Design Is Not Opinion

No Pretty Boys

  What's Important?

 How do we learn what parts of a garden are more important than other parts? 

Works of art have a natural and constituent hierarchy.

“In every work”, wrote Samuel Johnson, “one part must be for the sake of others; a palace must have passages, a poem must have transitions”.

These passages and transitions aren’t less important. They are simply different. They are sometimes invisible, though, because the observer is blinded by the wittier parts, like the ‘sun standing at noon’.

It’s hugely useful to understand these differences because they help the designer make cost and maintenance-commitment decisions. Here’s a helpful thought experiment: imagine moving through your garden as it is now, or as you imagine it. Let your eyes linger as they will, without forethought or pretense. Every movement engenders anticipation because you want to know what is around the corner. There is a sort of suspense, only sated as you discover natural or contrived ‘focal points’ where your eyes fall naturally on one spot, and then another, sequentially and predictably. 

It’s a playful and simple game that loosens the imagination, revealing perspective and scale. There is nothing secret or profound about it. 

 Johnson wants us to focus on the passages, the supporting garden zones between the focal points. It’s counterintuitive, isn’t it? 

Let’s look at some useful plants that bring structure and support to your garden design, plants you use to create support for key, focal plantings.

  Dependable Examples

How do we chose these structural plants? We don’t want Hibiscus, or Ginger, Psittacorum, Plumbago, Bougainvillea, or any of the Pretty Boys that prance before our eyes demanding attention. What is wanted here is the strong, silent type.

Like all worker bees, our structural plants must be vigorous and reliable. They must dependably form a monoculture and need little-to-no mulch when mature.

And think about maintenance burdens, too. We allow high maintenance plants only where highly exposed, not in the support passages. This only makes sense: why spend money constantly pruning shrubs that you rarely see? 

Sound impossible? 

Not at all! Here are nine examples, from the largest to the smallest:

Clusia  (Clusia guttifera) is a large shrub with thick leaves and, in many situations, preferred over Ficus or Viburnum as a dependable hedge. The indestructible Clusia, at eight feet tall and four feet wide or more, has a fabulous texture and does well with partial shade. 

 

 

 

Saw Palmetto (Serenoa repens), of course, can reach eight feet or more for the silver variety, and slightly less for the more common green version. Slow growing, they are practically indestructible, and should be planted five feet apart or so.

 

 

 

Ficus Green Island (Ficus macrocarpa 'Green Island') is easily the king of small structural shrubs. Maintained at 24” or so, this medium-textured plant will form a dependable monoculture when planted thirty inches apart in full sun to part shade.

 

 

 

The Boston Ferns (Nephrolepis spp.) are actually a group of related plants in a variety of sizes, all with similar horticulture and all forming solid, maintenance free beds. Use them anywhere except the deepest shade or the fullest summer sun. Plant them about eighteen inches apart, but space the three foot tall Macho fern a bit wider. Control them by turning the weed-eater parallel to the ground and gently pushing the perimeter back.

 

 

Wart Fern, too (Polypodium scolopendria) will fill available space with an interesting texture about eighteen inches high and in the same conditions as the Boston Ferns. With time, a mature bed of Wart Fern or Boston Fern will scoff at all but the driest droughts, requiring only occasional supplemental water;

 

 

 

Xanadu (Philodendron sp. 'Xanadu' ), the smaller Philodendron cousin, is two feet high and very reliable at two feet tall and thirty inches apart;

 

 

 

 

Finally, there are is the native Coontie (Zamia pumila), a lovely mounding plant with fine texture creating a very dark green bed less than three feet tall (and planted thirty inches apart). 

Style, Decoration, Apple, and Samsung

 Design, Not Preference

This is a column about design. The theme here is always the same: design is not opinion and it is not decorating. It is a logical process of hard work. In fact, Design Lieutenants, when you see the word ‘design’, automatically insert the phrase ‘design process’, which will yield an informative frame of reference, allowing you to picture the designer rigorously working the process, examining every option.

Yes, frequently I drop back to discuss horticultural issues. Why? Because a great designer knows her materials cold. But design process is the heart of landscape architecture.

How does one recognize good design? What exactly is good design? How is good design achieved? Recent events have revealed a few insights. Chuck Close, a modern American artist, wrote

 Inspiration is for amateurs…All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. …inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive.

Deceptive? Design solutions are not born of inspiration or personal preference. The work yields the alternatives. Ideas spring from the process.

Don’t confuse style with design. Some of you wacky people like your gardens clipped and square and just neat as a pin, don’t you? Others see an English country garden and think they are in heaven. I love all of you.These are preferences, not design. A garden’s style is irrelevant to the resolution of functional issues.

