Eye of the beholder
For some garden lovers it’s all about the plants, while others have a passion for design, but whatever our focus, we can all learn from each other, says MICHAEL McCOY
Do you have a garden so that you can grow plants? Or do you grow plants so that you can have a garden? Given that you’re reading this, you’re likely of the former group. We’re mostly plant lovers, we Gardening Australia readers. Some of us love plants so much (or if you’re a plant collector, love particular groups of plants so much) that we don’t really care about the collective effect at all. And we don’t care if no-one else finds it beautiful.
I have bulb-collecting friends who’ve been told that their gardens, with all the labels marking small, rectangular beds, look like a budgie graveyard. They either don’t care or aren’t hurt enough by the criticism to make them change their ways.
Other plant lovers are keen that their creation is pleasing, overall, but would never let that stop them growing any plant that took their fancy, whether they had a visually appropriate setting for the new acquisition or not. They’re likely to see something at a nursery or rare plant fair, covet it, acquire it, transport it home with all the love and reverence they’d bestow upon an ancient or religious relic, and only then wonder where they might plant the blessed thing.
But there are also garden lovers who are not plant lovers. They’re those for whom the atmosphere or environment they’re creating, or the design quality they’re working towards, or the space they’re defining (often using plants to do so) is far more important than any of the particular plants used to create it.
This group is far more likely to hire a garden designer to get it all ‘right’, while the former group isn’t likely to hand over that pleasure, or privilege, to anyone else.
Neither group holds the other in very high esteem. Plant-loving gardeners are in the habit of dismissing the work of designer-garden lovers (for want of a better term) with the comment that “they’re not even real gardens”. The designer-gardeners consider the efforts of the plant-lovers as quaint (at best), or otherwise as embarrassingly outdated.
But the former group could really learn from the latter about how to put plants together for best effect. And those seeking smart design could learn a lot about the best plants to achieve their desired effects by studying the contents of the gardens belonging to the plant lovers.
The world of gardening really isn’t big enough for us to exclude either. We garden lovers, of whatever persuasion, need to stick together.
Michael blogs at thegardenist.com.au