Supper: January 2010
A garden is meaningless without good spaces.
In which Michael Balston froths, and also insists that water in gardens should feature “no turds, no alligators”…
Supper: June 2009
Is garden design a frivolous luxury in straitened times?
“Clearly, it all centres on one’s appreciation of gardens…”
Supper: May 2009
Do gardens have to include plants?
“…..And indeed, in some circumstances plants alone can be used conceptually to shock people…”
Nurture not Nature
Society of Garden Designers Conference with Hugh Ryan, Erik Dhont, Jinny Blom, Tim Rees, Roberta Silva, Ulf Nordfjell.
Report by Anne Wareham.
“Sometimes, rarely, like a good designer should you might well think, they keep to the brief. Jinny did.”
Chelsea 2008
Three of the thinkinGardens Group made a short film recording their thoughts.
“But for me, when I look over an edge and down into a space, I want to be rewarded and uplifted ….”
The TARDIS Garden: thinking big about small spaces
Society of Garden Designers Conference, November 2007.
Reviewed by Darryl Moore.
“Whilst his style of presentation was no doubt intended to be irreverent and humourous, it became less coherent and relevant as his talk progressed.”
Putting Gardens Back on the Cultural Map
thinkinGardens Symposium.
Report by Stephen Anderton.
“Gardens should be evaluated by all as an multidimensional dynamic art form, but no one should fear being judged because of that. A romantic vision and an intellectual approach are not mutually exclusive….”
A Tribute to Linnaeus designed by Ulf Nordfiell reviewed by Anne Wareham
“The light echoes of Swedish countryside were one thing, but the effort to bring the Swedish botanist into the picture was the usual over literal, over ‘spelt out’ stuff…”
A Tribute to Linnaeus designed by Ulf Nordfiell reviewed by Stephen Anderton
“It might not be a bad for any garden to start from a default position of absolute simplicity. Only then would certain elements be expanded and explored, as and when the design required them.”
Germaine Greer: Yes, Gardens can be works of art – but you’d never know it from the Chelsea Flower show.
by Germaine Greer.
“Most of our best-known, most-visited gardens are merely pretty, or, worse, picturesque…”
with responses by Anne Wareham, Andrew Wilson, Leigh Hunt, Amanda Patton.
Is a Garden an Artwork?
Debated at the oxford Literary Festival 2007.
Reviewed by Matthew Appleby with comments by Anne Wareham.
“I loathe places like Hestercombe, but then on the other hand you have places like the Barbara Hepworth Garden which is more of an outdoor gallery.”
3-D Gardens: Thinking outside the concrete box
Society of Garden Designers Conference.
Report by Anne Wareham.
“…plants are incidental to gardens…”
