Re-thinking the Garden
Whilst architecture has always directly addressed the material need of shelter for survival, gardens have evolved in a rather more memetic manner, exhibiting locally adaptive traits, reflecting cultural, political and religious ideas about how we mediate the environment around us. They have embodied a variety of social ideas that we hold about 'nature', and the manner in which we inhabit, and interact with it on an everyday basis. Practically, gardens throughout history have provided sites of retreat from the world at large, whether as sensual paradises of earthly splendour, or as fenced yards to keep the wilderness at bay, cementing the association of garden spaces with the practicalities, aesthetics and ethics of security, well-being and the good life.
Such associations also reflect the social relationships and networks we employ. Gardens are contested grounds in which values and moral concerns are tendered. They embody aspirations, competition, self-fulfilment, and attitudes towards productivity and creativity, through which both individual and group identities, are constructed, reinforced and nurtured. These operate through specific economies and discursive practices, which draw distinctions between public and private activities and spaces, encouraging certain notions of community behaviour, whilst discouraging others.
At the heart of these relationships has been a dissociation from the environment around us. But the realisation of this fact invokes a pressing need to change the way we think about ourselves and our engagement with the landscape, in terms of how spaces are designed, maintained and used.
Gardens are an everyday arena in which we play out the complexities and contradictions of control, ownership and stewardship, in ways which engage our egos and our abilities. As such they can provide an opportunity for relating personal responses and experiences of the private environment, with wider issues about climate change, resource limitations, and lifestyle sustainability. They also offer a situation in which new forms of self-reliance and community cohesion can be tried and tested.
A clearer understanding of the conditions which frame gardens can remove the romantic veil of naturalism which shrouds them. Developments in neuroscience, psychology and evolutionary anthropology may well be able to provide insights into the needs and desires which gardening's absorbing sense of immediacy and satisfaction fulfils. Could the inherent nurturing aspects of such acts, provide a foil to the conceit of consciousness, and situate us in a more understanding and reflective manner within the wider biosphere? If so, what nudges could be utilised to shift the focus of such activities from a solipsistic one to a pro-social one, in order to encourage new approaches to both ecological issues and models of citizenship?
Such challenges involve reconsidering the personal and cultural identities invested in gardens. The idea of the garden as an enclosure or sanctuary, applies not only to the physical space, but is also as a kind of metaphor for a mental fortress, which mediates between the private and public realms. Psychologically they represent ideas of individualism and expressions of personality, whilst as symbols of status they reflect affluence, reinforced by a property ladder culture which views gardens as valuable bolt-ons to the domestic castle.
Further to this, the reclassification of gardens as brown field sites rather than protected green sites, to facilitate redevelopment for increasing urban density, has encouraged an mentality of garden-grabbing, whereby new properties are shoehorned into former backyards. Obviously the need for housing is a pressing issue, but should it be at the expense of green spaces which act as necessary pressure valves for an increasing populace? This approach seems ill considered and rather counter intuitive.
Related to the increases in urbanisation and affluence is the divestment of cultural capital from front gardens, which historically served as an important interface between the domestic and civic spheres. Where a well kept front garden was a point of pride, reflecting the owners commitment to the aesthetics of the community (albeit one tinged with a competitive edge), they have now become shrines to the auto age. Hard landscaping has replaced the horticultural to provide parking places, giving predominance to technologies which pollute the environment rather than those which filter it.
Perhaps a problem in rethinking gardens is that many of the traditional ideas of the British garden are a vestige of a bygone age, which fails to relate to the fluidity and diversity of contemporary culture. With an ever increasing pace of life and choice of lifestyle activities, domestic exteriors are now used in many different ways, whilst many fall into neglect.
A key barrier to sustainable gardening is knowledge, which despite the information presented on TV gardening programs, in magazines and books, is only truly learnt from experience. Too often the early bloom of enthusiasm, witnessed in the Easter rush to garden centres, ends up a few months later as a source of disappointment, as well as a waste of time, finances and resources, discouraging future attempts. Obviously designers can advise, conceive and construct gardens, but the long term management is left to the owners, which in no way guarantees sustainable success. Perhaps what is necessary is some form of effective mentoring, to pass on skills, engender responsibility, and ensure commitment. Is this available already in neighbourhoods and if so how can it be organised such that it results in enriching the lives not only of the owners but also of the community at large?
