Monday, February 27, 2012

minimalistic garden "art"

As you may have picked up I’m not the biggest fan of Garden Art. I do however adore this minimalist combination of highly pruned shrubs, a simple stone orb and the water filled bowl…
Would it be as lovely if it weren’t so simple? Probably not.
I would be tempted to drill and plant the bowl and there is no way I could have kept the plantings this simple, just a Rhododendron and an Azalea. Dealing with a severe case of plant lust means I overplant every inch of soil, thus I admire minimalism when I see it in other’s gardens.

31 comments:

  1. The exposed trunks of the shrubs are what makes this work I think.

    That planting in the red brick bed (background of second photo) says "minimal" to me too -- what is that plant? The plain grey brick of the house itself too... can't get more minimal than that.

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    1. I agree, they are so twisty! In the brick planter is a dense planting of Horsetail (Equisetum hyemale)...beautiful plant but invasive. Best kept in a container. And you're right too about the house. I like that while these people aren't out creating a big front yard garden they've still put stylish plantings in and maintain them.

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  2. The two ornaments looks well in this setting. It helps too that they are both natural materials (I presume they are both stone?). I like your comment about overplanting every inch of soil, pretty much the same here but for us that's what makes gardening exciting! :)

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    1. I kind of figured you guys weren't going for a minimalistic style anywhere in your garden!

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  3. Those are nice hypertufa pieces in a nice setting with the sculptural trunks.

    I like the minimalist look, but they either need only one piece or three with the two shrubs to make it work better.

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    1. Ah a fellow lover of odd numbers! Normally I would be in complete agreement with you, but for the longest time they had just the bowl and the shrubs, then the orb showed up. It looked more complete somehow.

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  4. I love that bowl but I think I want that orb to be bigger. It's still very pretty.

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  5. When we lived near Portland, I had severe plant lust. However, here in Colorado where the colors are most often brown and blue (instead of green and grey), I tend more and more to appreciate simplicity.

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    1. That's good for the pocketbook right? Plant lust can get expensive!

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  6. It must take a lot of patience to grow shrubs in that way!

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    1. I wonder how old they are? To the best of my memory they've always been highly pruned (always being the almost 7 years that we've lived in the neighborhood).

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  7. Same problem here, staying minimalist when you suffer from plant lust is just hard to do. I'd have been tempted to add a ground cover such as Ophiopogon japonicus, and that orb set midpoint between the two shrubs just looks too static; I want it to move off center and closer on the left to the bowl.

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    1. You may be put off by the angle I took the photo at too, I may have made it look to far to the right. However I love the idea of adding some mondo grass around the base...great idea!

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  8. I'm with you. I greatly admire and even strive for minimalism but I always fall flat. We have so little space, I want to cram plants into our nook and cranny.

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    1. That's it! It's my lack of space that's the issue...not my insatiable love of plants! Thanks Gerhard!

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  9. That is a stunning composition, plants and ornamentation. I always deal with the need to take extra time to reduce to the essential...not easy!

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  10. I'm not really a fan of garden art either. At least not in my garden. It always looks wrong. I do love that bowl though. I was recently looking at birdbaths online and annoyed at how shlocky they all seem to be.

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    1. Yay! I'm not alone after all. The plants are the art right?

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    2. I do think some cool piece of hand made art can be nice and I do love a bit of art in other peoples gardens but I just feel like anything I try to put in my garden looks silly and out of place. I think I am lacking the garden art gene.

      But yeah I am all about the plants!

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  11. I love the bowl but am not crazy about the setting. But the bowl makes up for a lot. :-)

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    1. I can see that bowl nestling right into your garden Pam. Perhaps giving the deer a place to drink (ha, kidding!)

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  12. I love both the bowl and the orb.
    I like minimalism in the front yard. The deer help keep it that way.
    In the back garden, I'm with you...the more the merrier.

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    1. Ah you to huh? (the deer I mean) I am lucky to not have that problem. I like a slightly easier to maintain front yard simply because who wants to be out there with their bum in the air weeding/dividing/etc? Some garden tasks are just better left to the backyard!

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  13. I love the bowl, but I'm less excited by the orb. I think others have figured it out: three items, a groundcover like mondo grass, or one more shrub might set it right for me. I bet that bowl of water is icy this morning!

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    1. The more I thought about the mondo grass idea the more I loved it. As long as it didn't make the orb look like an Easter egg!

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  14. The bowl is very nice...wouldn't mind having one in my backyard. Like someone else said, I think the concrete orb could have been a bit larger, but I like it too.

    My only real criticism is the house itself. That block house is hideous. Don't want to sound 'mean' but that house is reminiscent of an abandoned, low-rent, commercial area, instead of a friendly communal neighborhood. It'd look much better with a large painted trellis covering most of what you see. I'm not a big fan of lawns that are continuous from foundation planting to the sidewalk, either. A low buxus hedge right at the sidewalk and running behind the old shrubs and up the walkway would be a pleasant distraction from that vast singular green expanse.

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    1. Wow...that house is high on my list of neighborhood treasures! The fact that in its 63 year history it's never been painted is amazing and wonderful. I would live their in a heartbeat, however the lawn would go away...asap.

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    2. You make a VERY good point. Low- or No-maintenance siding is important and it will be a very high priority on my next house. I live in a home built in 1961 that has 'excellent' cedar siding (no knots, cracks, or warping) but it takes me four years to paint it (one side each year). Thankfully, I don't have to get started on it again for another couple of years. My next home will have stones-in-mortar siding and be all on a single floor. That way, I figure I'll only have to pressure-wash it every three-five years--from the ground. No more ladders for this Old Guy. That doesn't change my opinion about this house's 'ugly' factor, however.

      As for living in a place (as you said 'in a heartbeat')...that's an entirely different story. You could never convince me to live somewhere where the internal 'layout' doesn't work. Been there, done that. Since this house isn't for sale, and we don't see the floor plan, we don't know about that issue.

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  15. I had to give up on minimalism long ago (indoors & out) and decide to admire it from afar. The stunning number of people who weighed in on this post tells me that this boat is fairly crowded (just like our gardens).

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