What makes a garden special....more musings

I am interested in what opens the inner eye that children have, that makes you aware of what matters. 
Gardens are good at that.

~ Mary Keen

Gardens and children go together. Like the little girl in the garden in the children's classic, 'The Secret Garden' by Frances Hodgson Burnett, we are exposed to a world of wonder if we only stop and peer into its mysteries...

this is a book for all ages - a great read!

Of course, the garden described in Hodgson's book was an English walled landscape but it could have been any kind of outdoor space devoted to bridging the gap between the human and the green world.....

This is the purpose of a Serenity Garden...I don't care so much if it is a magnificent boxwood construct filled with flowers or if it is a little sunny spot carved out of a wooded hill...a serenity garden is a place where 'feeling ' is paramount, where the atmosphere tingles with Nature's radiance.

'Crystal Palace' Lobelia in a hanging basket upon a carved tree stump in one of my gardens - Jan

There is great website from England called 'Thinkin Gardens' ( click on it) that addresses this in a way ...in their manifesto (!) they write this:

"Gardens have lost their greater ambitions. They are no longer a stimulus for artistic debate nor are they an accepted medium for creative expression;

television has reduced gardening to entertainment.

We now judge gardens principally on the quality of their plants, planting and housekeeping which,

while they are vital raw materials in most gardens alongside design,

are only a contributory part of what gardens have to offer."

Amen to That!

But I guess 'feeling' and 'transcendence' are not easily transferable to the TV screen. Especially when people's attention span is diminished...what we miss when we stare at a LCD or whatever screen is the 'depth' of feeling.

photo by Michelle Derviss - Garden Porn - a great site

 

Gardens restore our 'depth'...they invigorate the 'now' from a pale, washed out beige to a bright, vibrant yellow...they give us permission to sing....

As Mary Keen noted, a garden "makes you aware of what matters."

Johnsen Landscapes & Pools:  Coleus, Plectranthus, Ageratum in front, Blue Angelonia