An adopt-a-garden scheme would be one idea to address this, allowing access and co-operation between those who have gardens, but not the ability or inclination to maintain them, and those who are prepared to do so. Those who offer their services may do so because they wish to share their experience and skills, or because they are part of the increasing urban population who do not have access to such spaces. Whilst public spaces offer some form of provision to the latter group, they do not however have the personal sense of engagement and hands-on appeal which such a scheme could deliver. This could particularly benefit the elderly who are no longer in a position physically to tend their plots, and are often are forced to move home as a consequence. Such an approach would obviously not only be beneficial to both parties involved, but to the wider community as well, by creating and maintaining more pleasant areas, building networks and bonds, and encouraging culturally diverse approaches to gardens.
It could be an approach which not only addresses aesthetic and ecological issues but also the productive aspects of gardens. The post-ration period last century spurned self grown produce, in favour of the accessibility and availability of consumerism, and the sense of affluence it accorded. Consequently today we have an ever impatient and expectant public which demands the immediacy of ever seasonal, and increasingly exotic, fruit and vegetables in supermarkets. But recent concerns about the how food is grown, and the resources, subsidies and food miles involved, has awakened a need for locally sourced goods. A grow-your-own trend is discernible, which looks to the garden once again for more than aesthetic and recreational functions. Structured projects which co-ordinate these efforts could create frameworks which enable gardeners to produce and distribute food through neighbourhood market schemes, and create new local economies. Obviously this would have to be an arranged in a way which manages supply and demand in order to provide sustainable seasonal quantity and variety. Perhaps an entrepreneurial lesson could be learnt from the orginiponicos developed in the 1990s in Havana, which cultivated for produce every spare plot of land in the city, thereby creating not only a supply of fresh locally grown food, but also new sources of revenue and jobs.
Perhaps such ideas can help to reconfigure space in ways beyond the usual assumptions of public/private, urban/rural, agricultural/recreational. If so, then gardens can provide an everyday practical opportunity to restructure some of the social relationships we negotiate on a daily basis. Also, changing the ideas we hold about gardens, may just afford an opportunity to engage and understand the world around us with a greater sense of humility and understanding of our symbiotic relationships with the non-human aspects of the planet, in order to better prepare us to countenance the environmental problems we currently face.
Darryl Moore is a garden writer and a designer. If you are interested in the adopt a garden scheme please email networks@rsa.org.uk
Such associations also reflect the social relationships and networks we employ. Gardens are contested grounds in which values and moral concerns are tendered. They embody aspirations, competition, self-fulfilment, and attitudes towards productivity and creativity, through which both individual and group identities, are constructed, reinforced and nurtured. These operate through specific economies and discursive practices, which draw distinctions between public and private activities and spaces, encouraging certain notions of community behaviour, whilst discouraging others.
At the heart of these relationships has been a dissociation from the environment around us. But the realisation of this fact invokes a pressing need to change the way we think about ourselves and our engagement with the landscape, in terms of how spaces are designed, maintained and used.
Gardens are an everyday arena in which we play out the complexities and contradictions of control, ownership and stewardship, in ways which engage our egos and our abilities. As such they can provide an opportunity for relating personal responses and experiences of the private environment, with wider issues about climate change, resource limitations, and lifestyle sustainability. They also offer a situation in which new forms of self-reliance and community cohesion can be tried and tested.
A clearer understanding of the conditions which frame gardens can remove the romantic veil of naturalism which shrouds them. Developments in neuroscience, psychology and evolutionary anthropology may well be able to provide insights into the needs and desires which gardening's absorbing sense of immediacy and satisfaction fulfils. Could the inherent nurturing aspects of such acts, provide a foil to the conceit of consciousness, and situate us in a more understanding and reflective manner within the wider biosphere? If so, what nudges could be utilised to shift the focus of such activities from a solipsistic one to a pro-social one, in order to encourage new approaches to both ecological issues and models of citizenship?
Such challenges involve reconsidering the personal and cultural identities invested in gardens. The idea of the garden as an enclosure or sanctuary, applies not only to the physical space, but is also as a kind of metaphor for a mental fortress, which mediates between the private and public realms. Psychologically they represent ideas of individualism and expressions of personality, whilst as symbols of status they reflect affluence, reinforced by a property ladder culture which views gardens as valuable bolt-ons to the domestic castle.
