joene's garden » Anna Gresham Landscape Design School

End of a Long Journey

joenesgarden — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 11:00:00 +0000

About three years ago I embarked on a new journey … that of becoming certified in landscape design. The journey took a full year longer than I had planned and hoped, due to work, family, and general life responsibilities, but that's all in the past now. I finally reach the end of this long journey.

It involved teaching myself computer aided drafting, following twenty-five in-depth lessons on site and level surveying; developing concept, hardscape, and planting plans; designing all aspects of a residential property including fences, walls, steps, water features, garden structures, habitat gardens, vegetable gardens, border beds, lawns, low-maintenance plantings, and native plantings; delving into landscape design history and, among other things, honing my knowledge of botanical terminology.

For one lesson I designed a garden as if I were a female settler at Plimoth Plantation. For another lesson I designed a butterfly and herb garden.

I became lax on blogging about the lessons simply because of time constraints, but the lessons marched on.

There was the border planting in front of a brick wall, with both summer (top drawing) and winter (bottom drawing assuming all perennials are cut back) views. (For unknown reasons when converting to a jpeg for posting here, the drawing lost its sharpness, but it still shows the general design ideas.)

The working drawings, both plan and elevation views) of a pergola.

The fence lesson that gave me the chance to design a garden fence for espaliered fruit trees.

Plus, there were many full property design lessons too large to show here in any meaningful detail. Living and working in a rural section of Connecticut means there are very few small properties to practice design skills upon. As my instructor noted in her assessment of my final project, «I think you have designed more acreage than any other student to date. Large properties are a lot more difficult than average-sized ones and this last assignment shows that you are very capable of handling the task. The design, presentation and documentation were all excellent.»

Am I an expert? Not by any means, but, I have a lot more knowledge and understanding of what it takes to design beautiful and functional landscapes, and … I fulfilled a long desired goal … and this makes me happy.

Categories: Garden Design, Training.
Tags: Anna Gresham Landscape Design School, landscape design, landscape design journey.

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A Seventeenth Century New England Garden

joenesgarden — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 14:38:07 +0000

A Seventeenth Century New England Garden

To fulfill one of my landscape design lessons, I sunk my imagination into what the gardening life of a female settler at Plimoth Plantation might be. I needed to design a small garden to show key characteristics of an authentic garden set in a period of my choosing. I've long been fascinated by the survival skills learned and adopted by 17th century New England colonists - even tried my hand at braiding onions and garlic - so I opted to develop a series of garden beds indicative of this time.

One of the main characteristics of gardens of this period is their randomness. To optimize planting space beds were created wherever they fit. Beds were not necessarily evenly spaced or arranged. Paths between each bed were narrow and often filled with weedy growth. Garden size depended on the size of each family and the number of mouths to feed. Principles of more modern landscape design such as unity, balance, proportion, rhythm/movement, and interest were not an important consideration. Instead, the driving forces behind early settlers' gardens were function, convenience, efficiency and productivity. They had to grow as much food as possible plus all herbs, medicinal, and dye plants they might need throughout the year. Survival depended on the harvests from smaller garden or kitchen plots and from larger field-grown corn, beans, squash, grains and other edible crops.

Settlers took care to fence edible gardens from roaming livestock and edge raised planting beds with large rocks or the trunks of felled trees … tasks likely relegated to men. Otherwise colonial women did most or all the gardening chores, including digging/hilling the soil, spreading manure, planting, harvesting, collecting seed … all with little help from other family members who were busy elsewhere.

My design shows perennial herbs such as hyssop, lemon balm, sage, thyme, sweet woodruff or mints in green. Yellow shades are annual vegetables like pumpkin and other squash, cabbage, carrots, melons or beans. Fruit trees, perhaps an apple, pear and plum, and berry brambles are planted along the western edge. Additional berries and fruiting shrubs like mulberry or quince run along the north fence line. The heavy black line in the upper right is part of the house. The lighter line just below it is a livestock pen.

