IN SEARCH OF THE UNIQUE Things For Yours Gardens

ONCE YOU HAVE Considered the gar- den’s aspect, size, shape and style, it is time for the joyful hunt for the right feature to suit the chosen spot. You may already have a statue that you have been waiting to set out, a favorite plant you are longing to include, or an existing object to find a home for. But it is always worth scouting around for new ideas.

From ancient times, gardens have been embellished by containers and or- naments. Many old styles are still popular, helping to create atmosphere by strength- ening both the design and the planting. Antique pieces are still found from time to time, and there are many reproduc- tions about, varyıng in price and quality.

Once weathered, pieces in reconstituted Stone make acceptable substitutes for the real thing. Those fashioned from cement are not quite so successful. They lack the texture and take much longer to tone down, although the process can be speeded up by giving them several ‘appli- cations of liquid manure.

TRADITIONAL ORNAMENTS IN STRIKING SETTINGS

IN SEARCH OF THE UNIQUE

Place classic sculptures and period ornaments on the terrace or where the eves mav rest on them at the end of a path. pleached alley or green tunnel. Frame them with recesses, arches, niches, arbours and pavilions, or set them before a semicircle of clipped hedging, at the turn of a path, and between plant groupings of all kinds. Whether a sculpture. is of stone, marble, slate, terracotta, metal or wood, there is an appropriate place.

+ Use wellheads, water cisterns, stone troughs and ancient coppers both as ornaments and containers. Any one of them makes a fine frontispiece to a formal part of the garden. Wall features include moon windows. masks, plaques, medallions, sundials and panels of relief work, as well as alcoves. niches, recesses and wall fountains. Weather vanes are decorative on the roof of a house or outbuilding.

+ In some old gardens, the walls have Special recesses for beehives. It would be pleasant to revive the custom or to set hives in niches cut into evergreen hedges. + Ornaments of oriental design lanterns, Buddhas, dragons usually look at home in a part of the garden sparsely planted with luxuriant foliage such as small maples or hostas and bam- boos, among raked gravel or tiles.

WHEN TO BREAK THE RULES

While there is something reassuring about the traditional and familiar, an element of surprise spices up the garden. Even a formal scheme may benefit from the unexpected – all rules of style and scale can be broken occasionally. A traditional ornament gains extra attention when used in an unusual way; something bizarre, found where least expected, can make you laugh out loud.

Things that are out of scale with their surroundings, though usually to be avoided, can be very dramatic: one large statue or urn may look magnificent in a small garden. In an L-shaped basement garden, for example, where a narrow leg of the L ends in a blank wall, be daring and fix a metal or wooden arch over the top to make an alcove. Paint the inside a warm color and place within it a larger- than-life statue. By all the rules this is far too big for such a cramped space, but the effect is powerful.

You achieve a similar effect with a showy plant such as datura, a cordyline or one of the large-leaved ivies trained on a metal frame into a vast cone or spiral. Large plants become even more imposing in a restricted space. In moist, dap- pled shade, grow tall bamboo, tree fern. the big rhubarb-like leaves of Rheum palımatumn or the huge ones of Gunnera manicata. In a sunny, well-drained site, grow the sword-leaved dragon tree (Dracaena draco) or the fan palm (Trachycarpus fortunei). Seen against a light, these form dramatic silhouettes.

THE QUIRKY AND UNEXPECTED

A stone urn, usually seen on a pedestal, empty and sculptural or fully planted, has a wistful charm when found lying on its side among ferns and ivy. If the bowl on its pedestal is filled, not with bedding plants but with flints, fossils, seashells or marble eggs, it has a different impact. Enormous stone fruits, scattered over the grass beneath a tree, look plumpy beautiful and funny. A : smile also comes at the sight of a giant foot on a column, a terra- foot of a seat or a Cotta head lying at the foot

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marble baby nestling beneath the goose- cherry bushes. Tyra classical head among cabbages, a stoneware hot-water bottle at the bare feet of a goddess. Open books in slate or marble, favorites of the funeral parlor, look quite at home in the garden Iying among greenery.

Hang small trees with medallions of stained glass that twist and gleam as they catch the sun. It would be fun to hang them on the bare, twisted branches of the corkscrew hazel in winter, before the catkins appear. In similar vein, fat ceramic fruit, say oranges and lemons, give a new character to rather proper mop-headed bay trees.

