This is a porcelain berry vine that’s growing just outside my back fence. It had worked its way up several feet into my neighbor’s tree when I pulled it down a few weeks ago. But I didn’t have any clippers with me, so I wound the long stem into this living wreath.
I’m enjoying that while it would love to be up smothering and squeezing out the branches above, I have it going round and round on itself.
Yes, I know I’m anthropomorphizing, but this species and I have a history.
I’ll cut it down before the berries ripen too far. Which is a shame, because it does have the most beautiful berries ever — speckled turquoise, purple, and navy. The wicked are often like that.
I wish I had a way to work a set of these willow trellises into my garden. I’d love to see three or five of them set out in a medium to large country-style garden to provide height and some rhythm. They range from 47″ to 70″ tall; prices from $16.95 to $29.95.
The birdcage-style supports look very French. They come 20″ to 36″ in diameter; prices from $24.95 to $64.95.
Birdcage plant supports from Gardener's Supply Company.
I started looking for something more on the work of Gilles Clément and came across this interesting lecture that he gave for UCSD, “What is the Third Landscape?”
In the film clip above, Clément defines a garden as an enclosure “done in order to protect the best.” Today, he says, the best is “the life, mostly the diversity.” He discusses his design concept of “garden in movement.” This is the name of the section of Parc Andre-Citroën in Paris that he designed, and which I had foolishly thought referred to a garden with a lot of wavy plants. Continue reading “More on Gilles Clement”→
While transferring some old files to a new computer, I found these photos of a walled public garden near the château in Blois, France. I took them in the spring of 2007.
The garden was designed by Gilles Clément and was built in 1987. The section I photographed is a wonderful blend of the structured (hedges set in strict lines) and loose (grasses, large rosebushes, and tall perennials planted between).
The tops of the yew hedges are not level, but are sheared into rolling curves. With the grasses moving in the wind between them, you sense the motion of waves, even in this very formal garden layout.
I wish I knew the name of that grass.
You can read about Gilles Clément in a brief article from the February 2010 issue of Garden Design. He also designed the more well-known Moving Garden at the Parc André-Citroën in Paris.
Click on any thumbnail photo below to scroll through all the enlarged pictures.
The Royal Gardens, Blois. The central fountain.
I read that the garden sits over an underground car park.
I wish I knew the name of that grass. The hedges are yews.
From an upper garden section and with a view of the chateau in the distance.
The big rosebushes are Rosa mutabilis, if I remember correctly, which is such a great rose. I wish I had room for it.
Emerging plants. We were there in May.
An upper garden section with irises and grasses.
A view from the upper garden.
Another garden section with a more traditional park design.
I walked into Georgetown this morning and ended up at the Old Stone House garden, which is one of my favorites. I love the long, wide perennial bed on the east side, which has a path that takes you right up through the plantings and gives you a view from the inside. Continue reading “The garden at the Old Stone House”→
enclos*ure 