The Corner Cafe Hearts Street Trees

This tree gets a new heart despite its decayed heartwood

Durban is quite well known for its abundant well established street trees. The Flamboyant (By name and description) creates an incredible display in Summer with its masses of red flowers. Its flowers take over from where the more serene purple blooms of the Jacaranda end. At the moment the Tabebuia are blooming in splashes of pink and yellow that seem to fall to the floor around the trees like a matching carpet. Other trees that stand out are Tibouchina and Spathodea, while the ever green Trichelia (Essenwoods/Natal Mahogany) and the canopy-forming Albizia (Flatcrown) are some of the few indigenous trees used to line our streets.

Unfortunately, some of these trees that were planted about half a century ago, are starting to reach the end of their lives. There have been a few cases lately of cars being flattened by their huge branches, as the heartwood has rotted away, or white ants have taken what strength is left in their limbs.

So it warmed my cockles to see a tree that had been recently felled because its core had decayed, being given new life by The Corner Cafe. A huge big heart was sculpted out of one of its now well shortened branches by the members of the Tree Amigos - a tree felling company from Durban.

Looking Over The Garden Wall

I once took a test to see whether I used the right or left side of my brain, as an added extra the test told me that I am more visual than auditory.
I'm not sure how scientific it was, but it did make a certain amount of sense.

When I pick up a gardening book, most times I very casually skim read the text, preferring to absorb the pictures instead. This has always seemed the right way to approach the honing of my landscaping skills. Gardens are after all primarily a visual experience.

I've also always believed, that like plants and their ability to absorb water and nutrients, my natural ability to learn relies quite heavily on osmosis.

The absorbing of ideas through my eyes has been how I have learned most of what I know. I quickly get impatient with words, preferring to get to the real thing as fast as possible.
I would often look at planting, texture or colour combinations, and decide whether I liked them or not, and why.

I do believe that this is the best way to begin the learning experience as a landscaper. I think its the ideal foundation to lay to make your understanding of gardens as real and honest as possible.

But lately I have found myself drawn to words far more than I ever have in the past. Maybe its the influence of reading so many interesting thoughts in gardening blogs from people all over the world. Maybe its the act of writing this blog, and the discipline of having to put my thoughts down on paper.

It might also be the realisation that while pictures express so much to me, they may not be enough to try to communicate concepts or needs or reasons behind. And it is dawning on me that gardening as an Art, Science, Hobby, Language or even Need, has so much further to go in being accessible to people in general.

We have such a rich heritage and history as gardeners, that it is easy to look at the art of gardening as complete or mature. If I look back at history, and the growth and development of gardens, I could quite naturally compare it to an old man - wise, experienced and learned, but with little space left for new ideas or experimentation. All the ideas are already thought of, with any freshness coming from re-hashing old concepts.

But I keep getting a flash of the truth: that if we choose to look past what we have learnt, and know already, and up over the garden wall, there is a whole world of new ideas beyond.

Psychotopia

While waiting for a table at Adam's Book Store's Coffee Shop I usually look for new landscaping books that will have something new or interesting in. Its not very often that I find a book that I can justify buying, but this last week I found a book that will definitely be on my list for Santa this year. I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but I knew I would love it when I saw it.

Avant Gardeners by Tim Richardson is a look at 50 designers/practices from around the world, and a look at the underlying principles behind their innovative approaches to garden design.

One of the chapters especially caught my eye. In it he coins the phrase Psychotopia. This is the understanding of place not only in terms of location, but also in terms of meaning. How we interact with gardens, their history, their use, ecology etc. all affect how we experience them.

Very basically put, how we look at an empty beach is different to how we would experience a beach with footsteps in the sand. The landscape has been changed by the viewer, and takes on a different feel (and effect on us) as a result.

Gardening can be/should be/is so much more than just placing pretty flowers in garden beds. Amanda Patton says "gardens, ..... must move you on a deeper level than just being visually pleasing..."

A lot has been spoken about the ability of the more traditional arts, movies, architecture etc. to effect change in the people or society that experience them. Gardens have the ability to change people in ways we haven't even begun to realise. They can be explored, moved through, discovered. They create a constantly changing scenery, opening up new vistas or creating new intimacies in a far more real way than traditional art has ever been able to.

It really is time that gardening begins to be understood as an art-form rather than just a past-time.

Hug Your Gardener...

In South Africa gardening as a vocation is something that is not esteemed highly enough and is generally done by people with little or no training.

Unfortunately the result of this, is that gardening as a skill is not valued. There is even a stigma associated with gardening as menial. This becomes a catch 22 in that little investment is made into development of skills, which results in a continuation of the mis-perception. This in turn means that people look for jobs in other industries with better financial benefits instead of making careers in gardening.

There are also an abundance of people with no real skills offering landscaping and garden maintenance services which is giving the industry as a whole a negative image. Often these businesses pay their staff a pittance, plant gardens that don't last, and have no idea how to look after and nurture a garden properly.

There is a definite need to change peoples perceptions about gardening as an industry. Landscaping is an art-form that should be the equal of the more traditional arts. And the skill of not only maintaining a garden but nurturing and guiding it into something of incredible beauty should be valued and respected.

Inspiration comes from anywhere

Inspiration for my gardens comes from anywhere and everywhere. My favourite way of getting ideas is by paging through landscaping books in my favourite book shop over a cup of filter coffee. Inspiration comes from other places as well - such as the gardens that I see all around me, including the natural 'gardens' in the abundant nature reserves in and around Durban.

But ideas come from more obscure places as well. Some of my best ideas have come from places like; children's toys, fonts, construction materials, fashion, architecture and art.

The design in this 'g' holds plenty of ideas and shapes for a garden. Place this shape over a plan of your garden , and see what new ideas can develop from it.

Its all just a matter of looking with different eyes...

If you are planning your garden, it is important to look at what you like about the gardens in your neighbourhood. But open your eyes to the ideas, shapes, textures and colours that you see outside of the garden, decide what you like about them, and whether there is something you can use in the design of your garden.