Photographing the Garden & Thinking about Design

The last week or so I've been making an effort to go out in the garden and take some photos. I've missed a day here and there, but it's still a good habit to get into. There's always something going on this time of year, and I often find myself wandering aimlessly, looking at everything or nothing in particular.

More importantly, my Creme de Cassis hollyhock is in bloom:



With all the weevils sucking at it, I was afraid it might never bloom. The leaves are pretty chewed-up, and the stalks are bent, but the flowers are lovely. I realize now that I should have saved some bamboo poles or bought some sturdy stakes to keep the plants upright. Aesthetically, they are not as nice as they could be. Still, hollyhocks always strike me as the flower for a cottage garden, which is roughly the vibe I go for. With any luck, they'll reseed and continue to delight for years to come.

Other Matters

For some reason, I have a subscription to Domino. Many of their ideas are quite out of my realm financially and don't really fit with my lifestyle, but I do like any design/decorating mag as a resource. I have my own idea of style, which I try to maintain against whatever trends are out there, but I don't mind having a guide show me the way around.

Anyway, the most recent issue has an article about gardening design personalities, which highlights a number of names worth remembering. If you've read previous entries in this blog, you'll notice that I'm really interested in the design and "theory" aspects of gardening, so I thought I would list all the figures mentioned for personal reference and share them with you.

Beatrix Farrand
Edith Wharton's "The Mount"
Tony Duquette
Madame Ganna Walska's Lotusland
Garrett Eckbo
Thomas D. Church

I own a book called Creative Gardens, by James C. Rose, who studied architecture at Harvard with Eckbo and was similarly pivotal to Modernist landscape design. Some images of his work can be found here and here.