Truth be told, I think every gardener likes his or her own garden best. Sure, we go on garden tours all the time, but usually we walk through and think "that was nice." We come home satisfied with what we've created. Maybe we've been inspired to do a little tweaking, but that's the extent of it.
It's the rare garden that stays with us. But every now and then you visit a garden that takes your breath away and makes you want to rethink — maybe even re-do — your whole garden. A garden whose plants and planting patterns, ornaments and atmosphere, subtlety and sensuality keep floating into your consciousness days after your visit.
My garden is mostly green at this season and is heavily influenced by Asian design at all seasons. I shy away from color and drama and most anything that demands a visitor's attention. But I am still lost in awe and appreciation of the garden that Jeannette Golden has created out in the Wisconsin countryside.
Making a garden that feels of its time and place, where nothing is too much or too little is no easy feat. Especially when it's surrounded by a vast landscape.
We often see images of English estates where flower gardens successfully merge into the larger agricultural landscape, but it is not something that is as common here. Perhaps because it is not easily done.
That massive surrounding landscape can so easily throw off the scale of a country garden. Plantings need to relate to the myriad buildings, the trees, the farm pond and distant hills. And in this garden they manage it perfectly.
Plantings close to the house are more open and somewhat smaller in scale . . .
increasing in size with great sweeps and swaths of perennials mixed with trees and shrubs as you move away from the house.
Grass paths remind you this is a "simple" country garden. They function as a bright green ribbon tying all the beds and borders into a cohesive package.
Spots for quiet contemplation are scattered throughout the space (above), as are specimen plants like this Silberlocke Korean fir (below). But Jeannette incorporates these potential prima donnas into the larger plantings rather than letting them steal the show.
Even the veggie garden is incorporated into the overall design rather than being isolated somewhere out of view.
The garden is full of art but chosen to fit within limits: metal wind sculptures or glass pieces that repeat the color of adjacent plantings.
A month later I'm still captivated by Jeannette's garden. To put it in a word, I find her garden "incommensurable." That's a word from the late 1500s often found in philosophical books. It means " lacking a basis of comparison in respect to a quality normally subject to comparison." It simply can't be compared.
Wow, that is a spectacular garden! You are so right that she's got the scale all right to merge agricultural areas with the garden proper. What a lovely space.
On the fifth photo from the bottom, there is an airy lime green plant in the foreground. Do you know what it is?
Posted by: Erin @ The Impatient Gardener | Tuesday, August 19, 2014 at 09:14 AM
Thanks for sharing the beauty of this place. Your descriptive words match its beauty!
Posted by: Rebecca | Tuesday, August 19, 2014 at 09:24 AM
Erin — that is a variety of Amsonia going over to its fall golden color.
Rebecca — thanks for those kind words.
Posted by: LINDA from EACH LITTLE WORLD | Tuesday, August 19, 2014 at 10:30 AM
It is lovely looking around other gardens, they do inspire! Xxx
Posted by: Lyn | Tuesday, August 19, 2014 at 04:22 PM
Ooooo this does look outstanding. I just saw a Silverlocke fir at a nursery this week. First time ever. It is stunning. I have been fretting about where I could plant one. ha... Happy Dreaming.
Posted by: Lisa at Greenbow | Tuesday, August 19, 2014 at 07:16 PM
Lisa — This garden has had me at the nursery looking at shrubs twice in the last month!
Posted by: LINDA from EACH LITTLE WORLD | Wednesday, August 20, 2014 at 07:43 AM
Well, maybe if one has a garden as lovely as YOURS, Linda, it is favored above those that one visits. But mine? Nah. I'd trade it in a heartbeat for 4 or 5 of the gardens I saw on the Portland Fling. Those are staying with me like the one you show here is staying with you. It is something to be so moved and inspired by another garden.
Posted by: Pam/Digging | Saturday, August 23, 2014 at 05:47 PM