In a lively session club members Jeffery Johnson, Barry Brauth, and Denny Lane
described the development of their gardens, illustrating their experiences with
images of their spaces at different stages of development.
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| JeffereyJohnson |
Although each garden was unique, their
stories shared common themes and advice.
Jeffery and Barry both realized that it would be a worthwhile investment
to hire a landscape professional to develop the bones of their garden
spaces.
They advised anyone hiring a
garden designer to interview several candidates before hiring and choose someone
with experience in designing small gardens. Both successfully worked with Derek
Thomas, a landscaper with lots of Capitol Hill experience.
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| Barry Brauth |
All three speakers encouraged us to think
deeply about what we want from our gardening space and be prepared to describe
our wishes to the design professional in detail while remaining open to
suggestion.
If we have a limited budget,
our presenters advised us to ask the landscaper to segment the work.
The first step is to get a well thought out
and practical written plan, one that encourages us to
use our garden space. Second is to
develop the hardscape.
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| Denny Lane |
Since
gratification is important to perseverance, our presenters cautioned us to save
some of the early budget for plants. Patience may be a virtue in general, but it is
essential in developing a garden. Plantings that appear sparse and puny in their
first few years, fill-out and fill-in over time, giving us the look that we had
hoped for as we browsed gardening magazines at the beginning of our gardening
projects. All the presenters felt it was
important to make their gardens personal—whether it was bringing in
architectural "finds" from overseas travel, adding a favorite plant, making a
play space for a child, or encouraging a sense of neighborhood pride in the
development of the garden over time.
--Carol Edwards, photos by Bill Dean.
