ERICA GLASENER
Atlanta Fine Gardens owner offers tips on garden design
Guru Brooks Garcia says consider foliage, texture, fragrance
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Recently garden designer Brooks Garcia and I were talking about how one defines a garden.
Erica Glasener
Arbor entrance into courtyard. Atlanta Fine Gardens owner Brooks Garcia says to consider foliage, texture, fragrance when designing a garden.
As the owner of Atlanta Fine Gardens, which specializes in residential garden design and installation, this is something Brooks has been dealing with for 18 years. He tells me though that he started out as a plant person before he became an accomplished designer. He describes himself as “a botanical Noah” who would bring home every plant he fell in love with.
As far as design, his approach was a bit like a needle on a compass. He would look around the garden and wherever his eyes rested, that’s where the plant was planted. It was after he worked with designer Ryan Gainey that he came to appreciate plants for their foliage, fragrance and texture as well as whether they were pretty, weird or obscene.
As volunteers on the landscape committee for Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, Brooks and I — along with a great group headed by Sara Henderson — are working to design or redesign gardens within gardens. What makes Oakland such a challenge is that everywhere one looks there are headstones, monuments and markers.
While these structures help to define the space and provide the framework for the garden, they also reflect a time period and style that we want to respect.
For Brooks, a garden is the experience of moving through time and space. He also believes that beauty is all about good bones, and that if a garden looks good in January it probably looks good in June too. Defining space in the garden is important whether you use architecture or horticulture, such as a wall or a hedge, an arbor or a tree and a terrace or a groundcover.
Brooks also says that we need to learn to see. When we look at a photograph in a book or magazine or visit another garden, what is it that appeals to us about the photo or the landscape? A garden is about good garden moments. Like a stage where a production takes place, a garden is also about change. A light comes on in one area and goes off in another. Interest moves around the garden. There is something going on all the time.
Here are some points Brooks says to consider if you are designing or redesigning your garden:
• Time and lifestyle. How much time do you have to spend in the garden? Is it manageable? How long will you live in the house?
• A good garden is all about numbers. How many staff members do you have to take care of your garden? The design should reflect this.
• Good bedfellows happen when the cultural requirements of both plants are met. A deciduous woodland is ideal for spring ephemerals that bloom early and disappear as the heat sets in. Combine these with ferns and hostas that carry on through the fall.
• Make the best use of your space. A shrub can serve double duty if you train a vine to scramble up it. Then you get two different blooms in the same spot.
• Pick a style or a country and stick with it. If you like things that are Italian, then use this as a theme throughout your garden (for example, terracotta pots for your containers and ornaments made of a similar stone).
Also, Brooks says to think about combinations of plants. Here are a few he likes:
• Yoshino cherry, Prunus yedoensis, underplanted with early spring bulbs like Crocus tommassinianus or hardy cyclamen, Cyclamen hederifolium.
• Corylopsis pauciflora, Winter hazel shrub, underplanted with Hellebores and Arum italicum, Italian Arum. This charming shrub offers interest three to four seasons.
• Hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’ and Hydrangea paniculata ‘Tardiva.’ Two late-blooming varieties of hydrangea that thrive in full sun. Skirt them with Southern shield fern, Thelypteris kunthii.
Erica Glasener is a horticulturist and host of HGTV’s “A Gardener’s Diary” at 7 a.m. Thursdays.
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