Inside this edition of Natural Garden News
- Why naturalistic landscapes are like paintings
- If you want a Grounded garden…
- Discover the landscape design of Piet Oudolf
- How to landscape like nature does
- New here? Start with these articles
- Today’s recommended reading
- Today’s VIP (Very Important Plant)
- The latest from Lucas House (lots of pictures!)
- From the socials
There are lots of super images in this newsletter – please allow your email software to see them!
I hope you enjoy the newsletter! If you have any questions or feedback, please reply to this email.
Simon Payn
Grounded
Email: hello@groundedgardens.ca
Web: groundedgardens.ca
Follow Grounded on the socials!
Why naturalistic landscapes are like paintings
“I don’t want it to look like the forest!”
These were the words of a potential client the other week. I get it: when people hear I work with native plants, some imagine the finished product will look wild. It’s a reasonable thing to think.
Using native plants in a naturalistic way sits in the middle of a spectrum. On one side is raw nature and on the other is the classical, cultivated garden.
I know a classical garden, with cultivated plants, doesn’t offer as much to nature as it could (and these days, we need to do our bit to help nature). On the other hand, just letting nature encroach on us isn’t going to work either. That’s not a garden.
One of the businesses that operate out of Lucas House, where my test garden is, is Corner Gallery. It’s a beautiful gallery in a beautiful house. You should visit. (Full disclosure: I co-own the gallery.)
Many – but certainly not all – the paintings are landscapes. But none of these landscape paintings is just the landscape: they all are interpreted by the artist.
Some are interpreted more than others. We have paintings that are quite abstracted: they’re landscapes, but not as we know them. Others are closer to a landscape we would recognize, but even then the artist has done something to make a connection with nature.
See these examples:
This painting by Rod Prouse is clearly a landscape, but it’s been highly interpreted. We see trees, we see a hill, we see water (maybe). It’s nature. It’s beautiful. But it’s an interpretation of that landscape.
Here’s one by James Brown. This is more clearly a landscape we might recognize, but still the painter has brought out elements of it to make it more legible and attractive: the pale purple and blue in the distance and the dark red in the middle distance, for example.
Why am I telling you this? Because naturalistic landscapers do the same.
The garden is the landscape and in that landscape are plants. But we carefully choose plants and place them to make the landscape more legible. We show a human hand had a role here.
We are creating an abstracted landscape. We take many cues from nature, but it’s not the forest. It’s a garden.
Simon
If you want a Grounded garden…
I’m now booking garden and shoreline installs for next spring.
If you’re interested in working with me, don’t wait until then. I use the summer to prepare your site and to work on plant lists and designs.
I’m happy to come out and look at your site for no charge and with no obligation. If we’re not a fit, we’ll depart as friends. Just click the button below.
To see some of my recent work, please look at this article.
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Discover the landscape design of Piet Oudolf
Piet Oudolf is a pioneer in naturalistic landscaping. And he’s a big inspiration for us here at Grounded. Here is a book that celebrates him. Read more.
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How to landscape like nature does
In case you missed it, here’s the advertorial I put in The Highlander last week about the difference between naturalistic landscaping and traditional landscaping. Read more.
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