 Design and Decoration

The professional design business owes a lot to Steve Jobs, who demonstrated the effort and reward of great design:

In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains of the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation… 

I thought of this when, a few weeks ago,  NBC’s ‘Today Show’ featured a segment on selecting sunglasses. The ‘expert’ asserted that an oval face requires rectangular frames. Likewise, a triangular face is best with rounded frames. The reason? It looks best if the frames ‘go against’ the shape of the face.

It looks ‘best’? Designer Jeffrey Zeldman notes that

Design in the absence of content…is decoration. 

He’s not alone in drawing this distinction. Designer Wouter Stokkel famously said 

It’s art if can’t be explained. It’s fashion if no one asks for an explanation. It’s design if it doesn’t need explanation.

Steve Jobs knew and demonstrated this clearly. Pick up an iPhone or a Mac, devices delivered with extremely brief instructions because nothing more is needed. Design.

Remember smartphones before Apple came along? Blackberry was the best, wasn’t it? And it was an awful, clunky thing. Steve Jobs knew that.  Apple spent more than five years figuring out how to build a phone so good that now every feature seems ‘obvious’. 

This simplicity of design and function was the result of consistent application of design process. Functional, natural, obvious ease wasn’t simple to achieve.

Samsung Electronics recently learned this fact in a very expensive way. Modern phones like the Galaxy S® were so much like the iPhone, for example, that Apple’s design efforts had been clearly stolen, according to a California jury. At least part of Samsung’s argument was the form-follows-function defense. They are right, of course, but missed the key fact that Apple figured it out first.

Samsung learned a billion dollar lesson in design. It’s the function that matters, it’s the function that requires huge resources to resolve, and it’s the function that makes people covet iPhones. Apple has a hard-won process in place that yields consistently, ‘insanely great’ objects, one after another.

 Style is Decoration 

Are we clear on this? ‘Style’ and ‘decoration’ are not design. Design has a temporal element, if you will; time is required to work out the solution. If nothing else, the effort by Apple to protect its own design process will disabuse the world of the idea that sudden insight is the kernel of great design. 

I am not saying that insight has no place. That would be wrong. Very frequently, approaches to knotty design issues become evident while I am walking on the beach, listening to an audio book–on my iPhone. Importantly, though, this insight is the result of thirty years’ logical thinking and processing of problems.

 A version of this piece appeared in the Naples Daily News on 9.14.2012. Download a PDF of the printed version here:  Download 9.14.2012.

Ferns Rule

Boston Fern

Is there anything more tropical than the sweep of a fern bed? In a residential setting, this large group of ancient plants can replace pieces of lawn, cover a shady area below a maturing tree, replace troublesome grass in a side yard, or provide very detailed planting in the dooryard. In larger, institutional settings, these benefits grow in scale, offering lovely tropical appeal, huge variety, affordable prices and very low maintenance. What’s not to like?

 Fanciful History

Ferns are a huge group of flowerless plants in the Class Pteridophyta that appeared in the fossil record some 360 million years ago during the Carboniferous period of Earth’s history, and were among the earliest vascular plants. Like trees and other common plants, ferns have differentiated tissue for water and food transportation, and they have stems, leaves (called fronds) and roots. But unlike the flowering plants, there are no seeds, pollen or fruit: they reproduce by means of small eruptions called ‘sori’ on the back of the fronds. These are usually dark brown, sometimes subtle, usually prominent, and contain spores that are disseminated by wind, or animals, or water. 

Florida has more native ferns than any state other than Hawaii: 123 species, plus more than 20 exotic or hybrid species. By the early 1900s a huge industry in Florida and in northern cities was producing Florida ferns for floral use. In 2002, fern production in Florida alone was an $86 million dollar industry. 

Macho Fern

While we do use a number of different ferns in the landscape industry, our palette is dominated by several species in a single genus called Nephrolepis (nef-ro-LEP-is).

 Endlessly Useful

Ferns are upright, generally low-growing, herbaceous plants that prefer bright light and rich, moist soils (don’t let this dissuade you, though; they do just fine in our sand). All species in this genus are the same light-to-medium green. They are easily massed, creating a medium texture and appealing monoculture quite early, tolerating a wide range of light and water conditions. Use them in dark to bright environments; none will thrive in full summer sun. They are quite xeric once well established. And remember that ferns will not survive prolonged flooding. 

Choose your fern based on your needs for a detailed, up-close fern, or a faraway massing fern; choose also based on needed height, ranging from Macho at four feet or so to the Boston type ferns that are as low as a foot or so.