A copper fountain’, made from pieces of thin piping, spouting up from a pool of gravel is a conversation piece in a modern setting and an amusing feature in a seaside or cottage garden. Fix a rubber ball on top of a traffic cone (look in the local telephone directory for stockists) and spray both with metallic paint – copper, silver or gold. The homemade ornament makes a ncat, indestructible focal point, at little cost ideal for shade that is too deep for plants or for plots where children are likely to rampage. Larger balls, set on long lengths of drainpipe, painted or marbled, make impressive columns.

CUNNING DEVICES TO ATTRACT THE EYE

Use height to enhance effects in the garden, whether in the form of a rustic pergola or simply two or three steps. a statue or urn gains instant promi- nence from being raised on some steps. t Aviaries and small-scale wooden dovecotes can serve ornamental as well as functional needs.

Hang fanciful bird cages and nesting boxes on walls and trees. If birds spurn them, install china doves or a wire spider. +A recess in a hollow tree might house à carved dryad, bronze owl, coiled snake, Cheshire cat or perhaps gnomes. In a wilder part of the garden, mossy Dogs catch the eve. Bleached and twisted roots, set on a raised circle, become a sat- isfying piece of abstract art. Turn a corner and you may find a green frog in the palm of a giant hand, a bronze butterfly alighting on a mush- room-shaped staddle stone or a willowy nymph resting among the greenery.

Figures of people, plants and animals, cut from marine plywood and painted (the more primitive the better), bring in- stant height and jollity into a garden. Useful where nothing much will grow, they can be moved about to fill in gaps. + Hang wind pipes or mobiles of stained glass, ceramic fragments, metal discs, shells or scraps of driftwood from a prominently placed arch or branch, throw flecks of light and attractive shad- ows as the air currents catch them. + Large shells, fossils and fragments of carved wOod or chiseled stone all have their charms and uses. Tuck them here and there, on steps, at the corner of the terrace and among the plants.

SHOW-OFFS AMONG PLANTS

Apart from topiary, with its sculptural qualities and humorous potential, many plants are naturally imposing in form and foliage or curious in habit. Position cars emphasize star quality. Dramatize the contrast by placing a pale plant against a somber background, a column of dark green among light foliage, a spreading plant beside upright and sword-like leaves between low ground cover. 

Where space allows, aim for a succes- sion of plants to take pride of place as the sons change. The first may be a maple (Acer pseudoplatanus Brilliantissimum’) remarkable for its coral spring foliage, heightened by the carpet of Anemone blanda at its feet. As it fades the delec- table pink-cream shrub rose Penelopc’ takes center stage. When the rose with- ers, a hitherto unnoticed Fothergilla major flames with scarlet leaves.

Twisted branches, such as those of Salix matsudana “Tortuosa’, make intricate patterns against the sky in winter. Plants with yellow leaves and autumn color reach a climax of beauty vith the sun shining through them. Plants that look spectacular when the sun falls on them include the blue conifers, trees with curious or polished trunks – silver birch. paper and snake-bark maples – and those with brightly coloured stems, such as willow and dogwood.

Mistletoe never fails to intrigue but is quite tricky to establish. Obtain berries from a known tree, and use the same species as the host. Wait until the autumn berries are wholly ripe, make a slit in the bark on the underside of the host branch, insert the berry and seal the cut with clay. On a bare wall, train climbers up to encircle a round window (real or false), a wall plaque or a piece of metalwork such as a Victorian coal-hole cover or an iron grille.

SUMMARY

 In the shade, use ivy, hop, jasmine or Clematis montana. In the sun, try wis- teria, golden hop, the semi-evergreen passionflower, evergreen Solanum jas- minoides Album or Trachelospermum jasminoides, with fragrant white flowers. Make a feature of grass, by setting the mower blades at different heights and cutting it into patterns to surround and highlight a special plant or ornament. In small gardens, a square of lawn does not contribute much to the design but, if you round off the far end into a horseshoe

shape or take a bite out of the edge near- est the house, it grows more interesting. Whatever the size or style of your garden, there is room for at least one fea- ture to stand out, so that the eve has something to home in on before taking in the broad sweep. As in a painting, a few judiciously placed accents encourage your gaze – and, in a garden, your feet – to meander over its length and breadth. The longer you live with a garden, the more your imagination finds scope.