© Gregg Shupe 2005
Home All-Stars: Gracious Grounds
January 1, 2006
Japanese
The Japanese have long been considered the true masters of a pure
garden aesthetic, one that lacks pretension and subtext and simply exists. But
within the Japanese garden tradition lies a number of different styles, from the
stark Zen gardens that date to the early Buddhist monasteries, to the strolling
or imperial gardens that feature lush plant material. Regardless of the style,
Japanese gardens differ from their Western counterparts because of their focus
on creating places that invoke inner peace and tranquility.
Peter White, a landscape architect with the Sudbury, Mass., firm ZEN
Associates, believes that one of the main principles of Japanese garden design
(excluding the dry rock Zen gardens) is a naturalistic style that inspires a
sense of calm in those who experience it. These gardens are balanced and are not
contained by artificial boxes or grids. There is strict attention paid to an
artistic foreground, middle ground and background, and to layering plants to fit
the form.
Scenes from two gardens, as created by Sudbury,
Mass.-based landscape firm ZEN Associates, which specializes in Japanese
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Rather than designing for color and flower variety, the overall view is
paramount in a Japanese garden; color is used sparingly. “That doesn’t mean the
design isn’t striking or bold,” White says. “It’s just one flower’s chance to be
a leading lady.” White prefers to use traditional Asian plant material in his
designs, including moss, dogwood, azaleas, black pine and bamboo. He notes that
while the style itself remains the same, it can be composed of whatever plant
material is indigenous to the garden area. “It’s easy to transport [this type of
garden] to other cultures and climates. You could do a Japanese garden in
Alaska, Florida, Maine or Sweden,” White says.
Junji Miki, a Seattle landscape designer, has been designing Japanese gardens
in both the United States and Japan for more than 25 years. In that time, he has
learned to meld the traditional Japanese style with a more contemporary, Western
feel. While few clients want austere Zen gardens–with the traditional rocks and
gravel symbolizing the mountains and oceans–many want to incorporate a Zen
feeling into the more contemporary Japanese garden’s greenery. Miki uses a
number of trees and shrubs in his designs, including mountain maple, weeping
Japanese maple, cherry trees, camellias and hydrangeas. “Most people love
Japanese gardens,” Miki says, “because they feel calm and quiet and they are not
as active as some Western gardens.”
JAPANESE SOURCES:
Kurisu International, Portland, Ore., and Delray Beach,
Fla., 888.441.5137, www.kurisu.com
Junji Miki, Zen Japanese
Landscape Design, Lynwood, Wash., 425.402.4639, www.zenjapaneselandscape.com
Thomas
Schoos Design, West Hollywood, Calif., 310.854.1141, www.schoos.com
Peter White, ZEN Associates, Sudbury, Mass., 800.834.6654, www.zenassociates.com
Formal
Anyone who has visited Hampton Court Palace outside of London or
Louis XIV’s Versailles can appreciate the exacting mathematics that go into
creating a formal garden. In the extravagant days of European royalty (in
particular the French and English), formal gardens, with their pure geometric
forms and precise symmetry, symbolized wealth and influence. They required
dozens of workers to maintain the parterres, or patterns, created by the flora.
Today, at least in the United States, garden designers have moved away from such
formality and lean toward a more natural, free-form design. But for those who
still practice the form, nothing can take the place of its original mandates for
balance and precision.
Many homeowners want low-maintenance gardens these days, says Troy, Va.,
landscape designer Susan Schlenger. The rewards from cultivating a
labor-intensive formal garden, however, are abundant. And “formal” does not
always negate “contemporary”–the two coexist quite comfortably in many an
estate.
Schlenger regularly uses formal edges of boxwood in her designs, but says
that hedges can be made from many different types of plant material, including
burning bushes, rhododendrons and inkberry holly. Creating a formal display is
not so much about the specific plant material, she notes, but in how it is used.
The origins of formal gardens are rooted in Western European political
history. High French parterres, with fleur-de-lis flourishes and artistic
topiary, exemplify the indulgence of the Sun King. Victorian English display
gardens were more staid, yet just as exacting. As society became less formal, so
too did its gardens, Schlenger says.
Formal gardens are still alive and well in the United States, says designer
Emily Fronckowiak, whose company, Historical Courtyards & Gardens of
Berkley, Mich., specializes in European-style display gardens. “Americans just
don’t understand formal gardens. It takes a special mind-set,” Fronckowiak says.
Formal gardens serve our need to organize, as each is built on a mathematical
grid. André le Nôtre, architect of the gardens at Versailles, understood this
human need for order, as did acclaimed British designer Capability Brown. And as
a testament to the formal garden’s charm, many have stood the test of time and
exist today in their original form.
FORMAL SOURCES:
Julian and Isabel Bannerman, Bristol, England, www.bannermandesign.com
Madison Cox
Garden Design, New York, 212.242.4631
Emily Fronckowiak, Historical Courtyards & Gardens, Berkley, Mich., 248.544.1218, www.historicalcourtyards.com
Penelope
Hobhouse & Assoc., www.penelopehobhouse.com
Susan
Schlenger, Troy, Va., 434.996.1609, www.susanschlenger.com
Tom
Stuart-Smith, London, +44.20.7253.2100, www.tomstuartsmith.co.uk
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