Guilt-free gardening
This
assumes such an approach is possible. Plants grow larger, change in shape and
form, and then die. Seldom can you replace some landscape element with a fully
sized replacement; nor should you for stability and health of the new plant.
Overlay that with changes in climate and surrounding environment which may
alter what will grow successfully in the garden.
Then
there is garden fashion or personal taste. Should that have any place in a
heritage garden? I think yes, which brings us to the other extreme. Anything goes.
In
this scenario, the original designer is treated as muse perhaps or simply
setting the tone and style but not the detail. This is more analogous to an art
movement approach. Our garden is art nouveau, post-impressionistic, old master,
and so on; or if you prefer, baroque, picturesque or gardenesque. Abide by a
few rules then do what you like.
A
happy middle might be struck by adhering as closely as possible to the design
intent and aspiration. For a home garden, a sense of geometry and relationship
to nearby buildings or other landscapes. For a botanic garden, its role as a
place of beauty as well as science, learning and conservation. For a grand
garden or park, something more akin to the botanic garden philosophy, where we
put ourselves in the shoes of the designer but on today’s turf. We might engage
a ‘like-minded’ designer to guide us.
To
torture that art analogy a little more, gardens are not generally, I think,
like a finished work of art, to be restored and preserved as close as possible
to the original. They are more like a piece of music or theatre, to be
reinterpreted and reimagined as desired. Sometimes, of course, they may be kept
(performed) in their original form. If you want. Eventually, like a building,
the garden must be propped up and repaired; or replaced. Never, I would
suggest, reconstructed in faux style unless that is the eccentricity you want
to feature.
British
author and historian of gardens (and confectionary), Tim Richardson, weighed
into this debate in 2014, with a typically refreshing and challenging essay for
Australian audiences. For ‘highly personal’ historic gardens, he favours
the ‘like-minded’ designer approach, or indeed an ‘equally talented’ designer.
For a garden of more generic design, Richardson’s preference is repair over restoration.
I
mentioned Richardson’s perspective in a blog post on Roberto Burle Marx, posted
after a visit to his garden (sitio) on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The current owners of that
property were faced with a decision about repairing what was there or pursuing the
spirit of the original garden as a creative and experimental space. When I was
there in 2015, they were flirting with inviting new designers to pursue Burle
Marx’s intent.
Australian
garden writer, Kim Woods Rabbage, commented on my blog at the time with a note
of caution. For a designer of such importance, she said, some of his original
work must be kept intact. In the same way we want to see the work of artists
like Picasso, Matisse and Warhol, rather than (or in addition to) those they
have inspired. In my reply to Kim, I said I suspected most of the garden (90
per cent was my estimate, for some reason) would remain in his original design
but they should have the confidence to add ‘a bit here and there with the same
sense of adventure and creativity’. I don’t think you can ever polish and clean
a garden as you would a stone monument.
The
plant palette used to restore or repair an historical garden can also be contentious,
and with climate change that choice becomes even more vexed. Although Burle
Marx was keen on encouraging local plants into gardens around Rio de Janeiro,
he was happy to use beautiful plants from anywhere if they suited his design. I
wrote in Chapter 2 about why weeds might be encouraged or at least less
scorned, but it’s also worth testing those biases we might have for plants outside
our region or country.
George
Seddon, in The Old Country (2005), reminds us that kangaroo
grass (Themeda) grows naturally in
South Africa and Australia. That the tropical Australian boab (Adansonia) has its closest relatives in
Madagascar and southern Africa. And that most Australian
conifers and podocarps in Tasmania have their closest relatives in New Zealand
and Chile.
Indeed,
of the 19 species of Araucaria – an Australian conifer – three are native
to Australia and 13 from New Caledonia. From the same plant family, our one
Kauri (Agathis) in Australia is
matched by one in New Zealand and several in New Caledonia. These international
relationships, said Seddon, should be celebrated rather than scorned. Yes, we
have a fascinating and distinctive flora, but why not be inclusive rather than
exclusive. As I’ll argue in one of my essays, if you live in Melbourne, a
plant from New Caledonia is closer to you than one from Western Australia, and
as Seddon observes, may well have as strong or a stronger botanical connection
to your local flora.
In my recent memoir (Evergreen: The Botanical Life of a Plant Punk, 2022), I landed on charging the care and repair of a heritage garden to ‘good people of sound mind, with the right expertise, making a judgement call on when and how to intercede’. I’m happy with that still, but here are a few things they might consider.
[...]
* * *
This is the final post from my new book of 50 essays, The Sceptical Botanist: Separating Fact from Fiction (CSIRO Publishing, 2025), available officially on Friday (1 August 2025) but already in many bookstores.
It's the introduction to the third chapter, about gardening and garden design (among other things). The illustration is from the first essay in that chapter, presenting my four rules for 'Guilt-free gardening'.
Jerome Entwisle provided the cartoon for this essay, here and in the book.
To purchase, click the cover image below (or visit your favourite local or online bookstore):
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