In my job as a garden journalist I am fortunate enough to visit many
gardens all over the world.
Patricia Cleveland-Peck.
Journaliste - écrivain / Journalist - writer |
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european institute of cultural routes |
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| Michel Thomas-Penette |
| 10 December 2004 |
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What I have learned above all is that Gardens are valuable. It is not for nothing that the word "paradise" derives from the Old Persian equivalent of a garden. The value of such green spaces to the physical and spiritual well being of man is enormous – too great for there ever to be a monetary value set upon it. Today I should like to explore with you the value of gardens in two senses – firstly the garden as a work of art to admire and secondly the garden as a rewarding creation to make.
But what is a garden? In its widest sense a garden is made whenever man clears, encloses moulds, plants and arranges the natural landscape. Most of Europe has felt the hand of man, there are few wild places left.
How it is done varies from culture to culture – sometimes it is difficult to see what is a garden and what isn’t. Is this circle of stones in Gambia, West Africa a garden? It doesn’t seem to have many of the attributes we as Europeans think a garden should have but it has been arranged with some long forgotten symbolic significance. Nor does this rocky arrangement from China look quite what we require of a garden but in China rocks, water and buildings,sometimes as many as 40 on a small site, make up a garden – with only a limited palette of plants (which is odd as we get so many of our favourite garden plants in China). For the Chinese however, it is the symbolism of a plant or the poetic or literary the allusions it evokes (gardens always have a pavilion devoted to calligraphy) which make it worth growing.
Garden buildings too are more important and certainly more prolific in Chinese gardens – bridges, walkways and pavilions for viewing the moon in autumn, are important. As are other decorative elements like this famous marble boat in the Summer Palace of Beijing.
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Suzhou China. Photo : Jean-Baptiste Rabouan
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The author, at right
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Now we are in Europe but is this a garden?
Yes, this amazing baroque
edifice built on a rock and shaped like a ship is indeed a garden.
It is Isola Bella on Lake Magggiore in Italy – I must be one of the few people to have been shipwrecked on Lage Maggiore but that is another story.
Made by the wealthy Borromeo family it is an astonishing creation with grottoes, exotic plants and white peacocks all bathed in the incedible transalpine light.
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Isola Bella
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Patio. Villa of the rich Moor. Granada
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It could be said that in the main the Latin countries of Europe initiated a Classical tradition for formal gardens influenced to some extend by Islamic and Mogul gardens but owing most to the Renaissance.
This is Villa Petraia near Florence. It epitomises the idea that nature is only beautiful when highly organised by man.
This is seen clearly in gardens like Versailles in France which we are to hear about later - or Vaux le Viconte and it extends even to the famous vegetable garden of Villandry and smaller gardens such as this lovely little garden at Chateau de Gordon above the French Riviera. Formal gardens gradually spread throughout Europe.
In Spain, as well as famous gardens like the Moorish influenced Alhambra, I particularly like those lesser known Pazos of Gallicia. These summer palaces were run on agricultural lines and owned by aristocratic families who visited them in the hotter months as Gallicia is cool, green …and wet. My favourtite is Pazo de Oca a baroque gem, a positive poem of green foliage granite, water.Here too is a remarkable stone boat. Oca is still occupied by the family – as witness this wonderful little washhouse with 2 dozen linen table napkins from the dinner party of the night before. Garden visiting is still in its infancy in Spain but is growing in popularity but these Pazos are open to the public.
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Villa Petraia, Italy. Peinting by Utens.
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In contrast to the formal garden with its straight lines, is the Landscape Garden which developed in the 18th. Here is Mount Edgecumbe in the west of England. But don’t be fooled by its sinuous lines, this is just as artificial and also owed a lot to the Classical tradition, for at the time these gardens with their temples had as much meaning to the 18th gentleman versed in Greek and Latin texts as the Chinese garden had to its scholars/garden makers.
This sort of garden was fashionable through out the 18th century and beyond - every aristocrat wanted one and British designers and head gardeners were in demand. William Gould went to work for Prince Potemkin who with Catherine the Great created several English gardens in Russia, later the arts and Crafts designer Baille-Scott to Queen Marie of Romania.
These creations were in effect the pleasure gardens of the wealthy and such great gardens need both peace and plenty to arise and flourish. In times of war and hardship out come the flowers and we are told to “dig for victory‿ - if we are lucky that is, if we are unlucky we and the gardens are destroyed. Now many of those which are still in existence are open to the public. Their value as works of art is becoming recognised by governments and tourist offices as an important resource – whole holidays are devoted to garden visiting. I know, I often write about them.
Making gardens into big business needs organisation…We in England have the National Trust founded in 1895 which is responsible for historic houses landscape and over 100 gardens.
They range from castles to cottage gardens. Here is a typical flower border at Upton house in Oxfordshire. Some NT gardens receive over 150,000 visitors a year – most people go for the outing – and for the cup of tea.
In Italy FAI (Fondo per L‘Ambiente Italiano) looks after a handful of houses with beautiful gardens. Villa Balbianello on Lake Como is a delight. Approached by water this house and garden on a rocky outcrop designed by Cardinal Durini has a loggia affording views both up and down the lake and effectively forming two micro-climates.The garden at Villa Balbianello is full of interesting horticultural details: swathes of laurel clipped flat to look like a lawn and decorative ivy swags.
