Claude Monet’s Garden at Giverny
Photo credit: Lesley Hegarty
One of the many great things about these Round Table group posts is that you never know what people are going to write about. Oh sure, we are all writing about the same topic, but fortunately no one person’s view is ever the same as another’s!
Take romance in gardens. Well, what is ‘a romantic garden’ anyway?
Is it a bucolic reverie of the past, a cottage garden idyll, or a more rugged and ruinous landscape with an ancient abbey perched on a wooded knoll half concealed in the mist?
Might it be one of those recognized staples such as the Taj Mahal with its fabulous love story, Monet’s pictorial garden at Giverny, The Alhambra or Ninfa?
Or if we are thinking in terms of garden history, will someone be writing an erudite dissertation on precisely which garden indicated the true start of the so called ‘Romantic Movement’ in gardens?
We are a very planterly group so surely someone will write about plants which excite the senses: all billowing blossoms, velvety textures and seductive scents. Queue lavender and roses, honeysuckle and azaleas, not to mention lilies and cherry pie.
Or perhaps one of us will get down to brass tacks and discuss how to dress a garden specifically for romance. Here we are clearly thinking sheltering arbours, tinkling fountains, aquamarine plunge pools and secretive screens for privacy.
You see, the possibilities are limitless!
Enough speculation. Lets find out what they all said!
Robert Webber and Lesley Hegarty
Lesley Hegarty & Robert Webber : Hegarty Webber Partnership : Bristol, UK
David Cristiani : The Desert Edge : Albuquerque, NM
Debbie Roberts : A Garden of Possibilities : Stamford, CT
Deborah Silver : Dirt Simple : Detroit, MI
Jocelyn Chilvers : The Art Garden : Denver, CO
Mary Gallagher Gray : Black Walnut Dispatch : Washington, D.C.
Garden Designers Roundtable 