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West Coast Layers of Meaning
We recently returned from a wonderful trip to our Heronswood Gardens in Kingston, Washington. After the dust and petals settled, we puzzled over a few issues.First, what kind of garden is the main one at our research station there? The one the founders modestly called “The Big Bang”?
It isn’t an ornamental or decorative garden, such as you’d find adjacent to, for example, a government building, with its broad lawn and large specimen trees and shrubs leading to a pond or, in a port city, down to the water’s edge. Decorative gardens serve as symbols of power and social status, with their large scale and aquatic connections to enterprise and exploration. Their design vocabulary consists of large expanses of space and massive forms within them. It conveys power and authority—definitely not the “jewel-box” effects occasionally found at Heronswood Gardens. Even small decorative gardens express the owner’s pride and identity—the projection of an image.
Nor is it a pleasure garden, at least certainly not in its present design. The tradition of personal, family or courtly pleasure gardens involves domestic activities such as children’s education, romance and drama, and the solitude of artistic pursuits, such as drawing and playing music. Walking the intricate paths of the core acreage known as “The Big Bang” affords just enough room to stop and turn around, but no room for such activities found in the typical pleasure garden.
Nor is it in the tradition of the “retirement garden”—a sub-species of the pleasure garden, perhaps, but distinctive in its own right. Relaxing, reducing stress, unwinding, exhaling—nothing like this is very likely at “Heronswood West”, even though there are a few benches scattered about the perimeter. Quite the opposite—the mental and sensory stimulation is overwhelming on the first visit, and subsequent ones become only slightly less dazzling. Relaxing it is not. Many arboreta focus on capturing the “retirement” feel of lots of seating, soothing views of spacious pools of light, large reflection ponds, and perhaps a few rocking chairs here and there. Reducing thought, vacating the whirlwind of social life—these are the features of a peaceful retirement garden. Although the small patio gardens about the house may qualify as such, the ultra-stimulating main garden at Heronswood does not.
So what is the nature of the lofty central planted area at Heronswood Gardens? It is a unique and quite invaluable research garden. It’s a “mind garden”, if you will, a study garden, a test garden. A laboratory in the true sense. There is really no end to its appeal as a unique test location for zone 8 full shade perennials, vines, ferns, shrubs and trees. Walking across it—up, down, and side to side—it changes with each pass, like a shimmering, multi-layered tapestry that is utterly different at each angle of view, or a great monumental sculpture.
I’ve often spoken of its artistic merit and value. Dan and Robert created a 4-acre masterpiece set in a larger complex of small gardens that are in many ways equally beautiful. But its main characteristic is its setting for the ultimate performance of its several thousand species, placed almost perfectly in the beds for observation and evaluation over time. As such, it will continue for our Pacific Northwest customers.
Research is just that: observation and analysis or evaluation. In The Big Bang garden at Kingston, Washington, one has a truly unique and fascinating journey through the diverse taxa of the temperate rain forests of the world—and beyond—awaiting.
In the future, we shall bring groups of painters and other interested folks to enjoy the beauty of our gardens in Western Washington, much as we do at Fordhook Farm in Pennsylvania.
Come and see the original Heronswood Gardens on
The Garden Conservancy Open Day, July 21, 10:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.