Garden Rooms & Garden Terms

Garden Rooms - In traditional English gardens, secluded and partly enclosed spaces within, create room-like effects, with controlled entrances and walls or hedges setting the boundaries.  These "rooms" served specific purposes, often reflecting the aesthetics and functionality of the time.

As I planned my Country House (i.e., the rural residence of a country gentle-woman) and English Country Garden (i.e., having a slightly wild and informal look, allowing some areas to grow naturally while keeping others neatly manicured for a perfect balance of charm and sophistication) I came across garden terms (mostly British) that spoke to me.  I loved the old-world descriptions and how many suggested distinct garden areas.  

Creating deliberately varied garden spaces appealed to my desire for areas of sun versus shade, some with features or purpose, but all with distinct character and specific plant themes.  This property--my allotment--with it's space and layout, including the constraints of the existing landscape, encouraged me further.  My garden rooms aren't defined with entrances and seclusion as traditional garden rooms were planned.  Mine flow into each other and are accessible from multiple directions.  But they are intended to evoke varied moods in the onlooker.

When you enter my property, I created a berm (a mound of soil elevated above the surrounding ground level, designed to blend into a landscape) adding shrubby variegated dogwoods that screen the formal garden from the driveway in the spring and summer.  

My entry is defined by a drive-around fountain and pots framing the front conservatory (a glass-enclosed living space, serving as an attached extension of the home--and if used for the cultivation of oranges and other citrus, referred to as an orangery) which I call my porch.  The front is shady much of the day so I planted blue hydrangeas to harmonize with the shutters and lots of white-blooming plants to brighten the shade. 

When you walk to the East from the front door you enter a FORMAL GARDEN ROOM with lawn and a reflecting pond, surrounded by a deep mixed herbaceous border (a border consisting mostly of perennial plants, without woody stems, that die to the ground in winter and create a vibrant display of color throughout the growing season) punctuated by roses, peonies and a few small trees.  This area requires the most attention and gives the biggest reward when spring arrives. 

One of the most charming of the old British garden terms is crinkle-crankle (a serpentine wall, which crinkles and crankles) which perfectly describes my stone wall which divides the formal garden from the gravel patio and meadow beyond.  

I can't really claim this as a winter garden room or winter-gearde (an enclosed garden space for plants specifically intended for display during winter).  It's more like my WINTER GARDEN ALCOVE.  It's a small recessed area outside my bar and viewed from a living room window where I've planted hellebores and a couple camellias that bloom in winter, then are filled in with a violet in spring and summer.

The gravel patios are my ENTERTAINING GARDEN ROOMS.  The east patio is used the most  and has a lavender walk that follows the wall--bees everywhere.  It also has, as the Japanese would say, 'shakkei' (borrowed scenery) of Mt. Hood (on a clear day).  The south patio is more of a casual parterre (Fre. origin--a level space on a terrace near a house, laid out in decorative pattern using plants and gravels). 

The MEADOW or flowery mead (a medieval term for a clover lawn sown with wildflowers) is dominated by a huge old maple with a diminutive bluebell wood (a woodland that in springtime has a carpet of flowering bluebells underneath a leaf canopy) beneath.

One can take either a moss-covered stone path or mowed meadow path to my WOODLAND copse (a thicket of small trees or shrubs) where I get to use shade-loving plants.  It's my secret garden, with a path determined by low-hanging fir branches.

From here we see the greenhouse or glasshouse and the POTAGER--a cozy French word for vegetable garden.  Beyond is the FIRE PIT and cutting garden, and a view of the VINEYARD.  This area was the last tackled, and is a bit behind in growth.

Following the path is the ORCHARD, all still saplings.  In front, in full sun, is my bee hive.  And in the distance a glade (a clearing in a wood) with the compost site.  

Bordering my western property line is the FOREST or wilderness (a wood some distance from the house, with walks in which to wander or pause) where I put shrubs that haven't made the cut, I've planted a couple dozen noble firs for the next generation's Christmas trees, and the dogs and I love to walk in the shade.

And finally we end up in the COTTAGE GARDEN (a garden attached to a cottage where the planting is informal, crowded with flowers and plants, and provides a riot of color in the spring and summer).  With its non-white picket fence, this garden feels intimate and private to the cottage. 

Each of my garden rooms has its moment during the day and year when it shines--the lighting is perfect and the plants are at their prime.  The more floral areas (Formal & Cottage gardens) have more single season appeal, but that's no different from the use of a summer sunroom in a home and a room with a cozy fire for the winter.

🐞

I admit, I may have stretched the usage of some of the garden terms I've used, but they describe the spaces and feelings I was trying to create in the planning of my garden.  When I bought this property it was a blackberry thicket, and now I hope it's more of a stroll garden (a Japanese garden planned to reveal a sequence of views as the the visitor strolls along the path).  Here are a few other appealing garden terms that I wasn't able to incorporate into my landscape.

Allée ― A walk bordered with trees or clipped hedges

Grotto ― A cave-like chamber, often decorated with minerals, shells or pebbles

Cote ― A shelter for mammals or birds, especially pigeons or doves (dovecote)

Moon Gate ― A circular opening in a wall, framing a scene beyond (from Chinese gardens)

Knot Garden ― A plot with intricate designs resembling knots, outlined with a low-growing boxwood hedge 

Stumpery ― Interesting tree roots and stumps placed upside down with plants festooned around them 

The house remains my Folly (a structure in a garden that demonstrates eccentricity or extravagance, demanding attention and intended to give pleasure) and my garden is undoubtedly an extension of that self-indulgence.  But they both serve their purpose--they keep me endlessly busy and give me immense pleasure!  

~ Ende ~