This post is part of this month’s Garden Designers Round Table Blogfest on ‘Underused Plants’.
But any one expecting to read a list of plants which we think should be more widely grown will be sadly disappointed. Because we have repunctuated the title in order to explore the issue rather than the plants themselves!
Individual plant types can certainly be underused. No doubt the vagaries of fashion play a part in this, both as regards use and availability. The power of television to hype and conversely to depress the market for certain plants can also not be over estimated. Robert vividly remembers as a nurseryman being unable to sell Eucomis. And then, at the word of Alan Titchmarsh on BBC ‘Gardener’s World’ one Friday night, being able to sell 150 the next morning! And what becomes the buzz then becomes the norm and all the time the buzz is hyped some other very worthy and no doubt more appropriate propagule gets ignored. It’s common denominator stuff.
There is also a layer of general ignorance which the TV companies have done little to change, presenting the world of gardens as a series of makeovers, blasts of decking punctuated by the odd palm, tree fern and water feature. So much so that Elizabeth Banks, President of the RHS recently castigated the BBC for dumbing down gardening programmes and urged them to concentrate on plantsmanship, including giving the latin names of plants! Cue prolonged applause from this particular design partnership. It is time the world woke up to the skills and knowledge involved in professional horticulture.
General public ignorance about plants and gardens is one thing but of more concern is ignorance within the design industry and a general laziness which results in formulaic use of plants such as Trachelospermum, Astrantia and the odd umbellifer as though mixing the ingredients for concrete or ‘bulky organic matter.’ One of our fellow students when training had a target for his entire plant knowledge of 100 species! In our book this is not poor plantsmanship, but no plantsmanship!
Some in the garden world go further and adopt a rather studied pose as to the supposed unimportance of plants altogether. ‘You can have a garden without any plants.’ It is said with a smug, ‘There, cap that’ expression, such as might be worn by a boasting little child in the playground! This stance reaches its apogee in ‘Conceptual Gardens’, where the plants are unimportant or absent altogether. Call it a concept if it deserves that title. But garden it ain’t if there are no plants. Gardens do contain plants per se. If you want it to contain no plants, it is a yard in the English sense or a sculpture gallery.
- ‘Lipstick Forest’, an inside garden(?) in Montreal
In an article in The English Garden garden designer Cleve West confessed to ‘an on-off relationship with plants.’ The off- bit being a kind of studenty bravado which ‘did a good job of covering up my shortcomings’. And that for us says it all. The no – plants stance was partly, he admits, ‘to wind up horticulturalists.’ Interesting tactic. They might just be the guys maintaining your designs!
If you told your prospective clients that they could have a garden without plants 99.9% recurring would think you were barking and rightly so! For most people gardens are about R and R and context. They are unlikely to think your concept of a desert of hard surfaces suitable and you are unlikely to get the job.
Of course plants are not the first priority for the designer unless, as a concept for the client, they are critical to the Brief, the Big Idea and the Genius Loci. All of these come first. But plants are a tool, an ingredient about which we should have as much knowledge as any other. You would not as a designer have an on–off relationship with ‘South Cerney’ gravel. It is or is not appropriate to that particular job. Why should you about plants?
Once you admit to plants being an ingredient, on which it behoves you to deliver just as on any other, then knowledge of plants of course frees you to make choices. Your choices can be site specific, fit for purpose and with a bit of effort they can also be just that little bit more creative – a facet which appeals to many clients. You can use the real repertoire as opposed to the narrow one which your ignorance has tied you to.
This is of course a cumulative endeavour because then demands on the nursery trade lead them to upgrade their services. They grow what they are asked for, and respond well to a change of diet.
And then we have no underused plants at all!
Robert and Lesley
Want to read more about underused plants?
