Creating a View

I have been reading P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home. Allen recommends taking a picture of your garden area because when a person is used to looking at an area their eye (or brain) will ignore what it doesn’t want to see and focus on what it does want to see.

When I read that I had an “oh yea, you’re talking to me” moment. You see, when I took the picture of my cement girl for this project I had to creatively edit the pic so that I didn’t post a picture of my neighbor’s garbage cans to the web.

That’s right, when you stroll down my walkway toward my courtyard, you can judge the neighbor’s beer and soda consumption and ponder the toxicity of aluminum cans. 

Disclaimer: This is a not my neighbor’s garbage can, they are lovely people and I wouldn’t embarrass them that way. Also, they picked everything up when I told them about this posting. And in the spirit of truth; we have a huge pile of aluminum cans, a large trash can, a canoe, a wood pile, and a garden wagon on the “service” side of our house.

Not my yard! I found this picture on the web and thought it made a point of what I don't want to see.

So back to my point, P. Allen Smith says you should create a view, a pleasing reason for the eye to rest; just because I am blind the neighbor’s service yard doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.

That was the problem that P. Allen Smith made me aware of. My solution: A swing near the edge of our yard and a hedge behind it will continue the look of our courtyard and help to create the feeling of an enclosed garden.

This view is from our walkway. The cement girl is to the right of the picture, our house is to the left of the picture, and the maple bed is immediately behind me. The pinestraw in the center of the photo will be lawn one day. 

This is the view of our swing from the courtyard. Until there is a tall hedge behind the swing the eye doesn't really stop but continues on to the neighbor's side yard (he usually has trash cans, aluminum cans, and sometimes a bass boat there).

The swing was white so I spray painted it oil rubbed bronze to go continue the courtyard theme of my garden. Not having a lawn is awesome while spray painting-notice the paint in the lower section of the photo.

The garden center had many shrubs to choose from, but I haven’t yet made a decision on the type of hedge. I want something evergreen, and Mister wants something that blooms occasionally.

We are considering a burgundy leaved Fringe Flower (lorapetalum).

This was at the garden center, the photo-bomber is the nursery dog.

I feel that the Fringe Flower would play well behind the black swing and the burgundy of the leaves would connect to the blue/red bricks of our house. Also, we could use a large variety behind the swing and then use a small variety on either side of the driveway by the road, thereby tying the entrance to the drive to the side of the garden and the brick of the home. To paraphrase P. Allen Smith, it will complete the flow of the garden home.

Here is a final photo of the swing with our dog Boo waiting for someone to come sit with him.