un anno dopo .107


Un anno prima, Aprile, post .13 (il primo dedicato al giardino di casa):

    "... Dove c'era una leggera mancanza di terra questo pomeriggio ho messo delle formelle di pavimento di cotto. Un lavoro rozzo, senza sottofondo, come c'era da immaginarsi conoscendomi, quando, ad ogni piega delle formelle, un giardino diverso puo' cominciare."

    Ed in chiusura della pagina: "... E' allora che il bosco entra nel mio giardino, pronto ad esimersi dall'avere un corretto sottofondo di sabbia dello spessore di tre centimetri come ogni libro di garden design insegna. Perche' esattamente fra tre anni, quel sottofondo sara' corroso dalla piu' amabile delle erbacce che insieme al muschio rendera' verde tutto, anche la melocotogna caduta, a meta' Novembre e gia' diventata marrone-arancio-verde."

   Come ho fatto a dire tre anni... questo pomeriggio, appena dieci mesi dopo, le erbacce sono li' ed il cotto e' scheggiato dall'azione del sole, dell'acqua ed ora del gelo. A volte si dicono cose sciocche che il tempo rivela ben prima di quanto possiamo immaginare. Il giardino mi insegna anche a sentire il tempo scorrere piu' rapidamente, cosi' che lo si possa quasi anticipare o meglio accogliere, cosi' che si sia pronti, in un certo qual modo, alle cose, un po' piu' adeguati.

   L'Inverno in giardino non dorme. Lo dicono tutti i libri di ultima generazione sul giardino, quei libri diventati attenti alle variazioni piu' dello sguardo che del giardino stesso, attenti piu' al nostro atteggiamento nei confronti delle cose che alle cose stesse. Ecco perche' l'Inverno diventa vivo piu' di quanto lo fosse nei libri di cinquanta anni fa. Gli strumenti da aggiustare ed affilare sono diventati semplice cornice ai rumori che un giardino passa a chi aveva scritto qualcosa un anno prima.

    Prendevo questa fotografia ed un merlo becchettando e' entrato tra i rami del fico, un altro merlo poi e' entrato pure lui in giardino e si e' posato sul melocotogno. A terra neppure una melocotogna, tutta pappetta.
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1 commento:

  1. Rosa26 gennaio 2013 alle ore 01:22

    (Quarantatreesima settimana)
    "...dà alla parvenza potestà di vita"

    RispondiElimina

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"garden me" / A writing about a wished frontier for the natural gardening

"garden me" / A writing about a wished frontier for the natural gardening

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Ecological Planting Design

Ecological Planting Design

Drifts / Fillers (Matrix) / Natural Dispersion / Intermingling with accents/ Successional Planting / Self seeding
What do these words mean? Some principles of ecological planting design. (from the book: "A New Naturalism" by C. Heatherington, J. Sargeant, Packard Publishing, Chichester)
Selection of the right plants for the specific site.
Real structural plants marked down into the Planting Plan. The other plants put randomly into the matrix: No. of plants per msq of the grid, randomly intermingling (even tall plants). Succession through the year.
Complete perennial weed control.
High planting density. Close planting allows the plants to quickly form a covering to shade out weeds.
Use perennials and grasses creating planting specifications that can be placed almost randomly.
Matrix: layers (successional planting for seasonal interest) of vegetation that make up un intermingling (random-scattering) planting scheme: below the surface, the mat forming plants happy in semi-shade, and the layer of sun-loving perennials.
Plants are placed completely randomly: planting individual plants, groups of two, or grouping plants to give the impression of their having dispersed naturally. Even more with the use of individual emergent plants (singletons) that do not self-seed, dispersed through the planting.
An intricate matrix of small plants underscores simple combinations of larger perennials placed randomly in twos or threes giving the illusion of having seeded from a larger group.
The dispersion effect is maintained and enhanced by the natural rhythm of the grasses that give consistency to the design. They flow round the garden while the taller perennials form visual anchors.
Allow self-seeding (dynamism) using a competitive static plant to prevent self-seeders from taking over: Aruncus to control self-seeding Angelica.
Sustainable plant communities based on selection (plants chosen for their suitability to the soil conditions and matched for their competitiveness) and proportions (balance ephemeral plants with static forms and combinations such as clumpforming perennials that do not need dividing: 20% ephemeral, self-seeding plants, 80% static plants) of the different species, dependent on their flowering season (a smaller numbers of early-flowering perennials, from woodland edges, which will emerge to give a carpet of green in the spring and will be happy in semi-shade later in the year, followed by a larger proportion of the taller-growing perennials which keep their form and seed-heads into the autumn and the winter).
Year-round interest and a naturalistic intermingling of plant forms.
Ecological compatibility in terms of plants suitability to the site and plants competitive ability to mach each other.
Working with seed mixes and randomly planted mixtures.
Perennials laid out in clumps and Stipa tenuissima dotted in the gaps. Over the time the grass forms drifts around the more static perennials and shrublike planting while the verbascum and kniphofia disperse naturally throughout the steppe.
Accents: Select strong, long lasting vertical forms with a good winter seed-heads. Select plants that will not self-seed, unless a natural dispersion model is required.
Planes: if designing a monoculture or with a limited palette, more competitive plants may be selected to prevent seeding of other plants into the group.
Drifts: to create drifts of naturalistic planting that are static in their shape over time use not-naturalizing, not self-seeding, not running plants.
Create naturalistic blocks for the seeding plants to drift around. For the static forms select plants that do not allow the ephemerals to seed into them.
Blocks: use not-naturalizing species, in high densities, in large groups.
Select compatible plants of similar competitiveness to allow for high-density planting (to enable planting at high density in small gardens).
Achieve rhythm by repeating colours and forms over a large-scale planting.