Please check out all the fab posts below from our esteemed GDRT colleagues:
Andrew Keys : Garden Smackdown : Boston, MA »
Christina Salwitz : Personal Garden Coach : Renton, WA »
Debbie Roberts : A Garden of Possibilities : Stamford, CT
Douglas Owens-Pike : Energyscapes : Minneapolis, MN »
Genevieve Schmidt : North Coast Gardening : Arcata, CA »
Jocelyn Chilvers : The Art Garden : Denver, CO »
Lesley Hegarty & Robert Webber : Hegarty Webber Partnership : Bristol, UK »
Pam Penick : Digging : Austin, TX »
Rebecca Sweet : Gossip In the Garden : Los Altos, CA »
Scott Hokunson : Blue Heron Landscapes : Granby, CT »
Susan Cohan : Miss Rumphius’ Rules : Chatham, NJ »
Tara Dillard : Vanishing Threshold: Garden Life Home : Atlanta, GA »
July 27, 2010 at 5:36 pm
I couldn’t agree more. Have the two of you read “Plant-Driven Design”? It’s an outstanding book, in my mind, and one I’ve gone back to again and again. I don’t often sit down and really read the narrative parts of plant books, but this one’s most certainly worth it.
Also, I so enjoy the English expression “barking.”
July 27, 2010 at 9:23 pm
Thankyou for your comment!
I have certainly not read that, but heard of its existence. Have noted it and found on Amazon so its an instant have.
Re barking, most of us are over here so the word gets used a lot! You like words. Lesley and i always comment on your writing style which we hugely enjoy.
Best Wishes
Robert
July 27, 2010 at 5:42 pm
Love your take on this topic!A garden must have plants, and with (broad based) knowledge one has the power to design with them creatively.
July 27, 2010 at 9:27 pm
thankyou!
yes of course we are right.
what the others say is just a stupid pseudo intellectual pose.
your use of the word broad is of course key. this only comes from long working experience, mostly professional, rather than lounging on a sofa leafing through a few books!
and the knowledge is empowering. exactement!
thanks so much for your comment
best wishes
R
July 27, 2010 at 7:17 pm
What a thoughtful interpretation of the topic. I find it amusing that anyone would think a garden should not have plants. Your observation that plant knowledge leads to better plant choices is critical and something that many do not appreciate. I’m off to look for Elizabeth Banks comments about dumbing down gardening programs – all I can say is ‘You Go Girl!’.
July 27, 2010 at 9:35 pm
Thankyou!
Yes it is funny, isn’t it?
Such an opportunity wasted over a kind of faux – intellectual smugness. Knowledge gives you the variety and expertise of form to enable exactly what you seek to do as a designer in all aspects of the design. So why wouldn’t you?
Yes do look up the piece.
It was in the Sunday Times for the 4th July. Apparently she plans to discuss their contract to cover the shows too. An improvement in the coverage of those would be a huge plus.
Thanks for your perceptive comment.
Best wishes
Robert
July 27, 2010 at 9:29 pm
Good plantsmanship makes such a difference. I’ve seen landscapes with plants apparently chosen because they were all blooming at the same time at the nursery (bet your garden was planted in April!) I’ve seen others that appear to have been supplied from only one section of the nursery (there must have been a special on spiky plants that day!) When I’m choosing plants for a project I go through all of my categories, from deciduous trees to evergreen shrubs to ferns to perennials to grasses to roses to conifers etc. etc., just to remind myself of all the choices I have. Definitely more than 100, that’s for sure!
July 27, 2010 at 9:43 pm
Yes, doesn’t it. The job lot approach and what’s looking good approach is what you so often see. L and i were interviewing landscapers who had tendered for a job recently and one of them said he would do that for the plant selection. Well we do the planting plans in any case so the stance was inappropriate, but it typified a way of working that was not thorough. You on the other hand are very conscientous! But truth to tell L and I do have our own favourite books and lists as you say, just to remind us of the possibilities. It is also amazing what gets noted down if you just leave it all for 24 hours and have paper and pencil to hand!
Thanks for your comment
Best Wishes
Robert
July 27, 2010 at 10:55 pm
Here’s my problem plants. They too often drive the ‘design’ which ends up being no design at all but rather a collection of plants in an ill-conceived space. A collection of plants does not a garden make. I’m definitely on the Cleve West side of the discussion.
