Landscaping Should Engage The Spirit And The Mind

[I:https://containergardeningexpert.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/LarryMalloy25.jpg]The Forbidden City in Beijing has some ancient landscaping that persists and inspires some of the latest ideas in garden architecture. Within the ten meter walls and fifty-two meter moat are some of the greenest lawns fringed by ancient trees. The straight, square buildings are surrounded by cool gardens without a straight line to be seen in them.

The Qing and Ming Emperors were surrounded by thousand of eunuchs and concubines in this sequestered world. The concentration of so much human energy produced some startling human brilliance. It was a concubine who had the idea of starting the silk industry and it is worms too that may be beneath the brilliantly green lawns.

Although the buildings are laid out in perfect geometric squares the gardens are round, and just the opposite in design to the buildings. This is based on the idea that earth is square and Confucian, and heaven is Taoist, and rounded. Strangely, the combination of these two opposite notions creates a sense of harmony and tranquillity that one feels within the Imperial Palace and gardens.

Capability Brown is well known as the greatest English landscaper. Born in 1716 he started a work as a lowly gardener and worked his way up to a position where he was known throughout the country. His services were sought after by the landed gentry who vied to outdo each other in landscaping the surrounds of their stately homes. He designed and developed more than one hundred and seventy gardens, some of which continue to this day.

The Imperial gardens in Beijing include a huge man-made lake and adjacent hill constructed with wheelbarrows and human muscle. The Duke of Buckingham was also into earth removal and included some human removal too. Fearing that the sight of a small village outside his home might offend the eyes of Queen Victoria he ordered the whole village to be forcibly removed beyond a hill where the royal senses could not penetrate. This shows the lengths to which landscapers will go in order to shape their vision of beauty and tranquillity.

When Elizabeth Bennett, the heroine of Jane Austen’s famous novel visits her lover’s magnificent estate she remarks that she has never seen a place where nature and art are so happily married. In this observation she sums up an idea that is manifest in the Imperial Gardens, and in the parks and gardens of Capability Brown. It is a central idea in all landscaping.

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