Lean Into the Past with Found Objects: Remants of Time Add Weight and Depth to a Garden

Cities are moving people

Who just forgot their lives.

--Cy Curnin of The Fixx

Old farm houses like this one, which I pass daily on my way to work, inform my garden.

June.  Summer time.  A smack-a-fly-dead day.  This valley is me.  This place I know deeply.  I sit in my recliner and stare out the window.  Heavy sunlight glistens off the oaks my brother and I planted 14 years ago.  I have known them since they were six inches tall.  Rye gently sways before them.  My eyes are weighted.  There is depth here.  I lean into this place and it accepts me.  We are not separate.  There was a time when many people had such a connection.  So much of humanity has vacated place.  I don't understand it.  I accept it.  I know what it is like.  I have lived in apartments and have moved when rent increased.  I know that world.  I have sat still on the expressway under an intense sun staring at a glass box office building waiting for the traffic to move.  But it has never been me.  Here is where I have always been--this great western valley with less than two people per square mile.

One of the Oaks Lloyd and I planted 17 years ago viewed through a wine glass that sits in the window.

I think it is important something of our past remains.  Perhaps, we can't all be farmers.  Perhaps we can't all sit on ninety acres and listen to cicadas sing while looking at the world through the stem of a wine glass. Perhaps for most of us, home will be temporary, but we can garden whatever lot or balcony we have intensely, personally, hands stained black by soil.  And we can bring in remnants of time, symbols of a past that wasn't plastic--a rusted wheelbarrow, an old iron bolt, a weathered shingle, a broken cinder block--ghostly messages from a world that wasn't digital.

To me, it seems vital.

An old hay rake that was on the property when my parents purchased it.

A vignette that I set up in the old pig shed.

A recycled mushroom bed from a local mushroom farm that I set on it's side to form a wall.

I built this hanging bucket garden to tie in with the pig shed, the last standing farm building.

Below are some a couple of YouTube videos with great ideas for bringing the past into your garden.

And finally here are a couple of great videos by the Fixx on the collapse of farming communities and man's isolation from the soil.  

Creating a Tuscan Garden Path & Outdoor Dining Area in the Great Basin: Part I--Winter Dreaming

Although it is technically still winter, our unusually warm weather has sent me into garden dreams.  Still suffering from an infection, I can't actually get outside to work.  But I can shop for ideas and scheme.  Here is my plan for creating a little bit of Tuscany in my own backyard in spite of the obvious climate differences.

 

Existing Pond, Path & Grill Pad

1.  The Site

There is a narrow gravel path that runs from the driveway, past a small pond, to a series of three outdoor rooms partially enclosed and separated by three structures--a hanging bucket garden, a grill pad (above) and a pergola.  The three outdoor rooms are well defined and work well together as three interlocking spaces.  The pond also ties in nicely and reflects the grill pad.  But, between the driveway and the pond, planting seems unrelated and once the spring grass dies back, the pathway lacks definition.

2.  Tuscan Inspiration

Besides being my favorite garden style, a Tuscan style garden is perfect for Dry Creek because we only receive 12 to 15 inches of rain annually.  Although we can't grow many types of Mediterranean plants here because of our cold winters, I believe I can find enough substitute plants to make it work.  In particular, the natural rabbit brush can provide the soft grays of rosemary.

3. Existing Tuscan-Like Features

On top of that, I already have a few old-west features, such as my hanging bucket garden and pergola that give a nod towards traditional Tuscan garden structures.  I don't want to so much recreate a Tuscan garden as use a Tuscan garden as a familiar reference point and transform it with references to the American west.  I believe there are enough similarities between Tuscany and the West that I can blend the two into an effective hybrid garden.

Existing hanging bucket garden.  After this picture was taken,
my grape vine took off and softened the structure.

 

Pergola with grape vine beginning its way up nearest post. 
Vegetable garden wraps around two sides.