Wart Fern

Naming these desirable plants is tricky and often just plain wrong. Here’s your guide:

Macho Fern is a 4’ tall critter and is Nephrolepis falcata. The diminutive Boston Fern which is N. Exaltata, and there are several named varieties of this species. The Giant Sword Fern is also N. biserrata. There is a Fishtail Fern, too, with more detail in the frond; this one is also N. falcata.

These plants are all highly recommended and widely available. However, there are also a few non-native and invasive species that are sometimes confused in the trade. Among these is the tuberous Sword Fern, or N. cordifolia, which has become a serious pest and is no longer cultivated.  This fern will have a round, translucent tuber in the roots, easily visible by lifting the plant from the container. Don’t use it.

The University of Florida’s Web site has much more information that helps differentiate these plants (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ag120).

 But what do we care? We just love the lushness of these wonderful plants. Let’s have a look at a few common and not so common examples.

 Using Ferns

Using the ferns couldn’t be easier.  Because they naturally spread, spacing of new plants is a function of

Maidenhair Fern

your patience and your pocketbook. I usually specify one gallon plants 18 to 24 inches apart. The natural growth pattern means that they will gently spread, filling a bed and eliminating the need for maintenance. When they spread too far, simply turn your weed-wacker sideways, running the whips close to the ground, cutting new vertical fronds. Never ‘prune. Over-hanging fronds.

Interested in some of the rarer ferns? Me too! I’ll cover these in the fall.

A version of this piece appeared in the Naples Daily News 9.7.2012.

Michael's Garden Column, 8.21.2012: Pruning Matters

  Lightening Rod

You are standing at one end of a very long hotel hallway. A bright window, covered by gauzy fabric, is at the far end. On each side are doors, dozens of doors, some ajar, some wide open, most closed. Sprinkled along the length of the hall are small writing tables. There is an alcove for elevators.  

As I get older, more doors in my own hallway of life have been opened and I have observed that each leads, not to a room or suite, but to another hallway. I imagine with gathering enthusiasm the richness hidden away in each. 

Opening even one more requires that I ignore the barnacles of insouciant malaise accruing with the years. We live lives upside down, don’t we? Boundless energy of the young is replaced by insatiable thirst for opening doors. Is this a fair trade? It sure is.

Regular readers will recall my fascination with the Kruger-Dunning Effect (call it ‘KDE’). Remember? Wikipedia calls it a ‘cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average’. Charles Darwin said that ‘Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge’. 

In plain English, one cannot guess.  Open the door and be surprised.

Why has this notion become so important to me? It’s this, at least in part: everyone’s an expert when it comes to gardening, and design, even though the depth of necessary knowledge is neither readily apparent nor easily separable from stylistic preference.

I'm not speaking about individual preferences. Some like blue, some prefer red. No, I'm talking about knowledge or, as a stand in, realizing that unknown depths are plumbed by recognized experts. People are entitled to preference. But ‘facts is facts’.

 An Example

Is there any feeling more wonderful than shining the light of understanding on a troublesome issue? Much of my email concerned last week’s piece on the troublesome staining associated with some Black Olive trees in some years. That column was the logical successor to a series of essays describing street trees in southern Florida. Recall that we have but three widely-available major shade trees (Live Oak and Mahogany being the other two). Your Design Pundit has been discussing each in turn, and at length.

My email was, in a few cases, humorously KDE, especially from those who should know better. Black Olive staining, let me reiterate, does not occur every year. Staining is provided by a troublesome caterpillar. When it does appear, the caterpillar is more likely to be present in the first half of the year.  Most email was appreciative, while a few writers, including those who should know better, concocted personal caterpillar gumbo from a very simple recipe.

Shrubs Are Deep, Man

Meanwhile, shrub pruning, too, is more complex than apparent. The proper care of shrubs is so often a jumbled mess because maintenance professionals do what they can with what they have, which is so often a garden full of personal choice without horticultural reference and with direction from the uninformed. What is a maintenance worker to do?

Take for example the noble Plumbago, a pendulous pastel blue wonder with small light-green foliage in a bundle most happy at 5 feet by 5 feet. New growth on this plant shoots out from a heavy center. And since flowers occur almost entirely at the apex of new shoots, proper pruning, year by year, is needed to create the cascade effect of maximum flower richness. Indeed, if you shear Plumbago you might as well use a non-flowering, green plant. Plant it too close to a curb, as at Mercato in North Naples, and shearing is obligatory. Similarly, Firebush and Thryallis can be resplendent. Or not.

And timing, too, is important. Recently, a landscape crew was doing an annual pruning to Ixora ‘Nora Grant’, admittedly alien to our soil and, yes, over-used, but possessed nonetheless of glorious tropical flowers. These plants were situated below some windows, and in peak bloom about a month ago. When the crews went to reduce the height below windows as instructed, many residents were aghast: ‘Don’t they know anything?” 

