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The Thinking: index of articles see also index of writers.
"It's great that people are finally talking about gardens as an artistic and philosophical pursuit as well or instead of a horticultural one.." Françoise Murat
"Did you say the 'G' word?- Wash your mouth out with soap" - by Tim Richardson " - the idea of gardens and gardening comes freighted with apparently unassailable connotations of bourgeois mediocrity and convention, accompanied by visions of elderliness and amateurism."
"If I was a Garden Designer I would be a bit miffed by the fact that every list of iconic or outstanding contemporary gardens comprises special places which have, In most cases. been created by people who are not professional garden designers.." by Tim Richardson
Nine Questions - by Susan Cohan - an interview with American Garden Designer, Michelle Derviss. "A well steeped cup of tea, a butter cookie and my sketch book is always good for inspiration too."
The Prairie Pow-wow - by Robert Webber "We are making civic statements – for example ‘a slab’ of yew with a trio of Sorbus bristoliensis growing out of it, as indigenous plants, says more about Bristol than a smallish portion of an Oklahoma prairie...."
Cutting edge is what most people do with a pair of grass shears, not a design aspiration, by Ursula Buchan "Sure, everyone enjoys the show gardens at Chelsea Flower Show every year, but few people, it would appear, have the faintest desire to emulate what they see...."
Art Project in Deal by Christine Finn "Leave-Home-Stay began as a whole house excavation, conducted when I returned to the home I had known for 35 years after the deaths of both of my parents....."
Is this why we have so many ugly gardens? by Anne Wareham "This bed appears to have no purpose other than to contain the multitude of random materials...." - Jenny Woods
Is gardening an art form? by Roger Phillips: "It is a sculpture in which you can walk, sit, drink or sing. In other words it encourages the visitor to play an active role. He or she becomes a part of the garden..."
Yes, gardens can be art, but you'd never know it from Chelsea Flower Show by Germaine Greer, responses by Anne Wareham, Andrew Wilson, Leigh Hunt, Amanda Patton: - "Most of our best-known, most-visited gardens are merely pretty, or, worse, picturesque...".
Are garden photographs art? by Charles Hawes- ..."I wonder what Martin Parr would come up with if he were to photograph gardens. Whatever it would be, you can bet your life he would not produce work that would sit comfortably in the pages of contemporary garden magazines."
Little Sparta and garden design ... " by Tim Richardson ....we are reminded of Finlay’s dictum: “Embark on a garden with a vision but never with a plan...."
Hedonistic Gardens - A Return to Utopia by Malcolm Uhlhorn: "as we emerge from this treacle pudding of a recession should we not be trying to shake off this national endemic of philistinism and austerity and be thinking as to how we could embrace the pleasure garden concept today?"
Should we trust anyone’s opinion on a garden except our own? by Tim Richardson - "Beth Chatto's garden was never going to be 'my thing', exactly, but I found it all rather underwhelming...."
The Relationship between Garden and Creator by Darryl Moore - "However, certain questions which queried the premise of the work were deflected by Alasdair, in a charmingly erudite manner, which seemed to effect a rather uncritical acceptance of the work...."
The Mind or the Eye? by Stephen Anderton - "It is possible for an overpowering intellectual agenda for a garden to be the excuse for unconscious flights of great ugliness."
Some reflections on garden design in Japan and China by Yue Zhuang - "The Japanese have an extraordinary tradition of studying and assimilating the good from other cultures..."
Revisiting the Garden of Cosmic Speculation by Tim Richardson,- " ..The Garden of Cosmic Speculation is no longer a dialogue with the universe, it is a monologue about the universe. It is becoming The Garden of Comic Extrapolation, and someone needs to say it."
The Garden and the Brain by Jenny Woods - "It is this reaction that Amanda Patton is trying to manipulate when she is designing the ‘feel-bad’ gardens she discusses in her article..."
Considerations on visiting a Garden by Anne Wareham, responses from Mike Gerrard, Antony Woodward, Tim Richardson, Jenny Woods, Clive Nichols, Chris Young, Yue Zhuang, Rebecca Wells - "Try some adjectives: - risk taking, banal, complacent, incomprehensible, exciting, disturbing?- to help you focus on just what you feel about it."
Interview with Ian Hamilton Finlay by Ambra Edwards - "Rainee chatters between mouthfuls. “You do talk a lot,” says Finlay, coldly...."
How to look at the Taj Mahal by Ambra Edwards - "This historic garden is not the ‘original' garden, but a colonial construct from the days of Lord Curzon, dating from 1906 ...."
Allusion in Gardens by Noel Kingsbury, Yue Zhuang and Anne Wareham response from Jim Golden " But it is clear that a garden based on words and references to a foreign or dead language, or a forgotten culture, is going to be less accessible. That in itself raises questions about elitism or perverse obscurity."
