment the fashion in gardens is a natural or informal style. The great designers of our time, such as Piet Oudulf, Mary Reynolds and James Basson, are all advocates of natural processes and observations. Like in the time of Capability Brown, gardeners are turning their backs on structured gardens and looking to nature for direction. To add to that, decades of box blight have put gardeners off the buxus rows that were once the height of good taste. Where does that leave you? A
Oh yes, the box blight we do not like, but that’s really a sign of us being too popular. We get put everywhere, even where we don’t want to be; we get crammed in and clipped too hard and not fed. And then like people in overcrowded housing, we get sick. The diseases get stronger and we get weaker. So even when you want a garden that’s simple and orderly, you still need to observe nature and be thoughtful. Unstructured gardens aren’t against plants like us as such, they’re just challenging a culture of gardening that denied nature.
Let me tell you another story about buxus. We’re not new on the gardening scene – we’ve been cultivated for at least 6000 years. Egypt developed horticulture to a point where gardens moved from being just for providence and instead became places for pleasure. All through the Middle East, buxus is clipped within beautiful walled rooms. In the great Alhambra palace in Granada in Spain, where Arabian culture arrived in Europe in the mid 12th century, you see buxus lining the water features – it’s timeless.
So you see, I understand fashion and what will come and go. This desire for an understanding of nature is happening in a world that’s leaving little room for it within the walls of its cities. There’s a growing desire to rewild and reconnect to a relationship that’s being lost and the freedom that comes with that.
Q Is it not right for us to look for a place for the wild? A
Of course it is, though actually human nature will always seek order. At the end of a summer when the garden is spent and everything has grown loose and free comes a desire to sharpen the shears and reinstate the lines. And when you clean out the drifts of wildflowers, what’s left, bare earth? The skeleton of the garden is revealed. This is when people crave simplicity.
Q A monoculture. But is this not why you suffer blight? A
Absolutely. However, simplicity isn’t so simple. The gardens that endure in defiance of fashion are neither one thing nor another. They respond to space and place in a way that’s appropriate and lasting. They deny formula, but respond to their function and purpose in a commanding way.
Piet Oudulf’s gardens may be famous for their large drifts of grasses and borders, but they’re framed by hedges and punctuated with tightly clipped structures – they’re not without order and rhythm. Every garden needs control and form. It doesn’t need to be topiary – it could be an avenue of ti kouka (cabbage trees) leading the eye towards a view, or your beautiful native harakeke (flax) silhouetted on the horizon.
Some people can handle the very wild, but most people seek some order and organisation. Control allows occupation and access into a space and a relationship with it. From a plant’s perspective, topiary and traditions of creating an enduring form are okay and can extend our existence.
Q So you encourage the taming? A
To a degree, yes. It’s like when you ride a horse and comb its hair and look after its feet and provide it with shelter – it can be good for the horse, as long as you don’t deny its nature.
Plants like us are happy to grow tight. We’re comfortable being made into balls and simple forms. I have to admit I’m not exactly thrilled when people make me look like an elephant; I always think humans make elephants and animals more important than plants, so to be asked to be an elephant is a bit of an insult, really! But even I expect that it makes the tourists happy, and where there is joy…