Do you find that some gardens are so large and complicated that it’s hard to really connect with them? Occasionally I find this to be the case, and often it leaves me feeling a little cold towards them. That’s not to say I don’t always like what I see, it’s just that some places can be so extensive or so busy and involved, they’re a challenge to understand.

Now, this isn’t such a problem if I’m simply looking to enjoy a garden’s ambience and spirit, and if that is the case I just breeze around a garden and enjoy it for what it is. Indeed, some gardens which initially seem hard to read can become even more

enchanting if their secrets do remain hidden. Sometimes though I need a little more than that, and want to understand the mechanics and motivations behind a garden, it is then when things can become a little frustrating without having something more substantial on which to hang my hat.

The reality is that many gardens, being carefully planned, are complex and dynamic products, designed to harness some of nature’s raw and living elements, repurposing them into ever changing, interactive works of art. Most places will have been worked and modelled and manicured to within an inch of their lives, enduring intense change initially, but left then to ripen and mature over time, nurtured of course by gardeners. As a modern day visitor, being now much further down any garden’s timeline, expecting them to come with a guide called ‘how it was made’ isn’t just difficult, it’s virtually impossible, and in most cases, it isn’t how they were meant to be experienced anyway.

Knowing this generally to be the case, I guess it’s for me to lighten up a little, to train myself not to stress over a garden’s creation or maintenance but enjoy it for how it both looks and feels. To do that however, to flick my garden history and design switches to the off position when I walk through a place can be quite a challenge. If you’ll allow therefore, I’ve come up with an alternative approach where a large garden can be compared to a sparkly new book on a shelf – I know, it sounds a little weird but run with me for a while!

Sometimes when browsing bookshelves we are drawn to a title or an author, or maybe to its spine or cover design. Carefully taking the book from the shelf, we might be drawn further in by recommendations on the back cover, an engaging description inside or by its list of contents or preface. Even after absorbing these messages though, we’re often still blissfully unaware of the full story that awaits between the pages and yet, often we’re happy to take the book based on what we see on the surface.

The process used when encountering books can equally be applied to gardens, where much like a book’s cover, they might possess a visually attractive exterior, full of detail and artistic flair. In exchange for contents, a visitor map may clearly label each area we are to discover, and by way of introduction, interpretation boards or a leaflet guide might lay a foundation of knowledge and intrigue for the journey ahead.

Beyond those however we are on our own, left to venture and explore garden paths like pages within the book, step by step or page by page. Most importantly it must be remembered, we’re left by the garden’s creator and author to find our own way through the story, making of it what we will. Our hand isn’t held by the garden’s designer or creator, just as our book isn’t read to us by the author, we are just left to venture at our own pace, in our own time, and to make our own impression.

Old gardens can be fascinating, evocative creations, made once and held in a moment of time, but often they’re a collection of intertwined layers, sections made and remade, grafted and spliced with fragments from yesteryear. We can take them on face value for sure, in much the same way as books, but even if we can’t engage with it, we must acknowledge the hidden meaning and spirit that resides in the soil, lime-mortared walls and twisted trees.

Large gardens and landscapes can be appreciated for how they appear, for how they flow and wrap themselves around us one moment and open us out to the world the next. It is perfectly fine not just in some cases, but in most cases to engage in a light-touch way, gasping in awe at the sheer extravagance or brilliance of it all, or sitting back to process a personal situation. Think nothing of having to engage in a deep and meaningful conversation with the garden, but study it as you would a painting in a gallery, an architectural masterpiece, a fine piece of sculpture or indeed, a very nicely crafted book on a shelf.

This post might be as much for my benefit as for you, but we don’t always need to know how the artist mixed their paint or how many bricks an architect used, neither is it necessary to understand the sculptor’s casting process or the authors mechanisms for setting out the book. As we move through a garden between precisely placed plants and furrowed orchards, sneeze our way through flower-filled shrubberies and sit back in ornamental garden buildings to admire a view, we might just be seeing all that the garden’s creator wished us to see; nothing less, nothing more. 

Finally, I agree, there will always be occasions where gardens and landscapes will demand further investigation, where there will be a constant cascade of questions for the curious, but when that happens you will know, and your quest for answers will become deep and meaningful. In lieu of those moments, embrace every place for how it looks in that moment, and especially for how it makes you feel.

Gary Webb, Gardening & Writing Ways