My back garden, January 2018.
Back in 1955 an American Landscape Architect called Thomas D. Church published a book called Gardens Are For People. He was one of the first modernist garden designers. He believed that gardens were for people to live and play in.
Thomas D. Church, 1975
Thomas D. Church's view was different from one held by many garden designers in Europe, where the Arts and Crafts garden style was the preferred one. Arts and Crafts styled gardens were designed (by people of great taste and training) to be looked at and admired. Arts and Crafts style gardens with their herbaceous borders, hedged terraces, climbers, lawns, topiary, roses and woodland gardens were high maintenance gardens. Thomas D. Church's gardens were low maintenance comparatively.
'There are no mysterious "musts," no set of rules, no finger of shame pointed at the gardener who doesn't follow an accepted pattern,' says Thomas D. Church. 'Landscaping is not a complex and difficult art to be practiced only by high priests. It is logical, down-to-earth, and aimed at making your plot of ground produce exactly what you want and need from it.' His design always began with a conversation with the people who were going to use and look after the space.
I read Gardens Are For People over a week in January, having borrowed it from my friend who read it when she trained as a landscape designer. It was a great summer read. Thomas D. Church is a friendly writer who really wants to show you how easy it is to design your perfect garden. Perfect for your needs, budget and available space. I read a review of him in a book called Lives of the Great Gardeners where he was described as dapper and affable. His writing style is dapper and affable too.
Thomas D. Church begins his book by explaining that many ancient cultures (Egyptians, Romans and Greeks) already knew about indoor-outdoor-flow (he calls it indoor-outdoor living but it's the same thing). The Egyptians, Romans and Greeks all used a simple garden structure called 'the terrace', also known as an 'atrium, close, promenade or lanai,' to connect the garden with the house.' The terrace, Thomas D. Church tells us, 'is for outdoor living.' It's 'used to 'extend the architectural lines of the house and supplement the activities of the occupants'.
Gardens Are For People was written in order to demystify garden design and make it accessible for the ordinary, yet interested, suburban garden owner. It also serves as a kind of manifesto of his design style.
It's Thomas D. Church's attitude towards trees that made me sit up and take notice. It'd be fair to say I've become something of a Thomas D. Church disciple. Sometimes, it feels that in a country like New Zealand where trees are plentiful, people are all too ready to chop trees down. Thomas D. Church is a tree lover.
'In the intimate and humanised landscape, trees become the biggest single element linking us visually and emotionally with our surroundings,' so says Thomas D. Church. 'Other manifestations of Nature - great rocks, hurricanes - stir us, fill us with awe, make us afraid or humble, but a tree we understand and can allow to become part of us. It's no wonder that when we think of a garden we think of a tree.
You should always make very sure that the tree you were thinking of removing cannot in fact be saved. After all, it took Nature anywhere from ten to three hundred years to get that tree in its current shape; you should carefully consider it before killing it in twenty minutes. Consider pruning before chopping down; it is possible to both keep the tree and the view it supposedly hides...
Because trees have such a feeling of permanence, such a natural stability, everything around them looks more natural, in tune with the landscape and the world. The right trees provide instant serenity - something, in this modern world, which cannot be cherished too highly.'
Most of Thomas D. Church's designs were for gardens in California, but his design principles (unity, function, simplicity and scale) could apply to anywhere in New Zealand. He favoured low maintenance and simple massed evergreen planting in tight-edged beds over annuals and high maintenance plants.
Here are six photographs showing some of Thomas D. Church's gardens. It's easy to see why his gardens were so popular. They seem so deceptively simple.
Here's what I noticed: hedges are used to seperate areas; terraces are generously proportioned and made out of brick, tiles or wood; sloping sections are terraced and linked by steps; all planting is kept within designated spaces (kept separate by mowing strips, hedges or raised beds) and (with the exception of large trees and the odd pot plant) the terraces are big sweeping areas that are free of clutter; there are aways several mature trees; garden furniture (both freestanding and built-in) is light in stature and (by way of thin legs and cut-outs) allow the scene beyond to be visible; decks and terraces link directly to the house, gardens appear to be bigger then they are because trees and shrubs are carefully positioned to frame views and plants beyond the fence line (be it a neighbours garden, forest or hills); there are always curves, which contrast with zigzags and straight lines.
I'm going to order my own copy of Thomas D. Church's book. He provides a framework that relates to any garden site and any garden problem.
Here are some trees in my front garden, which hopefully (in a very New Zealand way) illustrate what Thomas D. Church was talking about when he talked about trees.
Some of the trees in my front garden, including a cabbage tree Cordyline australis, ti-kauka and a tree fern Cyathea medullaris, Mamaku.
I was running through the Wellington Botanic Garden early this morning and was met with this scene. Over one hundred and fifty years ago all these hills were bare. Thomas D. Church was right when he said, 'trees provide serenity.'
