When it comes to gardens, I'm decidedly low church. Someone else can have the highly structured repetitious plantings, the fastidious lawn and the grandiose space. I want a cottage garden, or a woodland garden. Something organic and possibly a little messy. The space where someone whimsically planted tomatoes in the best sunny patch of the flowerbed hoping THIS YEAR they'd get some makes me happy. It's long on sentiment and hope, and often, but not necessarily, short on polish.
Public gardens and corporate landscaping for this reason usually leave me cold. Does the world really NEED another boxwood hedge fronted by pansies? So when I find a really lovely public space, it's always got a quality of serendipity to it. I wasn't paying attention and suddenly the atmosphere creeps up on me. Hey... this is a comfortable space. Wait a minute. It's the plants. They make this space. And then I wish to god I had a notebook to jot down the light conditions, the dimensions and the coplantings.
Reed and I biked the 5 miles from our house to Vienna for breakfast this morning with Betsy, and after breakfast we walked back to the east side of Maple Street to where we'd noticed a pocket of sunshine and some benches just off the main path so that Betsy could stretch her legs. Next time you're on the W&OD, look for it between the recreation center and Maple Street. About a 20 ft gravel side path leads up the hill to Whole Foods, and it's planted on either side with warmth, whimsy and soul, a pool of sunny quiet repose from a bike ride.
You don't care what's planted there really. A list wouldn't help. It's all ordinary things. Yarrow, buddelia, astilbe, upright flox, and columbine are just a few. But I thank whoever planted it and although I never knew her the memory of Colonel Diane Greene who died in a bike accident 4 years ago seems as well served by her bench in that place as any memorial run across lately.
Posted by karen at June 20, 2004 06:21 PM