DryStoneGarden

On my trip to Europe I had a layover in Philadelphia and went to check out the Piet Oudolf planting at the new Calder museum, Calder Gardens. It’s appropriate they call the museum ‘Gardens’ because the building is set within a meadow planting that’s more interesting than the Calder sculptures inside. Maybe I’ve seen too much Calder, but I was there for the Oudolf. His meadow is lovely, a year old I believe, a bit heavy on the grasses with the flowering plants still maturing, but with some nice patches of color and a lot of pollinator life. It’s not my favorite of the Oudolf gardens I’ve seen — I like Vlinderhof and Vandalorum best — but it’s great to see a big meadow like this in downtown Philadelphia. I wish there were more public plantings like this, and I wish someone would bring Oudolf out to California to see what he would do here.

There’s only one Calder sculpture outside in the garden, and it’s set in the entryway rather than inside the plantings. I’d like to see some Calder sculptures truly surrounded by plants.

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In Sweden I also visited the Gothenburg Botanic Garden. Another great garden, it’s the best thing in Gothenburg, and one of the best botanic gardens in Europe. It has a number of nice sections, most are naturalistic, it’s rocky and hilly, and does a great job incorporating the plants with the terrain. (more…)

In Europe I saw a new Piet Oudolf garden. It’s at a newish design museum, Vandalorum, outside a small town in Sweden. It’s great. The garden is pretty much the showcase of the museum — I only know about the museum because of it — and it was unquestionably the highlight for me. ‘Artistic museum planting’ has become quite a niche for Oudolf, he must have done close to a dozen at this point, and I don’t know of any other landscape designer or architect who has done anything like that. I’ve seen a half dozen gardens by him at this point and they’re always worth the effort to see. Really glad my route took me past this one.

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In Halmstad, Sweden, I checked out another Piet Oudolf garden, my sixth at this point. What struck me was how strong his style is, that it’s so recognizable I could spot it while pedaling past on a bicycle. I glanced over — hey, that looks like an Oudolf garden — and yep, it was. It’s quite nice, not his best garden or his best site to work with, but chockablock with Oudolfian elan.

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Another French garden I liked was Abbaye Saint Andre Gardens in Avignon. Different from the Loire gardens, very south-of-France, very Provencal. Hot sun and dry gravel, hard shadowlines. It was scorching hot and cicadas were absolutely screaming while I was there.

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Villandry is the one. After 4 trips and about 10,000 kilometers of cycling in Europe, if I were asked to recommend a single European garden, to choose one garden for the most representative old-world garden experience, I’d choose Chateau Villandry in the Loire Valley. It has everything you want: elaborate formal gardens, a smaller ‘English’ garden, a silly lawn garden, ponds, fountains, allees, parterres, and a pleasant woodland area to give you a break from all the hedgy-ness. It’s great. I have a slight caveat that Quinta de Regaleira in Portugal is more fun and quirky, and the other French garden I love — Vaux les Vicomte — has a more dramatic formal garden with some unique design trickery and is ultimately more historically significant, so I’d recommend that everyone go see those gardens too (I’ll make a post for Vaux les Vicomte at some point), but for a single garden visit with everything you want from an old world garden, I would pick Villandry.

These two photos basically capture why I find it such a good representation of old world gardening. The two plantings are both excessive and contrived, and moving between them makes the experience of each one more dramatic and enjoyable.

As befits my choice as the representative garden of France or Europe, a slew of photos are below. Cheers. (more…)