Inspiration: Discovering the essence of your garden
I think this image begins to capture the essence of our garden. The blue jay enjoying a refreshing drink below and in the cover of a beautiful dogwood in full bloom. Images like these can help inspire the vision you are looking for in your garden. It would never have happened if I did not place the bird bath under the dogwood fully expecting similar scenes to occur every day. It could just as easily be a small naturalized pond that was inspired by an experience in a nearby woodland.
Cultivating a vision through fine art and natural experiences
Inspiration can be found in so many places, and yet, we all struggle to find a vision for our garden.
Finding the vision is really the first step to creating it.
That vision is constantly being shaped by a world where we are bombarded with images, videos and garden experts telling us how to create the perfect backyard.
It’s rarely as simple as looking through gardening books and picking out a garden style. We know that adopting another person’s vision for such a personal space is probably not the answer, but the questions remain, where do we get the inspiration to cultivate a vision for our garden?
Obviously, there is no single answer to that question. But, let me share with you a few ways that I am looking for inspiration.
This year, I’ve decided to take a multi-faceted approach to finding garden inspiration. Of course, exploring the natural world is first and foremost, (see my earlier post on using nature as a guide), but books and music can be equally inspiring sources of inspiration. And, I’m not talking about gardening books exactly, although they too can be excellent resources for garden inspiration.
Let’s start with experiencing a natural woodland.
“When the leaves on trees are about the size of squirrels’ ears, when birds returning from months in the south dart around in search of nesting sites and daffodils dance in gardens and meadows, a deep sense of well-being floods over me. Everything good in the world seems possible.”
We are lucky to live in an area surrounded by woodlands and conservation lands. When we first moved here, I explored the area to some extent, but raising a family and work always seemed to get in the way of really getting to know the land intimately. For years, I’ve more or less taken the woodlands around us for granted, rarely exploring it to any great extent.
This year, however, I have decided to make a concentrated effort to fully experience and embrace the natural woodland. That includes spending significant time exploring the paths, wildflowers, stream, trees and wildlife that call it home.
It means experiencing the sounds of the forest, breathing in the fresh air, feeling the rain on my face and sitting quietly in secret places among the wildlife at various times during the day and into the evening. This will help to provide a sense of place.
Even if you do not live in such an area, take the time to visit a local woodlot and experience how nature shapes its natural design. Study the finer details. Look at the forest floor, how a stream or small pond influences the surrounding vegetation. Now take this knowledge and put it to use in your own garden.
A vision of what could be
This image taken in the garden one morning captures the essence of what I want our woodland to represent – wild, mysterious yet open to exploration.
For me, experiencing the surrounding woodland also means documenting it photographically. What am I looking to achieve? you ask. I am looking to find images that help to portray the essence of the emerging spring woodland so that I can incorporate some of these discoveries into my garden.
They don’t have to earth-changing revelations, maybe they are nothing more than gaining a greater understanding of how the plant communities work together.
If we give it a chance, the natural world can be our teacher and provide much of the inspiration for our garden designs.
Like any worthwhile endeavour, I know it will take time and regular explorations into the woodlands.
In fact, the process has already begun. I have ventured into the woodlot several times photographing what inspired me. To date, the images I’ve made have been very uninspiring. But that is expected. I think you have to get to know your subject before you can capture its essence.
Early signs of spring
The skunk cabbage is just starting to emerge with its rather odorous leaves. These plants are an important signal that spring has sprung.
On my last visit, I captured the early emergence of spring as skunk cabbages (Symplocarpus foetidus) began to poke their wonderfully vibrant coloured leaves through the wetlands. Now, few gardeners would likely plant skunk cabbage in their gardens unless they had a large wetland area, but Mayapples and even Hosta leaves sprout up in early spring. Skunk cabbage may well serve as the inspiration to plant native mayapples or non-native hosta to experience that same thrill of early spring emerging skunk cabbage.
My early ventures into the woodland to date, though not photographically successful, will be important images to document the emergence of spring as the trees begin to leaf out, grasses and sedges emerge and the undergrowth once again becomes alive with life.
Stay tuned for more on this spring exploration of the woodland.
This image captures the dreamy vision I have for my garden inspiring me to work to encourage more butterflies such as this Painted Lady and to add delicate flowers to add to the dreamy look.
Focus on artistic vision for creative inspiration
In addition to being outside in nature and experiencing the spring rebirth of the woodlands, I’ve been exploring the books of various visual artists who share many of my interests about the natural world. These fine artists provide a unique look into capturing the essence of a scene.
Studying how they use line and shape, colour and textures, where they place the focus of interest, (even if there is one at all in the piece of art), all contribute to the attempt to capture the essence of the scene.
First, I turned to one of my favourite photographers for both inspiration in the garden as well as photographic inspiration.
Freeman Patterson’s book The Garden (see my post here) was a perfect combination of garden and photographic inspiration.
Many of Patterson’s other books, Photography & the art of seeing, Photography of Natural Things, Photography for the joy of it, Photographing the Word Around You and Odysseys, Meditations and Thoughts for A Life’s Journey, just to name a few, illustrate his unique vision, willingness to experiment with colour and visual design, and contributed to help inspire my own vision of how I can use these concepts in our garden, let alone my photographic pursuits.
Below are two images taken years and miles apart that share many of the same characteristics. Both use a single colour, both are dominated by a large rock mass on a diagonal line, and both suggest the fragile nature of living plants growing in what might be perceived as a hostile environment. The top one was taken in a very wild area in northern Ontario, the other in our garden alongside our driveway. In both cases the stone forms the foundation of the image and the plant life creates the essence showing the delicate balance between hard and soft, life and death.
Inspired by Canadian photographer Freeman Patterson’s approach to the Photography of Natural Things, I made this image of a single fern growing in what appears to be a rock face. The simplicity of line, shape and colour helps to form a vignette that captures the essence of what I am trying to achieve in parts of the garden.
Garden vision from nature
The image above was photographed in a natural setting and may have influenced the image of creeping phlox trailing over the rocks in a garden setting. You may not be able to duplicate the vision, but you can take cues from the natural images.
In his book The Garden, Patterson writes: “When the leaves on trees are about the size of squirrels’ ears, when birds returning from months in the south dart around in search of nesting sites and daffodils dance in gardens and meadows, a deep sense of well-being floods over me. Everything good in the world seems possible.”.
Robert Bateman, a Canadian fine artist who became famous primarily for his incredibly realistic wildlife art, reminded me that nature can be beautiful in its raw form. Some of his images are just tapestries in nature reminding me of my earlier post on a Tapestry of Groundcovers, but others show an animal, bird or other form of wildlife as a small element in a larger scene. The environmental portrait approach is covered in my recent post here, entitled Give your subjects room to breathe.
His work reminded me that a dogwood tree takes on a whole different look and feel when a blue bird sits in its branches. A simple lichen-covered rock can be beautiful in its own right and does not benefit from flowers being planted around it.
His work is a reminder to keep everything in the garden simple and learn to appreciate what nature offers us.
Fine artists who manage to capture a scene in a single painting or photograph teach us another important lesson – to look for the essence of the place.
Essence is defined as “the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract, that determines its character.”
Finding that essence in a single image or painting requires careful composition, design and a thoughtful approach. It is not that much different to creating and implementing a vision for our garden.