cool mornings, cool ideas
There have been whispers of cooler weather lately.
A couple of consecutive mornings, I slid open the patio door to feel something strange: a chill.
Thoughts of greener lawns with less watering flood my mind.
I've wanted to learn & write about landscaping more. It's not something I know much about; I have a sort of intuitive sense of what I like and don't.
We've been thinking about the backyard, given the sauna ideas I shared last week.
I watched several videos about landscape design and love all the ways it relates back to interior design.
This video with Carlos Campos Morera of Geoponika was great. Their studio signature is this very loose, organic style.
Two ideas Carlos mentioned:
First, this seems so obvious in retrospect; I just had never thought of it before.
If you want to incorporate different types of plants from various parts of the world, you need to mimic their native soil. To do this, dig out some of your existing soil and add a type of soil that will allow the new plant to thrive.
Duh. But I've never done this even once, and I'm going to start. Feels good to learn.
Second, he says, "Density always looks rich. Even if you buy a bunch of cheap $5 to $10 plants and you buy a good quantity of them and you plant them all together, that itself can look like a really lush, rich garden."
If you compare this second idea with interior design, it's so true. When you cluster a variety of interesting things around a vignette, saya fireplace, it looks "rich."
I found another video, from a great YouTube channel about English gardens, "The Middle Size Garden."
It's an interview with Paul Bangay, a famous Australian garden designer. He has a much more classical, symmetrical style.
His #1 piece of advice is:
"Be bold....I always say, drama's great in the garden. Think of drama, but be bold - overscale things, don't unscale things. Novices and home gardeners tend to get the scale wrong."
It's funny, I always think about these exact same things indoors - with plants, paintings, rugs, and decorative items.
Most people go too small, and things look cluttered instead of making a powerful statement.
Paul also suggests dividing your garden into rooms:
"I just think it creates a more interesting garden...if you can see the whole garden in one glance....it's all over and done with in no time. But if there are areas that your eye is led on to, then that process of discovery and enticement is what creates interest and drama in a garden."
I just wrote about discovery two weeks ago, exploring the Neuhoff development with my kids. Discovery is what makes things exciting.
This is what inherently makes open floor plans challenging from a design standpoint. There's less opportunity for the reveal. You have to create architecture with furniture and lamps.
Speaking of discovery, I recently came across this birdbath on Facebook Marketplace and immediately took the plunge. Already a nice patina, $25. Come on.
This flagstone firepit area needs a clean-up, but it's going to be a winner when it's done, I'm sure. We've needed a focal point in this corner for a while, and just in time, the right thing appeared.
Slowly, it's all coming together.