Portraying this garden accurately meant squelching the urge to build planting beds of uniform size and shape; to ignore creating paths that could accommodate landscape machinery or garden carts; to forget aesthetically pleasing plant placement; and to forego any thoughts of hardscape or grassy pathways. Settlers did not have herb gardens or beds of dye or medicinal plants. They intermingled all the plants they needed to grow. They placed plants wherever they found space. Pathways were overgrown with weeds, worn down to bare soil, or possibly scattered with the crushed shells from seafood harvests.

These were rough, rugged working gardens. But I think their simple functionality shines through. There's still balance, rhythm and movement, but it's that of a period when garden design took a back seat to growing edible plants to survive.

Categories: Gardening, General, Techniques, Training.
Tags: Anna Gresham Landscape Design School.

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Concept Garden: Herbs and Butterflies

joenesgarden — Wed, 11 May 2011 14:44:01 +0000

Concept Garden: Herbs and Butterflies

It's been a while since I posted about my educational journey towards certification as a landscape designer. I'm still plugging away, moving around and through some roadblocks life dropped in my path, and my journey is taking longer than I want, but anything worth having is worth working for … so I continue to follow my Papa's advice to keep dancin' or, in this case keep studyin'.

One of the lessons involved designing a dynamic space – an area that urges people to move and allows them to do so safely and comfortably. The dynamic space must lead to a static space that encourages quiet, passive activities. My creation for this lesson uses a paver pathway to lead from a flat lawn into a formal herb garden. The four ground-level beds have lower-growing herbs (thyme, Alpine strawberry, globe basil for instance) along the edges of the paved path. Mid-size (lavender, rosemary, chives, sage) and taller (fennel, blueberry bushes, hyssop, tansy) herbs fill the center and outer edges of these beds. A five-foot vine-covered trellis surrounded by mid-height herbs sits at the center of the first paved circle. With no benches or raised areas available for seating, visitors are encouraged to move along the pathways. But the the herb plantings serve as a distraction that slows movement so visitors can leisurely enjoy the scented foliage and colorful blooms of the herbal plantings.

The stroll through the herb garden leads to another circular area paved in an alternate pattern to denote a second garden area. Centered in this circle is a five to six foot tall potted specimen plant – think fig or citrus tree, or a flowering standard specimen. This second circular area denotes the entrance to the butterfly sitting garden. At it's center is a two-foot tall raised bed planter containing a solar-powered fountain – the noise of the moving water helps drown out distracting outside sounds - surrounded by flowering annuals/perennials. At the outer edges of the raised bed, opposite three benches, rests three shallow butterfly-watering basins. While sitting on the benches visitors can observe the butterflies as they flit from flowering shrub to flowering perennial to flowering annual to the shallow watering basins. Square potted container plants sit at the four corners of the square pathway. The planting areas at the edges of the square, paved path are planted with butterfly-attracting shrubs, ranging from three to six feet tall, that enclose the seating area in blooming shrubbery.

This formal design, which calls for paver pathways and granite edging can be adapted to create a less formal feel. Planting beds could have less formal cut-soil edging to keep lawn grass at bay. The paths could be loose gravel, fieldstone, or woodchip gravel. Planters could be simple clay pots. Plantings in the sitting area can also be altered to attract hummingbirds, or the entire design could planted as a kitchen or edible garden. Some of the herbs could be replaced by salad greens, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes and beans and the sitting area could be surrounded by small fruiting trees and shrubs.

The idea is to entice visitors into the area using the straight path, slow their movement by the attraction of and interest in the planting beds and, finally, give them reason to stop and reflect on the natural beauty surrounding them as they sit on the benches. Busy gardeners often need to be reminded to stop a while to enjoy the fruits or flowers of their labor. Creating a sitting area enclosed by gardens will do just that.

Click Training under the Topics heading in the sidebar to read previous posts related to landscape design and other training.

Categories: Garden Design, Gardening, Training.
Tags: Anna Gresham Landscape Design School, butterfly garden, herb garden, landscape design journey.

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