“Before you build a house, you need blueprints, good clothes need patterns, and good food needs recipes and menus. We give it all right, but when it comes to garden plans, we tend to think that all the charm is lost if the garden is not allowed to grow carelessly. - "Northwest Gardens of Lord and Shriver", Valencia Libby, 2021
As landscape architects, Elizabeth Lord and Edith Shriver firmly believed that every garden should be planned, from the smallest residential lot in the city to hundreds of public parks. Valencia Libby's book Lord and Shriver's Northwest Gardens is filled with garden plans drawn by one of the partners in a landscape project they completed between 1929 and 1965.
The earliest references are to the first of nine articles Lord and Shriver wrote for Portland's Sunday Oregon in 1932. The articles were designed for a wide audience and devoted to the improvement of the average urban area. In their first work, Lord and Shriver established five basic garden planning principles: order, balance, composition, utility, and beauty.
While reading this book, I was impressed with all the carefully crafted plans, as I am one of those home gardeners who plant plants here and there and let the overall garden pattern develop over time. Lord and Shriver would surely call my judgment arbitrary and would not be mistaken.
I want to learn how to be more strategic in my garden design and a good starting point is to apply Lord and Shriver's five garden planning principles to the forest garden I created in Bandon.
The forest park is a triangular part of a plot of about 3,000 square meters. Today it consists of native plants common to this part of Coos County in mixed deciduous and coniferous forests: Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) and Port Orford cedars (Chamaecyparislawsoniana) with cranberry leaves (Vaccinium ovatum), Pacific rhododendron (R. macrophyllum). ), western swordsman (Polystichum munitum) and salal (Gaultia Shalon).
My landscaping goal was to add non-native and other complementary plants to this existing plant community to create a woodland garden where you can walk paths between trees and undergrowth. I have created an island bed around coniferous trees where I plan to grow flowering shrubs, perennials, and various types of ferns that pair well with xiphoid ferns.
With the help of this overview, how can I apply five interrelated landscape design principles to achieve my goal of creating a visually pleasing woodland garden?
domain
Putting things in order in the forest park begins with the removal of blueberry bushes that have occupied the interior space. I leave a few blueberry bushes at the edge of the forest where they get enough sun to bloom and bear fruit.
In terms of design, order can be achieved by grouping plants (or other garden elements) around a focal point. In my forest garden, conifers are the main feature of each island plot, so I will create order by planting around them and repeating plantings grouped in different parts of the garden.
balance
Order and balance go hand in hand. Landscape design balance is a sense of spatial equality. Symmetrical balance is achieved when both sides of the landscape are equal, while asymmetrical balance uses different plants or other garden elements to create balance.
One way to create a symmetrical balance in my woodland garden is to plant identical plants that will be visible from the paths at both ends and in the middle of the garden. Another option is that both ends of the garden lead to a new room: at one end the garden leads to a meadow, and at the other end the garden leads to a vegetable garden.
essay
There are certain compositional rules in landscape design, but what really stands out in my woodland garden is the concept of figure and ground, also known as positive and negative space. In my forest garden, conifers and patches of planted islands are positive images or space, while winding paths and open spaces between trees are earth or negative space.
The balance between the figure and the ground in my forest garden is achieved by making the paths a prominent part of the landscape, and leaving large open spaces between the trees facing the garden. This negative space will balance and balance the plants in the ground, while the positive space will stand out in the garden.
Images and backgrounds can be shifted in color, shape (2D), shape (3D), or texture. With this principle in mind, the path offsets the green leaves with surface layers of brown fallen pine needles and curved lines. The erect form of conifers forms a counterbalance to the rounded, horizontal forms of shrubs and perennials.
availability
When designing a garden space, you should pay attention to how the garden is used. If the main purpose of my jungle garden is to invite you to appreciate the scenery, then I want clear paths (open roots, no climbing holes) that blend island plantings and encourage exploration. He wanted to assemble a collection of plants that would encourage visitors to take a closer look.
the beauty
Of course, I want my forest garden to be beautiful, but what exactly do I mean? My forest garden will contain healthy plants that are part of or compatible with local plant communities. It will create year-round interest with flowering plants that bloom at different times of the year, as well as evergreens and fall foliage, with a combination of color, shape and texture.
For me, a beautiful woodland garden is one that supports wildlife, so I like to add plants that provide food and/or shelter for birds, bees, and butterflies. For me, beauty also includes personalized elements (Lord and Shriver call creating "personalized charm"), like adding a pretty sidewalk bench or making a bath for my little brown myotis who loves to hunt bugs at summer sunsets.
In their long careers as landscape architects, Lord and Shriver wanted to teach gardeners the basics of landscape design. I'm not ready to say that I will never plant something at random, but I love using these five design principles to organize my woodland garden. This project doesn't seem so intimidating because it's already been done.
Rhonda Novak is a gardener, teacher, and writer from Rogue Valley. For more information on gardening, visit literaturgardener.com or email Ronda at Rnowak39@gmail.com.
