The Authentic Garden: Five Principles for Cultivating a Sense of Place - Hardcover

Sawyers, Claire E.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0881928313 ISBN 13: 9780881928310

Publisher: Timber Press, 2007

Synopsis

What makes a garden "authentic"? For American gardeners, this question can be vexing. Because America is a comparatively young nation, it hasn't had much time to develop an indigenous garden style. Gardeners have therefore tended to turn to other national traditions for inspiration. The unhappy result of this piecemeal stylistic borrowing has been the creation of gardens that bear no relationship to local landscapes and history, and that have no connection with our daily lives. In this cogently reasoned and persuasively argued volume, Claire Sawyers shows us how this tendency can be reversed: how we can create gardens that are both deeply rooted in their surroundings and deeply satisfying to their creators and owners.

About this title

About the Author

Claire Sawyers has been director of the Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College since 1990, and brings both U.S. and international perspectives to her work. She grew up on a dairy farm in northwest Missouri, but spent six years of her youth in Japan. She returned to Japan to work with landscapers while pursuing her undergraduate degree in ornamental horticulture at Purdue University. For a year after graduation she worked in gardens in Belgium (Kalmthout Arboretum) and France (private gardens in Brittany and Normandy), returning to Purdue to earn a master's degree in horticulture. She studied public horticulture administration in the Longwood Graduate Program at the University of Delaware and Longwood Gardens and worked at the Mount Cuba Center in northern Delaware for seven years before coming to Swarthmore. She presently serves as a commissioner for the accreditation program of the American Association of Museums, and has taken over 10,000 slides of plants and gardens. Sawyers has been the recipient of several awards including: Distinguished Alumna Award, University of Delaware; Distinguished Alumna Award, Purdue University Horticulture Program; and Longwood Graduate Program Fellowship. She is an avid lecturer and has spoken at Arnold Arboretum, New York Botanical Garden, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Morris Arboretum, University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, and many others. Sawyers is a PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) certified SCUBA diver, and currently resides in Media, Pennsylvania.

From the Back Cover

American gardeners have tended to turn to other national traditions—such as Italy's, Japan's, or England's—for inspiration. The unhappy result of this piecemeal sytlistic borrowing has been the creation of gardens that bear no relationship to local landscapes and history, and that have no connection with our daily lives. In this cogently reasoned and persuasively argued volume, Claire Sawyers aims to show how this tendency can be reversed: how we can create gardens that are both deeply rooted in their surroundings and deeply satisfying to their creators and owners.

Drawing upon her knowledge of a vast array of American and foreign gardens, Sawyers explores five principles that help instill a sense of authenticity:

1. Capture the sense of place
2. Derive beauty from function
3. Use humble or indigenous materials
4. Marry the inside to the outside
5. Involve the visitor

She begins by explaining how careful observation of a site's unique characteristics enables the gardener to shape the garden appropriately and how the essential, functional features associated with gardens—driveways, mailboxes, fences, and the like—can, if treated simply and elegantly, be a visual asset rather than a liability. Later, she demonstrates the American version of the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi: the use of indigenous, natural, or even recycled materials to create a mood of casualness and intimacy, and discusses the many ways—including paths, the presence of inviting furniture, and the use of tactile elements—of drawing the visitor into the garden. A final chapter profiles outstanding American gardens that epitomize the five principles of authentic garden making.

Practical and inspiring, The Authentic Garden will enable the reader to make a garden that is true to a specific time, place, and culture; to capture and reflect an authentic spirit so that the garden, in turn, will nurture the spirit of those who cherish and dwell in it.

1. Capture the sense of place
2. Derive beauty from function
3. Use humble or indigenous materials
4. Marry the inside to the outside
5. Involve the visitor

She begins by explaining how careful observation of a site's unique characteristics enables the gardener to shape the garden appropriately and how the essential, functional features associated with gardens driveways, mailboxes, fences, and the like can, if treated simply and elegantly, be a visual asset rather than a liability. Later, she demonstrates the American version of the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi: the use of indigenous, natural, or even recycled materials to create a mood of casualness and intimacy, and discusses the many ways including paths, the presence of inviting furniture, and the use of tactile elements of drawing the visitor into the garden. A final chapter profiles outstanding American gardens that epitomize the five principles of authentic garden making.

Practical and inspiring, The Authentic Garden will enable the reader to make a garden that is true to a specific time, place, and culture; to capture and reflect an authentic spirit so that the garden, in turn, will nurture the spirit of those who cherish and dwell in it.

Edition details

• Publisher: Timber Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0881928313
• ISBN 13: 9780881928310
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 286