What I Learned about Design in Master Gardener School

Our guest lecturer on Garden Design was none other than Joel Lerner, local designer/contractor/writer in the Washington Post, author of numerous books, including Anybody Can Landscape!, which comes highly recommended by Sandy Farber, D.C.’s Extension Agent (and our leader!)  And I loved the design idea that Andrea at Heavy Petal passed on to us recently and want to add Joel’s words to the conversation because I smelled the truth in everything he said. 

First, we learned about the classic "Principles of Design" in every textbook: balance, sequence, contrast, repetition, and proportion.  I love these principles because they apply to everything, not just landscaping.

Then Joel listed his "considerations for interest," including:
   -Designing for 12-month interest
   -Designing for all your senses
   -Choosing plants for form, size, texture, and color
   -Designing for the ground level and for the vertical and overhead planes (those nature-mimicing layers from top to bottom.)  He says beds need to be 10′ wide or more to accommodate these layers.
   -Creating progressive realization in the garden.

Did I lose you on that last one?  I had to rack my brain to remember what it meant, and here’s what I remember.  It means that as you progress through the garden new elements unfold, rather than everything being visable at once.  I remember a designer 20 years ago suggesting I create "surprise" by placing plants so they’re hidden until I round a bend and I slapped that idea down immediately - no surprises for me, thank you!  Boy, I knew NOTHING and it took me years to appreciate that suggestion.  Luckily, I went along with everything else she suggested and I’ve never regreted it.  The plan was one of those free-if-you-buy-from-us designs through a local nursery and not only was it excellent design-wise, but it included large shrubs I’d never heard of then that have come to be the mainstays of my garden - viburnums, pieris Japonica, nandina, and cherry laurels.

But back to the design wisdom of Joel Lerner and his "design concepts." The first is "total outdoor living: maximum use for maximum number of people," an idea I’ve hinted at occasionally myself because I totally agree that the main purpose of landscaping should be to get people outdoors.  And Joel tells us to create "smooth indoor/outdoor relationships" because they integrate people and structures with the environment.  And finally, "spacial enclosure" is important because who wants to sit outside in full view of everybody?  Enclosure isn’t unneighborly; it creates wonderful spaces.

Finally, "common landscape design errors" are:
   -Planting before planning
   -Planting plants too close together or too close to structures
   -Failure to ascertain the mature size of plants
   -Not massing the same plant varieties together (what I call planting in "onesies")
   -Sporadic or non-existent program of maintenance (which I’d call a follow-up mistake, not a design mistake, just to pick a nit.  So I’d amend this to say:  Failure to consider the maintenance burden in the design.)

So Joel, thanks for the great information.  Thanks, too, for talking so fast you were able to finish your whole presentation, uninterrupted by those pesky, patience-testing student questions.  Grrr. 

Now since I can’t show you Joel’s awe-inspiring slide show, here’s a humble one from my garden.  It’s one of my favorite plants, a Persian (noninvasive) ivy called "Sulpher Heart" adorning an ugly cinder block wall.  I thought of it because I had the pleasure today of killing English ivy climbing up 26 trees in the wooded valley in back of my house, having finally gotten up the nerve to ask permission to do it.  Ooh, it was gratifying to cut those stems and I’ll enjoy watching the leaves die a slow death over the next few months.  See, I hate ivy growing on trees as much as anyone else, but in safe spots - like pots - I don’t mind it and I think some ivies, the distinctive and well-behaved kinds, can be real dazzlers.   This one, if it could talk, would probably say "Please don’t judge me by my badly behaved English cousin.  Damn pommie."