Silverlake Garden

GARDEN DESIGN: AN ANOMALY

While we do not think of ourselves as landscape architects, we are the designers of our own Silverlake garden. It is simple and modest, much like our neighborhood. We are concerned more with the spirit of a garden and not the pretension of "design". What does this mean? It means that we are not at all concerned with how others see this garden or how they interpret it in their minds - how they process it through their knowledge bank.

What is most important to us is nurture. NURTURE. We are concerned with how our various plants are cared for and how we are, in turn, nurtured by them. I know I'm using the word, repeatedly, but I think it important to make the distinction between nurture and "design". When a garden is designed, there is an implication that it fits into someone's idea, which is based upon, yet again, the ideas of someone else, ad-infinitum.

Ms. Penelope Hobhouse, an exceptional garden designer, seems to peer deeply into nature. She, when designing gardens for clients, walks the land and finds, or rather, discovers what that particular land needs in terms of form, color, shape, texture - much like any other artist.
When walking through a garden designed by Ms. Hobhouse, one finds that elements such as rock formations, follies, pathways, walls, etc., are the structure holding together the most important part of the garden: plants. Her knowledge of design is second nature. However, when walking through a garden, she must step into that place of stillness, where one is creatively nourished and informed.

So, while our garden is modest and simple, it is also richly elegant. We have listened to it over the years and as we walk through it, it whispers, quietly, and nurtures us.

Ms. Hobhouse designed the garden for Vermont House, Ronald Frink Architects

Penelope Hobhuse website
Ms. Hobhouse on YouTube