just around the corner for you .124















I fiori del giardino del Barco possono crescere indisturbati nell'erba alta per questa ed altre cinque Primavere. L'Adozione Verde si rivela in questi giorni una verifica di come le persone accolgono un paesaggio apparentemente inconsueto che si mostra davanti a loro sicuramente per la prima volta dopo tanti anni: l'erba alta ed i fiori selvatici tra i quali camminare ininterrottamente dalla Primavera all'Estate... certo, se uno vuole!

   E' una verifica di come potrebbe essere il paesaggio urbano ad ogni Primavera e che, ad ogni Primavera, non fa' in tempo a prendere forma se lo sfalcio si pone indifferenziato ed omologante. Quel "come potrebbe essere" significa ritrovare una familiarita' con qualcosa di inconsueto e stupirsi di quanto esso sia dietro l'angolo.

   Nel corso della storia i giardini sono stati creazioni nelle cui forme trovavano la propria rappresentazione idee dominanti. Le idee cambiavano ed i giardini cambiavano come altrettanti loro teatri. Viene da domandarsi quale possa essere l'idea dominante oggi, l'idea alla quale nessuno di noi riesce a non rivolgere almeno un pensiero ogni giorno. Forse tutti noi possiamo rispondere: l'urgenza ecologica. Ed allora la domanda e': quale giardino puo' essere la piu' intima rappresentazione di tale idea?

   Mi viene da pensare che forse il giardino contemporaneo va pensato proprio in riferimento ad un modo sostenibile di gestire lo spazio, piu' che ad una forma... e che forse, proprio come risultato di tali pratiche, la sua forma trovi vita come quell'insieme di elementi eterogenei ed insoliti, apparentemente imbarazzanti anche, che pero' meglio riescono a rappresentare le cose che piu' ci stanno a cuore.

   Il rischio di non ascoltare questa urgenza e' che il giardino non rappresenti piu' nulla, non abbia piu' alcun significato e si ripeta in forme prive di contenuto intorno alle quali non faccia in tempo a formarsi quel senso di comune condivisione presso cui si formano e trovano senso i diversi aspetti del nostro rapporto con la Natura.

   Il giardino allora si porrebbe come una rovina al suo nascere, come fosse un reperto di archeologia, privo di vita. Il grande Stirling lo aveva espresso bene riguardo alle architetture. Io non ho fatto altro che copiare!

1 commento:

  1. Impossibile che un giardino non rappresenti più nulla. Non agli occhi di chi lo guarda.

    RispondiElimina

"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.