In a gardening age of wild, new wild, post-wild, or re-wild, the new radicals may very well begin to seek more order. I know I am.
‘Tidy’ isn’t popular in modern gardening circles – perhaps because it’s forever attached to the millions of non-gardeners being ‘neat’ with their electric-green lawns and foundation shrubs and never-used outdoor kitchens; and who, through the power-networks of housing associations, often wage war against the rare gardener who gives a damn about those strange green objects that grow outside.
I’m leaving these people aside for the moment – actually, to be more precise, inside, where they normally reside. Instead, I’m talking about gardeners, and the delicate, beautiful balance of chaos and order that, kept balanced, breathes both energy and stability into our gardens.
Wild weary
The tremendous push towards wild over the last two decades can leave the semi-skilled gardener feeling generally unsettled on a July afternoon. ‘Wild’ pardons all manner of sins on paper or on Instagram, but in an Eastern temperate forest ecoregion on a hot summer’s day after a summer thunderstorm, the reality of ‘wild’ is overwhelming.
Saplings and vines encroach from those woods; poison ivy and goldenrod find a rhizomatous foothold in ‘low maintenance’ perennial beds; lines blur and textures homogenize quickly.
Though the new-wild movement has been disseminated far and wide as the new-normal, not everyone has the skill to manage ‘wild’ in a way that feels curated and comforting; and often it is only the blade of the mower or the string of the trimmer that draws the line between ‘garden’ and ‘wild.’
Out on the prairie – or rather, in one of the many prairie-style gardens made so popular by the wilding movement (whether you live in the Pacific Northwest or on the Eastern Seaboard) – textures that blur together and then into the surrounding area can feel visually exhausting, and exacerbate the feeling of being smothered or overwhelmed – even to gardeners who take great joy in the complex systems that surround them.
An instinctive need for order
I am finding it interesting lately that in my most manic moments – when I have been travelling extensively, or preoccupied for too long with matters at my desk or home, it is that very sense of chaos that compels me to walk past the extensive naturalistic parts of my garden that might echo that frenetic energy, and instead head towards the more ordered part of my garden – the kitchen garden.
This area is surrounded by a board fence, painted black and originally constructed to protect the vegetables from deer. In time, I realized that it also provided rest and respite from the wilder planting style that fully surrounds it.
Here I attend a small collection of hardy succulents, slowly and deliberately weeding carpet spurge and clover from between tight clusters of sedum and sempervivums.
The raised vegetable beds set in geometric patterns are carefully curated. Flopping leaves of chard are removed to make way for fresh new foliage, yellowing tomato foliage is clipped and escaping stems are pushed back into their support cages to keep walkways clear.
I clip wayward stems of the tall verbena that are not fulfilling their agreed upon purpose as colorful vertical accents, and I de-brown the two rectangular perennial borders that flank the raised beds. If the gravel pathways have begun to sprout seedlings, I scuff them with a stirrup hoe, and rake the resultant pristine gravel like a Zen Buddhist.
In short, I manicure. Sharp lines. Precise strokes. Open spaces. And it feels quietly euphoric to step back when I’m done and experience a sense of short-lived control. In that head-space I can wander my curated wilder garden feeling more settled and calm, and dip into the wonder without feeling smothered by it.
The raw energy of a garden comes from the beautiful chaos of its complex systems — but translating that energy to human scale takes more than curating the wild. It also takes cultivating pockets of tidy: places that offer contrast, rest, and balance. That shouldn’t be radical – we need both. – MW
Totally agree. My raised beds, paths, and trees provide some order and visual relief. There is a very wild garden I often drive by. I think the reason it is visually exhausting is that there is no height variation among the plants. Everything is three feet tall and it is a solid mass. It’s a lesson I’ve taken for my own garden.
Yes, it’s difficult to get that right — it takes skill and I believe, a good amount of experience designing with ‘wilder’ plants to get the balance right. –MW
I find I’m liking vegetable gardens more and more. I like the order and the sense of a human mind behind it all. And I mean a straight-row or series of rectangular beds garden.
As opposed to a potager or other mixed-use area, I meant to say.
I do love some geometry in the kitchen garden — and though I grow less vegetables than I once did, I think I use more of them now then I used to. And it’s an interesting idea to ponder: do we grow vegetables, medicinals and herbs because of what they symbolize about a garden, or because we simply need them? -MW
I embraced the “no bare spot” method of gardening in my flower beds. Now. I’m pulling overgrown perennials, unwanted annuals and seeking some relief from the unrelenting care. I’m not a proponent of wood chips for mulch, but it’s looking more attractive this summer!
I sympathize. I am a huge proponent of dense planting in my ornamental garden — it cools the soil, provides less opportunities for weeds, and studies show that biodiversity is increased. However, plants that seed copiously and/or spread rhizomatously can make the process much more difficult — just working in the beds without crushing plants or hurting soil structure is tough mid to late season. Plant choice really matters, and even then it is not perfect. Thanks for the comment!–MW
Well said, Marianne, and oh-so-true! I feel the same way about my raised veggie beds and neat rows of grow bags. I also find that if I do a border of the same plant, it somewhat tames the wildness of what’s enclosed within that border. Balance!