July 27, 2010 at 11:36 pm
I think we have clearly said the plants should not drive the design, but knowledge of them aids and assists in execution of the design as much as the knowledge of any other element, be it space, surface, water etc. What I object to is the denial of the importance of one element, often because it is the bit which cannot be grasped. It is surely not a question of plants or design. there is common ground!
Thanks for your comment
best Wishes
Robert
July 28, 2010 at 12:57 am
Oh how I wish Elizabeth Banks could speak on our behalf as well – our TV shows do nothing to help beginning gardeners and truly dumb them down with instant quick-fixes as the only solution. I love it when a client understands that ‘things take time’ and actually looks forward to the process of watching their garden evolve. I very much appreciate your post!
July 28, 2010 at 7:47 am
Yes those clients are quite rare aren’t they.
The funny thing is that when people do discover the buzz of say growing something say from seed it is like nothing else.
The sense of magic and overwhelming achievement is such a blast for them.
Thanks so much for your comment.
Best Wishes
Robert
July 28, 2010 at 4:01 am
I enjoyed your “flip” of the topic and your musings on the nature of a garden itself. Believe it or not, I have had a couple of clients over the years who wanted almost no plants, just hardscaping. I understand that not everyone is a gardener, nor must they be. But when asked to deliver a design for basically a yard full of gravel, I balk. There must be room for plants.
July 28, 2010 at 7:43 am
If people don’t want a garden, why employ a garden designer?
For that matter, if you don’t want to create with plants as an element of that creation why be a garden designer?
I can just about buy the fact that clients’ eyes may need awakening to what the plants will do to the space.
I find it hard that some garden designers need the same process!
Puzzling that they worry about the plants taking over.
It is their brief to see that they don’t!
And what I don’t like is the masking of dumbed down skills using a pseudo intellectual ploy!
Thanks so much for your comments.
Best Wishes
Robert
July 28, 2010 at 8:36 am
I have enjoyed your take on this GDRT topic …
Especially as I am a plants person and not a garden designer,
K
July 28, 2010 at 9:04 am
karen, thanks for your comment.
It seems to have stimulated some thoughts which of course is always good.
The point is I think that we can have it all – the fab design and the fab plants – and that is all one is really saying!
There is no need to throw the baby out with the bath water!
Great to hear from you!
Best
R
August 1, 2010 at 11:13 pm
What a fun take on the topic and very well said. I too just shake my head when I see that kind of thing, and think of it as a snotty way of sounding like a “proper” designer. whatever that is.
I shamelessly come to garden design because of the plants, and while I do design hardscape as well of course, I’m a plant geek and all that other stuff is, to me, there to highlight the plants, and the people’s experience of the plants.
No plants, no garden.
August 2, 2010 at 9:00 am
Thanks for the comment!
I personally think it is all a sign of weakness to make your big premise, that of denying the very idea of plants and a negation of what has gone before. I think it is a lack of boldness to create using quite a dangerous and variable medium: PLANTS! If you don’t know and don’t understand, the safest way is to denigrate. How many aspects of life do you see that trait practised in?
What I also hate is some of the vicious, snobbish, know all stridency with which the ‘no plants code’ is outlined!
R
August 7, 2010 at 2:02 pm
Sorry it took me so long to get here, the pond was a bit choppy on the crossing!
This is an excellent post Lesley and Robert, and quite frankly has the passion and opinion, we all should be including on the Roundtable. It is clear, through reading the post and your response to comments, that you are passionate about the value of design and all its elements. Something of which we should all be more respectful!
I would encourage you to Edit this post down (they like 500 words or less) and submit it to The Garden Rant http://bit.ly/dsgbeX for a guest rant. That would really further the discussion!
August 7, 2010 at 10:04 pm
However long it took, it was worth the waiting. In fact you ended up in spam for some reason. So I am glad we found you!
Thanks so much for what you say. We will take your suggestion re Garden Rant seriously and see how we can cut and what they make of it.
Thanks for thinking of that.
Best Wishes
Robert