LANDSCAPE DESIGN FOR ALL THE SENSES
Gardens we can see, hear, feel, smell and taste
Today, there’s an increasing demand for edible gardens — no matter where we happen to live, says the senior landscape designer for Vancouver’s Formwerks Architecture.
“Something that’s very important for our clients these days is to have vegetable gardens or little kitchen gardens,” Claudia Rust says. “And it doesn’t matter if you’re living in a condo with a deck, or whether you have a big lot in Shaughnessy, people like to just go outside and cut some herbs. Maybe eat a berry while you’re sitting next to your planter. It’s all fun stuff and it makes the garden lively.”
Some families are also using their edible gardens as educational tools, Rust says.
“They show their kids, ‘Hey, we plant a seed right now and just wait a few months and water it, and then the strawberry will come through the ground and you can pick it and eat it or bake a cake with it,” she says.
Rust grew up in Germany and says her time spent on her grandparents’ farm led her to becoming a landscape architect. She was also influenced by her father, who was a civil engineer.
“It just felt like the right combo of natural science and construction,” she says. “And also being very creative and expressive with what you’re doing. I connected to that.”
Rust says that building a garden is a very personal experience, adding that people should not worry about making mistakes, but focus on the process.
“Some people treat their gardens as an experiment because they don’t have a background in gardening or knowledge about what plants require. But then the next year, they try planting something different and it might do better. It’s almost like therapy for a lot of people.”
Rust notes that gardens are much more than esthetically pleasing and feed all the senses.
“We work with the sense of hearing,” she says. “Maybe there’s a water feature in the background that calms you. Or you have trees where birds can sit and they’re chirping. Those are all the things you take for granted when you go outside, but when we design, we think about how we can achieve all these things.”
Rust says that with edible gardens, it’s easy to appeal to peoples’ sense of taste, but landscape architects also design for their clients’ sense of smell.
“We incorporate plants that have a certain scent, or just taking advantage of being in the fresh air. You instantly feel better.”
Rust says the most important thing for her is layering different elements in a garden.
“You have the structural green in the background and then the more fun stuff, like the flowers in the foreground.”
Landscape architects are definitely witnessing a move toward more sustainable thinking, Rust says.
“People are thinking, maybe I should harvest the rain water that comes off my roof to water the garden,” she says. “Maybe I should install a cistern. Maybe I’ll switch my exterior lights to LED to save money.”
Garden design is so personal, says Rust, adding that her clients’ preferences range from clean, modern lines, which she achieves using “mass planting,” to “messy gardens” full of wild flowers in the English cottage style.
She says that working with a landscape designer can help people realize their outdoor aspirations, but there are a lot of people out there who can also help.
“Go for a walk through your neighbourhood and you’ll see, ‘Oh I really like that garden,’ ” she says.
She says it can be useful to find out if they worked with a designer or simply to look at magazines.
When Rust takes on a garden project, the first thing she does is assess the unique features of a property and what makes it special.
“Are there view corridors? Are there interesting buildings? What is the surrounding architecture like?”
She also believes in planting flowers that come through all year to give colour and texture.
“You’re really working with a living body,” says Rust. “You line it up like an orchestra, and use materials from outside to come alive throughout the year.”