One of the first areas Mary and I developed in what has become a one and one-half acre garden around our 200-year-old farmhouse was a 50-foot-square garden. Its center is directly in line with our front door to the north and a 100-year-old apple tree – a reminder of my childhood growing up on an orchard in Connecticut – to its south. Four brick paths bisect the square, meeting at right angles in a 12-foot-diameter circle in the center. One day years ago, Mary and I were in an art gallery in Vermont and found a modestly priced 18-inch plaster vase in the form of the head of the mythical character Jason. We placed a cast-stone pedestal in the center of the brick circle and set Jason atop it facing our front door. A handsome sculpture on a finely crafted pedestal, Jason draws visitors into the garden. At the same time, he reminds us of the two months we spent on the island of Naxos in the Aegean on less than a shoestring shortly after we were married.
Furniture invites lingering. Once people are drawn into our garden, we want them to be able to sit comfortably in places from which they will look at attractive but different views. We placed two old teak chairs, now silver-gray and dotted with lichen, in our pool garden to make it easy to see and listen to the water bubble up through an old Danby-marble wellhead. Another weathered teak bench went under a rustic grape arbor in the herb garden. We also set a bench and two chairs under the gazebo at the bottom of the garden so guests can sit comfortably, even during a light rain, and look down a straight lawn path between two mixed borders. But nowhere can we see more than one set of furniture at a time, so the garden doesn’t look too busy.
To create a greater sense of permanence, we set furniture on stone, brick, pea stone, or the wooden floor of the gazebo, but rarely on lawn. Furniture set on lawn feels temporary and has to be moved for mowing. Most often, we set it on stone or brick surfaces within the garden that are connected to a nearby path. In that way, visitors sit nearly surrounded by plants, which are kept at an appropriate distance from the furniture. We set low plants between the paving edge and the rest of the garden so guest can see into the beds; a hedge or taller plants go behind the furniture so guests feel supported from behind. For example, when we first started planting a pair of shrub and perennial borders over 20 years ago, our son, Nate, suggested we make a sitting area on a slightly raised spot at the north end of one of the borders. So, near an evergreen hedge, we created a bluestone-paved area that would be roomy enough for a five foot bench, three or four chairs, and a coffee table (photo above). Now when guests come, we often put a bouquet on the table and sit there in the late afternoon.
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