Thank you! Anne Wareham talks about this a fair amount in her writing — using good plants en masse to cut down on maintenance and enhance design. -MW
As a retired accountant, I know that some of us have a need for neat and tidy and there is nothing wrong with that. And isn’t it a good things that we have different types of personalities that do the different kinds of tasks it takes to make our world run. Never apologize for wanting structure, but be accepting of those who dont
Yes I very much agree Christine — it takes all kinds to make a world go round. And I’m quite happy to offer that grace. It’s been my experience however that over the last few years it is not offered back quite as readily. Which is why today’s post offers a case for understanding what ‘tidy’ is and isn’t, and perhaps decoupling it from a too-common pejorative usage. -MW
Hear hear, Marianne! Thank you for laying out this problem so clearly. I am going to print this article as a handout to clients who have drunk the koolaid on natives and wild gardens. Well, some have just sipped but others have downed the whole pitcher. And I’m sending them to gardenrant for this and more of your great pieces. Thank you so much.
Gardeners are drowning in kool-aid
Laughed out loud on that one Susan. –MW
Thank you Mary Jane. My point is not that there is no place for wild gardens or a wild planting style (I love to play with plants this way), but to recognize that many of us seek void spaces, ordered spaces…places for the eye to rest — and yes, a bit of neat here and there. The pendulum has swung from fastidious, pesticide and herbicide-heavy “neat” gardens, to full on crazyville chaos. Surely we can find some balance? –MW
I knew as soon as I read the title who wrote this one. Well done, Marianne!
One of my favorite types of garden beds is one with a border of one plant that is tidy and neat, acting as a frame for a wild planting inside. There was a church near where I worked that did this beautifully. A border of clipped boxwoods framed plantings of coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, maybe some gladiolus, too. I’m not quite as successful with doing it in my own garden, but it’s a goal. The closest I’ve come is a few borders that are edged with Allium ‘Millenium.’
This year, I have my first three millennium allium, and the idea of having dozens of them is exciting!
Susan – where in the DC area did you find this plant?
Thanks.
I can’t remember. Possibly mail order. Possibly Homestead Gardens or Pawtucket nursery
Bluestone has it and some other wonderful ones like Pink Planet.
That sounds beautiful — and very Jardin Plume — a modern garden in Normandy that plays with the idea of what a parterre can be. Taking a group there in about six weeks! Thank you Carol. –MW
I was commenting to my husband the other day that our yard was probably starting to look like an exclusion zone. But if I stare at the chaos long enough, I start to see order in what is growing and where it is growing. Chaos is subjective.
Agree with “chaos is subjective.” I prefer some looseness and imagination in plantings. The tidy garden business is old-fashioned, a bit neurotic and very strict
HOA-ish. It was great for our parents but …
Accusing gardeners with different style choices of being “neurotic, very strict and HOA-ish”? Isn’t that what this post is about?
It would be like those who prefer less-wild gardens describing wilder-type styles as “messy, unkempt, disheveled, slovenly, squalid or nasty.” Those are some words I found with the search term “pejorative terms for the opposite of neat and tidy.”
I’m with Marianne – no more insulting language, please! Esp perssonal attacks like “neurotic.” If you must, please insult the garden, not the gardener.
I prefer that looseness through much of my planting too Diane. However, I believe that good design can benefit from both looseness and careful structure. I do not see more ordered areas as necessarily “old-fashioned, a bit neurotic and very strict.” Those are words that have been used a lot to shame people, and I would be willing to bet that they will be used again. In the deepest native plant circles, the latter two terms are very much applicable. Once some time has passed, the first will be applicable too. -MW
A perceptive article which sets out what I have felt instinctively but could not articulate. I also question people’s notions of wild (not directed at the author but those who advocate for wildness). I live near a large beech forest, and it too has a sense of order and creates calm for the reasons articulated in this article. A scrubland would not have the same result, but people seem to persist in thinking of wildness only as a kind of chaotic and ever-changing mess. But nature usually moves towards stasis and order at some point. A good garden usually manages more or less to achieve that result in a briefer timescale.
I absolutely adore mature forests of beech Ricard. How fortunate you are to live near one! –MW
Thanks for this timely article reminding us that gardeners have permission to , well, garden. You are so bang on. Balance is key Jardin Plume was my favorite garden from my hydrangea group’s tour of Normandy gardens last summer. Patrick and Sylvie have definitely got something going on there!
I’ve seen as many lousy “tidy” gardens as I have lousy “natural” gardens. Can we quit bashing either side? And just focus on what makes a good garden?
My intent is not to bash Sharon — but to advocate for a balance between the two in good design. –MW
I once read about a garden that the owner described as “organized chaos.” I like that—not too regimented, but not a crazy free-for all, either.
Might have been me Alison. 🙂 It’s a popular term in garden writing. –MW
Hey Marianne, Another fine rant/mess you’ve got us unto.*
For sure, the line between order and chaos is subjective but drawn with a societal/cultural twist. It’s especially important for wilder plantings to find the balance when the intent is to create and sustain designed spaces in an urban neighborhood.
The bedrock thinking on this subject is the 1995 essay “Messy Ecosystems, Orderly Frames” authored by landscape architect Joan Iverson Nassauer who postulated that “messy” nature requires a neat, tidy frame to work within an urban context both from a design perspective and respecting your neighbours. You can trace this yin/yang theory further back to the ethos of seminal Dutch landscape architect Mien Ruys, who strikes the balance in the maxim: “Wild planting in a strong design”.
The variations are endless and a creative gardener may invariably want to push the edges. Nevertheless, it’s the intentional frisson between orderly and wild that can takes things to a higher level than either can accomplish alone.
*See Laurel and Hardy;-)
Yes, that tension is the key, isn’t it? Still, there is the difficult issue of this planting style is being offered to “the masses” and it takes a great deal of skill to implement well — particularly in a hot and dry climate. Coincidentally, we have a British writer offering up a Rant tomorrow on this very thing. Thanks Tony, and terrific to catch up at PPA! –MW