Further to this, the reclassification of gardens as brown field sites rather than protected green sites, to facilitate redevelopment for increasing urban density, has encouraged an mentality of garden-grabbing, whereby new properties are shoehorned into former backyards. Obviously the need for housing is a pressing issue, but should it be at the expense of green spaces which act as necessary pressure valves for an increasing populace? This approach seems ill considered and rather counter intuitive.
Related to the increases in urbanisation and affluence is the divestment of cultural capital from front gardens, which historically served as an important interface between the domestic and civic spheres. Where a well kept front garden was a point of pride, reflecting the owners commitment to the aesthetics of the community (albeit one tinged with a competitive edge), they have now become shrines to the auto age. Hard landscaping has replaced the horticultural to provide parking places, giving predominance to technologies which pollute the environment rather than those which filter it.
Perhaps a problem in rethinking gardens is that many of the traditional ideas of the British garden are a vestige of a bygone age, which fails to relate to the fluidity and diversity of contemporary culture. With an ever increasing pace of life and choice of lifestyle activities, domestic exteriors are now used in many different ways, whilst many fall into neglect.
A key barrier to sustainable gardening is knowledge, which despite the information presented on TV gardening programs, in magazines and books, is only truly learnt from experience. Too often the early bloom of enthusiasm, witnessed in the Easter rush to garden centres, ends up a few months later as a source of disappointment, as well as a waste of time, finances and resources, discouraging future attempts. Obviously designers can advise, conceive and construct gardens, but the long term management is left to the owners, which in no way guarantees sustainable success. Perhaps what is necessary is some form of effective mentoring, to pass on skills, engender responsibility, and ensure commitment. Is this available already in neighbourhoods and if so how can it be organised such that it results in enriching the lives not only of the owners but also of the community at large?
An adopt-a-garden scheme would be one idea to address this, allowing access and co-operation between those who have gardens, but not the ability or inclination to maintain them, and those who are prepared to do so. Those who offer their services may do so because they wish to share their experience and skills, or because they are part of the increasing urban population who do not have access to such spaces. Whilst public spaces offer some form of provision to the latter group, they do not however have the personal sense of engagement and hands-on appeal which such a scheme could deliver. This could particularly benefit the elderly who are no longer in a position physically to tend their plots, and are often are forced to move home as a consequence. Such an approach would obviously not only be beneficial to both parties involved, but to the wider community as well, by creating and maintaining more pleasant areas, building networks and bonds, and encouraging culturally diverse approaches to gardens.
It could be an approach which not only addresses aesthetic and ecological issues but also the productive aspects of gardens. The post-ration period last century spurned self grown produce, in favour of the accessibility and availability of consumerism, and the sense of affluence it accorded. Consequently today we have an ever impatient and expectant public which demands the immediacy of ever seasonal, and increasingly exotic, fruit and vegetables in supermarkets. But recent concerns about the how food is grown, and the resources, subsidies and food miles involved, has awakened a need for locally sourced goods. A grow-your-own trend is discernible, which looks to the garden once again for more than aesthetic and recreational functions. Structured projects which co-ordinate these efforts could create frameworks which enable gardeners to produce and distribute food through neighbourhood market schemes, and create new local economies. Obviously this would have to be an arranged in a way which manages supply and demand in order to provide sustainable seasonal quantity and variety. Perhaps an entrepreneurial lesson could be learnt from the orginiponicos developed in the 1990s in Havana, which cultivated for produce every spare plot of land in the city, thereby creating not only a supply of fresh locally grown food, but also new sources of revenue and jobs.
Perhaps such ideas can help to reconfigure space in ways beyond the usual assumptions of public/private, urban/rural, agricultural/recreational. If so, then gardens can provide an everyday practical opportunity to restructure some of the social relationships we negotiate on a daily basis. Also, changing the ideas we hold about gardens, may just afford an opportunity to engage and understand the world around us with a greater sense of humility and understanding of our symbiotic relationships with the non-human aspects of the planet, in order to better prepare us to countenance the environmental problems we currently face.
Darryl Moore is a garden writer and a designer. If you are interested in the adopt a garden scheme please email networks@rsa.org.uk
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