Another FAI property is the lovely Villa Della Porta Bozzolo at Casalzuigno, Italy with its terraced garden which is echoed throughout the house with attractive floral frescoes. Of course many private individuals own gardens which they open to the public. Count & Countess Bernadottre own the Island of Mainau on Lake Constance in S.Germany. The whole is land is a garden run commercially to a high standard and impeccably maintained - you never see a weed. There is a garden for the blind, lots for children to do, annual dahlia and rose festivals, lots of restaurants a green telephone for people to phone in their garden problems.
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Also very interesting are the old Botanical gardens. These are treasuries of medical herbs and exotic plants and represent important historical data.
Here is the sixteenth century Giardino dei Semplicli in Florence - but old Botanical Gardens are to be found in many cities of Europe as they served the medical faculties of the old universities.
Another value attribute of a garden - as well as giving pleasure to our senses it a work of art itself - can inspire further works of art – I visited Carl Larssons garden in Sundborn, Sweden and was lucky enough to meet Carl Larsson’s grandchildren, now quite elderly themselves – they pointed out that the 1908 painting of Karin "Late Summer" shows her on exactly the border running beside the lake along which we were walking.
Then we have Monet’s Giverny. The inspiration for the famous water lilies series of paintings with the Japanese bridge which he also depicted. It is a good garden to visit because it is wonderfully colourful and always tempts visitors to plant some of the simple flowers in their own gardens.
Leaving Europe for a moment in America is another garden which inspired artists. On the rocky island of Appledore 10 miles off the coast of New Hampshire is Celia Thaxter’s small garden of annual flowers Celia was a great gardener and wrote a book published in 1894 about her garden she also had a salon of artistic summer visitors including American impressionist Frederick Childe Hassan who painted the garden many times. Later it fell into disuse but has been restored by Cornell University which now leases the island as a Marine station. Getting there involves 2 boat rides and was a great adventure for me. I was shown round by the ladies of the Rye Driftwood Garden Club who now look after the garden and, like Celia did before them, bring the seedlings out from the mainland by boat to plant up the garden each year afresh.
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Gardens of Boboli. Florence Italy.
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The variety and scope of gardens in Europe is enormous . There are
historic restorations such as the Regency gardens of the Royal Pavilion Brighton in Englannd now restored to the original Nash designs.
There are specialist Herb Gardens ranging from a recreation of Strabo’s very early garden at Reichenau on Lake Constance to a Herb Garden enjoyed as a quiet and tranquil place by the inhabitants of Petersfield in Hampshire, England. There are gardens devoted entirely to cactus, those prickly beasts lovingly tended by their gardeners in the Jardin Exotique de Monaco. Gardens devoted to Roses. Hay-les-Roses near Paris and gardens of rhodedendrons and azealeas – Bois des Moutiers near Dieppe in France. There are garden created to take advantage of a stupendous view, like Villa Ruffalo in Ravello in Italy and Clos du Peyronnet in Menton, France where the garden has been designed with pools descending towards the biggest pool of all - the Mediterranean. Of course there are many many other types of garden all valuable in their own ways…
BUT perhaps the greatest value a garden can have is to the "gardener". Of course in England gardening effectively crosses society - we have always had gardening Duchesses who liked to get their hands dirty - nowadays now more and more people from every social sphere are getting involved.
We can all make our own works of art even if we only have a few pots or a window box. Or one single rose bush.
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Linnaeus
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To see growing plants is therapeutic. It can help the sick – we have the charity THRIVE which encourages people disabled either physically or mentally, to garden. It can also be very useful. Growing food you can rely on as being free from poisons is increasingly popular with all classes and a smart potager is now even considered the height of garden chic. Making a garden involves all our senses. It involves colour, taste, form, rhythm - and time. And it rewards us accordingly. Gardening is a very forgiving art, if you make a mistake there is always next season. One of the joys t is that in your own space you can do whatever you like - What one person finds odd another will love.
"Chez Gabriel" deep in France is decorated with hundreds and hundreds of plaster figures. And there is a little garden on Eel Pie Island near London which grows mainly old abandoned dolls. Here is its charming owner, rather a doll herself?
Another odd garden is that of Rosa Mir whose husband created a garden of shells from the fish restaurants of Lyons…
Of course there are many gardens full of whimsy – Le Jardin Dumaine in western France contains many topiary figures from the "Fables de la Fontaine". And of course there
are gardens of flowers grown just for the pleasure of picking them to decorate the home.
Most people visit great gardens for enjoyment and to gather ideas for their own gardens – which are in the main more modest. Most people want something lovely to surround their house as at Hailsham Grange, a well-off British middle class home. Many are what we call cottage gardens which can be found in rural Sussex, England and Hanmmaby in Sweden, the home of Carl Linné otherwise known as Linnaeus.
All these gardens are expressions of the personalities of their owners - their own works of art.
The Chinese poet Tao Ch’ien who lived from AD 378 – 427 writes of that long moment at the end of day. He has been picking chrysanthemums in his small garden when he straightens up and catches sight of the light on the distant southern hills and at that moment feels perfect unity the landscape.
This moment is something gardeners and garden-lovers share. It has a value beyond price.
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