Tip of the Week: Designs that Draw You Into Nature

Posted in Gardening Tips, People on February 22 2010, by Sonia Uyterhoeven

Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education.

Last week we looked at how Dan Pearson transformed landscapes through his naturalistic vision and his skill as a designer. Today I’ll detail some of his practices that you can use in your garden.

When Pearson was young he would observe plants in the wild, studying where they grew and the patterns and associations they formed with other plants. As a result, his planting style is never rigid, and plants form loose and successful partnerships with one another.

Gardens are rarely just a healthy conglomerate of plants. In a discussion of hardscapes during his lecture, Pearson said to think of gardens as needing “good bone structure.” The walls and other structures in the garden are meant to be recessive, fading into the background and offering support for the dynamic plant palette; they frame the space.

Balance and natural rhythms are crucial components in Pearson’s designs. Showing an illustration of his own garden, he described his large terrace as an “anti-chamber,” created as a quiet retreat to offset the exuberance of his garden. Many of his designs have contrasting spaces, what he describes as the “yin and the yang.”

In a project called Home Farm, he had an area excavated so the couple could lie in the gully and stargaze. The fill was left adjacent to the depression to form a contrasting mound. The result looked as if Henry Moore or Jean Arp had carved their handiwork into the terra firma.

This was a wonderful illustration of how Pearson literally reshapes the land, changing the contours, the topography. Whether explicit and sensational or understated and implied, he reconfigures the space and guides the visitor into the experience.

A more subtle example of his ability to direct people into the natural world is illustrated in another part of the same property. He had photographed and analyzed the lichens on an old brick wall to echo their colors in his plant palette. It was not just about continuity; it was about immersion. He spoke of how the garden was meant to stimulate all of your senses.

Pearson demonstrated how he “coaxed people out of their safety zones” and drew them into nature through a nine-year project in Japan. Adjacent to a visitor center he constructed a traditional garden with a palette of native and non-native plants to create a naturalistic feel. A computerized model helped him arrange his plant combinations in a random pattern that accentuated the distinctive features of the plants and highlighted their beauty.

Nearby he had changed the topography or contours of a slope so that the ground was raised into wave-like landforms that rolled through an open expanse. Visitors would wander through the landforms and quite literally become involved in their physical surroundings. Once immersed in the colors, textures, and patterns of the landscape, they were invited to explore the wilder, untamed areas of the park. Pearson challenged the public, asking them to actively engage in the landscape. The park was full of seating spaces and resting areas placed strategically in the middle of vast natural expanses, places where the visitor could rest and connect with nature.

One of Pearson’s gifts as a designer is his ability to teach or encourage his audience how to appreciate and experience a natural landscape. If you would like to find out more about this talented designer, see his new book Spirit: Garden Inspiration. I was so inspired by his lecture that I now proudly have a signed copy on my desk.