Is it possible to critique a garden without understanding the designer’s intent? by Felicity Waters
A discussion piece – what do we want from a garden? how important is the designer’s original intention? Given that this piece is a critique of…
Garden History – issues by Sara Venn
The use of ‘historic styles’ in gardens raises some interesting questions and deserves some thought from thinking gardeners. As indeed does the…
Hort Park, Singapore reviewed by Jonathan Fothergill
Travel time, readers from UK and USA – here’s interesting in South East Asia – a great piece from Jonathan Fothergill on Hort park, Singapore. Anne…
On women, landscaping and show gardening by Sue Beesley
“I happen to like physical work and expect to pull my weight and a bit more. Unless it is actually beyond my strength, there’s nothing I can’t or won’t do. Some of my female friends find this inclination towards sweat and dirt a bit perplexing….”
Gardens Illustrated Award: comment by Anne Wareham
“Gardens are like theatre in that you have to be there to judge them. It is not enough to review a play by looking at the publicity photographs and hearing a second hand account. It is not good enough to judge a restaurant by looking at the menu and hearing what someone else thought. It is not good enough to judge a garden by looking at slides and hearing one person’s opinion of it.”
Can Gardeners be Considered Artists? by Gary Webb
“I tend to think that in professionally tended gardens, the natural occurrence of targets, job descriptions, over-loading, all commonplace in a busy workplace, can quite often mask and tie up the creativity that exists within a gardener …”
Letter from America – further comments
‘When someone describes something as ‘not their cup of tea’, it is telling you far more about them than the garden…..’ Philippa Perry
Letter from America revisited
‘We might say something is ‘crap’ to a friend who understands our reference points, but it isn’t an adequate critical comment. You have to define your parameters for critical discussion, not doing so limits potential response. It becomes yes it is/no it is isn’t…..’
The practicalities of making a garden by Mary Keen
“Like painters, gardeners select, discard and re-arrange. Like them, we are making something that needs vision and patience and skill. We bring out what lies under the surface….”
Tim Richardson challenges ‘real gardeners’ over garden design
“The anti-design agenda of some parts of the horticultural world is in part based on a shires-gentry brand of anti-intellectualism which sees design, and talk of design, as essentially vulgar.The country-garden conceit is that you just throw it all together and then, as a result of genetics or feudalism or something, it happens to look good…”
Nine Questions – Duncan Brine
by Susan Cohan.
An interview with American garden designer Duncan Brine.
Nine Questions – Michelle Derviss
by Susan Cohan.
An interview with American Garden Designer, Michelle Derviss.
“A well steeped cup of tea, a butter cookie and my sketch book is always good for inspiration too.”
Did you say the “G” word? Wash your mouth out with soap
by Tim Richardson.
” – the idea of gardens and gardening comes freighted with apparently unassailable connotations of bourgeois mediocrity and convention, accompanied by visions of elderliness and amateurism.”
The Things a Garden Centre Won’t Tell You
by Suzanne Albinson.
“Perhaps it would behove us to compile a central data base of garden plants, a Wikiplantia perhaps,….”
Pothole Gardens by Felicity Waters
“…the photos below show the best form of roadscaping that I have ever seen in the UK….”