 

4.  Lessons Learned from an English Cottage Garden Pathway

4a.  Use of Pots

Although the above video models creating a traditional English cottage garden, I found inspiration in the even spacing of ceramic pots along the path to provide pattern and structure to what is otherwise an informal, winding path.  I will place ceramic pots along the south edge of my path, alternating plantings of skyrocket juniper and red geranium in them.  On the north border of the path, I will place lamp posts with lights over the pathway and hanging baskets both sides.  This will continue the verticality of the garden structures out towards the driveway.

4b.  Shrubbery in Patterns

Although you can't grow Italian Cypress here, skyrocket juniper are a good substitute.  Not only will they enhance the verticality of the garden structures and lamp posts, they will provide a common Tuscan reference point to build the rest of the garden around.

 

5.  Stay True to Your Site while Playing with the Exotic

 

Although I have never been to Tuscany, and most likely never will be able to afford such a trip, I don't think it will be hard to create a little nod towards that distant land in my own backyard while still honestly acknowledging the western structures, plants and landscape that exist here.

 

To me, that is what gardening is all about:  work with the topography and history of your site while playing with it until you create something that both respects the past and nods towards the exotic or new.

 

 

 

 

Landscaping Tip #1--Don't Start from Zero: Work with the Topography, Existing Vegetation and Site-History of your Lot

Old farm equipment that was already on the property when my parents purchased Dry Creek.

When you go down deep enough into your ground you find your true place in that valley of ancestors that inhabits every back yard.

--Wendy Johnson, Gardening at the Dragon's Gate:  Work in the Wild and Cultivated World



Yesterday, as a service project, I took a group of youth to help a man with yard work.  Part of our task was to extend his level backyard out into the hillside so that he could add a patio.  Even though the soil was a soft, crumbly clay, the project involved moving lots of dirt.  It was strenuous work to say the least, and in my opinion, the project would have very little impact on his yard: a flat, green lawn ending in a patio made of concrete pavers and a concrete block retaining wall.  There would be no transition from house to hobby farm (barns and horse coral) to the wilds of the canyons and mountains just beyond his property line.

So, here's a landscaping tip:  If you are moving lots of soil, not only are you working way too hard to enjoy gardening, but you are most likely destroying the natural beauty of your yard.  Even if your lot is primarily flat, small undulations, such as sunken areas from septic-tank leach lines or just run-off gullies that occurred during home construction can be accented with stones and plants to become the highlights of your yard. 

A pond I created in a depression in what once was the barn yard. 

A dry pond I created in a sink hole from a septic tank leach line.

  

Likewise, if you're renovating an established yard, it is usually better to work with existing flowerbeds, no matter how mundane, than it is to start from scratch because you can use established trees and shrubs as focal points and build your garden organically around them. 


In short, great gardens like great architecture pay tribute to their surroundings and historical context no matter how insignificant they be.  Something is automatically lost when topography, established plants and site-history are ignored.  As the Chinese Revolution proved, fecundity doesn't appear out of a void.   The number one rule of landscaping, as in everything beautiful, is don't start from zero.
Instead, see and honor the beauty that is already there and accent it with your own particular flare.

Interior of the one remaining farm building, a lean-to pig shed, which I've converted into a Western town.
 I've also used it as a motif throughout the yard.
 



Rustic pergola makes use of weathered pine poles.

Mushroom growing-bed salvaged from our local mushroom factory turned sideways to create a wall.




Salvaged window in a rustic shade-wall I created for the back patio.

Great gardens, like great neighborhoods, aren't designed in sweeping master-plans.  They evolve slowly through a constant, unconscious and conscious dialogue between parts.  This does not mean anything goes.  It means that rather than authoritarian monologue there is conversation between good and not-so-good neighbors.  A great gardener, like a great grass-roots organizer, unifies whatever is already there into a whole rather than ripping out what exists.  Even the not-so-beautiful shrub or tree takes on meaning when the right plant is placed beside it.  An ugly aluminum fence rail, once arrogant, continues to contribute history and vocabulary without monopolizing the show when smeared bluish green and covered in vine.