Garden Designers Roundtable: Seeking Shade

Posted June 29th, 2011 by Patrick Eldershaw No Comments »

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer.  But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

~Henry David Thoreau

I am a loafer. I spent the summer afternoons of my youth in two placeswith my nose in a book and in the woodssometimes I did both.

For me, our woods magic wasnt rooted in botany or its perfect lifecycle of renewal.  It was the cool darkness with dancing light and magic that drew me in.

As an adult their influence is still a major factor in my design practices as well as in life.  I prefer shade.

Shade by itself  creates an emotive response that never fails.  In our gardens we naturally seek shade on porchesunder umbrellas and pergolason in a woodland garden.  For me, shade is an opportunity to design with magic.

For other thoughts on shade, please visit our guest blogger this monthMargaret Roach from A Way To Garden and the rest of the GDRT blogging designers below.

Andrew Keys : Garden Smackdown : Boston, MA

Christina Salwitz : Personal Garden Coach : Renton, WA

Debbie Roberts : A Garden of Possibilities : Stamford, CT

Douglas Owens-Pike : Energyscapes : Minneapolis, MN

Genevieve Schmidt : North Coast Gardening : Arcata, CA

Lesley Hegarty & Robert Webber : Hegarty Webber Partnership : Bristol, UK

Pam Penick : Digging : Austin, TX

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