P L A C I N G P O T S A N D G A R D E N O R N A M E N T S
So many decisions we make when developing a garden have to do with finding the right place for everything: paths, beds, a gazebo or a fence, plants as well as pots and garden ornaments. In this one hour lecture illustrated by 45 pairs of slides of home gardens from across America, Ireland and England, Gordon Hayward explores how to place pots and garden ornaments for maximum appeal.
He starts from the idea that gardens are for people, and that our job as garden designers is to draw our friends and visitors along an engaging, varied and exciting itinerary that is not over-decorated. Pots and ornaments along that itinerary play many roles. A fine sculpture on a pedestal draws people toward it and therefore draws visitors to the garden it anchors. Once visitors get to that point they might see the next garden, the focal point of which is made of richly planted pots that provide the center for that perennial bed, or anchor a curve in a bed. A matched pair of ornaments might frame the next more formal entry or you might place one of the pair at the beginning of a straight path, the other at the end of that straight path to create bookends for the garden between them. Garden ornaments, especially those with personal associations – your grandmother’s birdbath, or plaques with inscriptions meaningful to you and your visitors – underpin the mood, meaning and even the heart of a garden.
(ABOVE) Patricia Volk’s sculpture “hero“ in the Hayward’s garden.