Starting In the Garden

I have come to the entirely biased conclusion that a decent landscape architect must have a garden. And they must garden (verb). It’s interesting that my friends who are not landscape architects say, “of course you do,” when I say that, as if it is something so obvious that they are surprised that I bring it up at all. Those of my friends who are landscape architects also say, “of course,” but add, “but not everybody thinks so.”

My bias is this: my interest in landscape architecture began in the garden. It began as a five year-old planting onions in a bucket on the apartment balcony. It began by playing with tunnels and landform in a three by eight foot wooden trough on legs. My father had made this trough to grow vegetables and filled it with soil from my uncle’s yard. It became my play yard. I soon realized that in order to make a tunnel, I couldn’t get too close to the jade plant or I would have to cut roots. What would I do with the soil I excavated to make the tunnel? I had to balance cut and fill. Would planting on top of my excavation weaken the tunnel? What about the type of plant? What happened when it rained? Would my tunnel fill with water?

As I work in my garden now, more than 30 years later, I think about the lessons that I learn by gardening. These are things that I suspect will be important in my work as a landscape architect, although I am not certain by any means. But in being the kind of landscape architect that I want to be, I hope that these lessons will be useful. These are things that I imagine will drive a design, or that can make or break a design. I laugh at an imagined by-line: “Plants, more than just objects in the landscape.”

Here are some of the things that I thought about today while in the garden:
Rosemary grows towards walls, not away from them like most plants.
Be careful how you amend soil. Chilopsis will fail if planted in amended soil, but may grow like gangbusters if planted in soil poor in organics. The variety ‘Burgundy’ grows relatively slowly and bushy as opposed to the species, which in my garden grew 5 feet from a 2-inch stump last year.
The books might be wrong. The Veronica incana which looks so great in Lauren Springer’s book and in the High Country Gardens catalog isn’t as drought tolerant here in Albuquerque as it is made out to be. The plants were pathetic wilted dishrags today, while the spuria iris next to it was fine. There are levels of xeric and you won’t know unless you try.
Be careful about planting roses, or any plant for that matter, against a west wall. Rose blossoms may burn in the heat, which begins right at bloom time.
Rosemary ‘Arp’ which may be more cold tolerant than other forms of rosemary, grows rapidly, and will become floppy and messy if not pruned biannually (an added maintenance expense?)
Lavandula stoechas ‘Otto Quast’ is perfectly hardy in my garden, but needs a bit of water at bloom time or the flowers don’t last.
Salvia nemerosa ‘May Night’ needs more water than lavender, although both are considered “xeric.” It spreads from the roots, and if dug up, the roots that are left will sprout many plants. The flowers last a couple of weeks, and the plant won’t rebloom unless it has adequate moisture.
Are grasses cool season growers or warm? Panicum virgatum takes a large part of the summer to build up mass and visual bulk, whereas Calamogrostis x acutifolia ‘Karl Foerster’ grows rapidly in the early spring, then goes semi-dormant for the rest of the year. Evergreen grasses will keep their structure all year.
Grasses are rabbit fodder. Ever wonder why Eragrostis trichodes is called the “ice cream” grass?
Rhus glabra suckers like crazy, even the ‘lancinata’ variety.
The dramatic six foot Penstemon palmeri lives only a couple years, but reseeds well in gravel mulch. It doesn’t reseed at all in an organic mulch. Speaking of Penstemon, plants in flower are quite a different height than the rest of the year. The basal rosette of Penstemon strictus, for example is only a couple of inches high, but the flower stems reach two feet.

Are these things that need to be known in order to design? Of course not. There are many designs out there that I think work well, and are pleasing places to occupy, yet use very little, or limited plant palette. But what kind of landscape architect do I want to be? I expect that I will be an architect who uses a wide variety of plant material. In order for me to use that material effectively, I’ll need to know how that most dynamic of landscape elements performs. Can I plant something small and have it relate to the design in a few years, or does it grow so slowly that I’ll need to plant large stock? How do buildings really affect plant growth and hardiness? Will I need to irrigate a plant heavily in a southern location or should I choose something else? Can I drive a design based on the color and form of the trunks of Forestiera? Why is a plant failing (is it exposure, soil, water, cold)? How much maintenance will a design need?
To know these things I’ll need experience. I’ll need to garden.