Feeling Gardens by Amanda Patton - "...art isn’t just visually appealing, it must move you, shock you, create emotion in you in some form. And so with gardens, they must move you on a deeper level than just being visually pleasing."
1.Some Thoughts towards a Critical Language for Gardens by Peter Osborne - "The immediate problem is that the question of what is a garden, especially a good or great garden, has become embroiled in the discussion about different types of garden..."
2. Pretty as a Picture by Peter Osborne - "...This formal vocabulary, together with garden-specific terms in any good glossary, is sufficiently objective and well-established to provide an analytical basis for garden criticism, but is not an evaluative language."
3.A Joy for Ever? by Peter Osborne - "...But most people would, I think, recognize some different basic levels of value. A parallel in art would be to agree not to replace a Leonardo on the National Gallery wall with your 2-year old's latest, that the average amateur artist is not up to Cotman, nor he up to Leonardo."
4. A Response to Peter Osborne by Bridget Rosewell - " I love gardens in winter (not winter gardens). When the palette is muted and the bones show, and it is not wise to sit for too long, the good garden gives a frisson all of its own."
- a series of three pieces by Peter Osborne, artist and creator of Clearbeck, addressing some of the problematic aspects of reviewing/criticising gardens and a response by Bridget Rosewell.
On Beauty and Gardens. by Anne Wareham, responses from Andrew Wilson, Bridget Rosewell, Noel Kingsbury, Ian Kitson, Andrew Lawson, Anne Beswick and Sara Maitland - "....So often when I visit a garden I am confronted with the horrifically ugly, and that seems to me to make a mockery of our materials, which are the best the world can offer."
Gender and the Garden World by Anne Wareham, responses from Jo EliotAndrew Wilson, Amanda Patton and Jane Stevens - "Carol Klein: 'Many viewers assumed that I'd turned down the job but in fact I was never offered it. Had I been asked, I would have loved to have done it.'"
Girly Gardens, yes or no? by Bridget Rosewell, responses from Benedict Vanheems, Ann Pearce, Anne Beswick and Noel Kingsbury - "I am not interested in girly – give me gorgeous though. I would describe the Ann Pearce garden as ‘impressive’ and ‘striking’ but not ‘gorgeous’. Gorgeous implies something more?"
Do we need a more flexible approach to Design? by Peter Thomas,- "...Within the field of garden design this concept is expressed through the use of a limited palette of materials and colours, and an emphasis on the functional — a format that is still prevalent today."
Thinking about Gardens by Darryl Moore, - the relation between gardens and art. - "But it is also important that the idea of art should be questioned, as it is neither a simple nor a universally understood concept or practice."
Gardens as Pills - or not by Tim Richardson, - "....In such a view, gardening is innocent, guileless and healthy, while garden design is cynical, unncessary and corrupted by too much knowledge and thought."
Chelsea 2007: reviewed by Stephen Anderton, Anne Wareham - "It might not be a bad for any garden to start from a default position of absolute simplicity. Only then would certain elements be expanded and explored, as and when the design required them."
Viewpoint Piece from the RHS journal 'The Garden' May 2007 'In the Name of Art' by Corrine Julius, with additional comment by Chris Young and Stephen Anderton - why gardens are not seen as art and why they should be. - "The preoccupation of many gardeners with plants above all else alienates many artistic observers. It revives the rather outdated arts debate about ‘physical craft’ and ‘intellectual art’, reinforcing the view that gardening is about doing, not thinking..."
Review of Veddw House Garden by Robin White, garden designer USA - "On a gate in the corner of the garden are 19th century accounts of people who have lived in the area in the past, 'accustomed to poverty, inured to scanty fare, suffering occasionally from cold and hunger.'"
Extract from 'The Photograph' by Penelope Lively - fictional garden judging. - "...It is impossible to sideline personal taste, but she tries to give proper credit to the demonstration of gardening skill and commitment, even when the products of these are a tortuously constructed rockery or a rash of carpet bedding."
Miscellany. by Steve Eddy, Brian Sewell and Anthony Quinn - "I fell to wondering, yet again, at the vanity of painters incapable of even rudimenatary self-criticism and at the boundless conceit of amateurs."
Gardens as Chick Lit by Anne Wareham - " other art forms have lots of different categories. Music encompasses pop, jazz, classical, gospel, folk, country; novels can be historical, romantic, sci fi, detective, chick lit., children’s, (with sub sections), pot boilers, page turners, airport novels and literature..."
Selection of articles by Tim Richardson on the Veddw website (this link will take you off this site) = "Why are small gardens so awful?"
'Vista' - introduction by Tim Richardson and Noel Kingsbury - "The reason we feel Vista is necessary now is because there seems to be a gulf between academic writing on gardens which tends to be about history and commercial writing on gardens, which focuses either on practical horticulture and plantsman-ship, or on descriptions of individual gardens."
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Hedge garden , Veddw, ©Charles Hawes
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