Sure they do. Language notwithstanding, much of the time the people you see in the field are quite knowledgeable professionals deserving respect. More on this in a few weeks.

Please feel free to email me with your questions or observations.

 

What Does 'No Maintenance' Mean?

Bird of Paradise

Is Anything No Maintenance?

Are there any plants that could be called 'No Maintenance'?

No.

These are growing and living things. They need fertilizer. Leaves and flowers are spent and must be removed.

It's just true that a fine garden takes effort. But we can be smart about it, can't we?

Let's talk realistically about the amount of maintenance and maintenance expectations required in your own gardens. Some plants are necessarily fussy, and they do have a place. But it's also true that sometimes your conceptual design can be resolved with more than one type of plant. Why not include maintenance as part of your plant criteria when you are building a plant list?

Height Matters

Start here:  It's useful to call any plant that never needs trimming for height 'No Maintenance'. Examples abound:

• Any of the ferns: N. Biserrata, Macho Fern; Polypodium scolopendria Wart Fern;
• Dianella tasmanica, Dianella;
• Strelitzia reginae, Bird of Paradise;
• T. asiaticum, Asian Jasmine.

Each of these plants will establish at a given height. Some spread more than others. But there's no routine height adjustment needed, so let's call them 'No Maintenance'.

What's left? Are all of the others high maintenance? Not at all! We have an entire category of shrubs that I call

Hamelia patens

'Low Maintenance': they need trimming no more than once per year, and some less frequently. Some examples:

• Hamelia patens, or Hamelia glabra, Firebush;
• Plumbago capensis, Plumbago;
• Ficus microphylla 'Green Isle', Green Island Ficus.

And now you know.

Trees Even More Beneficial Than We Knew

And now a report from the American Chemical Society about the effect of trees in an urban environment

ACS Reports Trees Clean Better Than Thought

supports what I think we knew all along: trees and shrubs clean the air. But according to this report, the efficacy is more than we knew

Trees, bushes and other greenery growing in the concrete-and-glass canyons of cities can reduce levels of two of the most worrisome air pollutants by eight times more than previously believed, a new study has found. A report on the research appears in the ACS journalEnvironmental Science & Technology.

There's more research to be done, clearly. For example, I wonder exactly which trees or shrubs are the most efficacious? Does it matter where they are planted– in rows, in groups, or? 

More broadly, what happens to the pollutants that enter these living systems? Are they all fully hydrolyzed or in some other way made into simple molecules? Is there a threshold of pain for the living material–how much pollution is too much?

Nonetheless, this report from a prestigious source is an important tool for Landscape Architects.

The report is here.

Michael's Garden Column, 7.20.2012

Trees Below the Ground

More about trees, particularly what happens below the surface. And there is much more to say on this subject, so stay tuned.

Next week's column topic is already determined– how to use bromeliads–but I want to do a piece of Street Tree 'Also Rans'. Soon. I swear.

As usual, you can download a PDF:  Download 7.20.2012 Trees Below the Ground, 1.6M. And the text is here:

Tangles? Not So Much

See that big, beautiful tree?  Do you imagine a humongous tangle of roots extending ten feet down and dozens of feet away from the tree? Does your mind’s eye imagine a spider’s nest of roots causing all sorts of mayhem?

There are serious charges against trees, mostly because we find them planted close to improvements in our crowded neighborhoods. This tree density is partly the result of Code requirements.

Michael's Garden Column, 7.6.2012

Michael's Naples News Column 7.6.2012

How many times do I have to tell you that there is no such thing as a 'favorite' plant? This isn't exactly correct, of course, but there's a point to be made. Planting design isn't a method to re-home your favorites. It's a way to narrow all plants into a manageable list that is horticulturally correct.

There are some plans, though, that are so difficult to use that they can hardly be called team players. 

And here are a few of them. Download 7.6.2012 Odious, 1.4M.

Is Fashion Actually 'Design'?

I wrote a few years ago that 'Fashion Design'–well, isn't. It's not design anymore than Interior Design. It's just decoration. How do I know this? Simple. A designer is known in these circles by her/his 'taste', that's why, and therein lies the fault. If you want further proof, I give you the iconic and much admired Japanese fashion decorator Rei Kawakubo, lovingly loved-up by Robin Givhan in Newsweek (oh, how the mighty have fallen).

Photo is from Comme des Garcons. And people, you just cannot make this up. Creations of this sort have built a $200 million empire. Stunning, I know.

Michael's Garden Column, 6.1.2012

Ever notice that the less someone knows about something, the more that same person thinks he's an expert? Well, turns out there's a name for that…grab Michael's column online here, or download a PDF of the newspaper. Download 6.1.2012 Experts Know Nothing.