Term Paper on
Landscape and Garden
Introduction
The Author (The Inward Garden)
Julie Moir Messervy is a landscape design consultant, prolific garden lecturer,
and noted author whose prior books include Contemplative Gardens (chosen by The
New York Times as one of the best gardening books of 1990) and The Inward
Garden. Ms. Messervy recently collaborated on the design for a Music Garden in
Toronto (the subject of a documentary film) with the internationally famed
cellist Yo-Yo Ma. She lives in Massachusetts.
Landscape & Garden
This is a little idea book for your imagination: full of concepts, images, and
principles that can help you take what is now a "yard" and make it into a
"garden" a land full of meaning and magic. A magic land does not come with a
particular size or configuration. It may be as intimate as a terrarium or as
immense as a rain forest, as tiny as a bonsai or as huge as a redwood tree. What
makes a garden into a magic land is your own particular vision of it. It is a
place that resonates with meaning or you; that allows you to feel at home; that
brings you back to your true self. A place where, when you no longer occupy it,
you have still left a little bit of yourself behind.
A celebration of life, creativity, and the garden called Earth; The Magic Land
is an inspirational guide to building a unique garden from the elements of
imagination, memory, and dream. Renowned American landscape designer Julie Moir
Messervy lends her spiritual sensibility and sensual writing style to a book
about gardening as an act of creating emotional space.
Through contemplative and hands-on exercises, garden design tips, anecdotes
drawn from Messervy's gardening experiences and those of her clients, students,
and family, we come to realize that the creative process is both a personal
journey and a method for giving life to our own gardens.
Sustainable designs usually include native plants. These plants that evolved in
your region, the local ecotype, will be best adapted to local climate
conditions. These native ecotypes have the best resistance to our increasingly
unpredictable weather. Before selecting a species list take time to analyze
soils. Examine if construction, farming, road salts or other activities have
modified the soil. If you find these problems, tilling composted organic matter
into the surface, down at least six inches, will help recreate a living, healthy
zone for root growth. All plants require vigorous roots to thrive with the least
care.
Unlikely named horticultural varieties, native plants have not been bred for
sustained blooming, so it is essential to include a diversity of species to
offer color in all seasons. We are fortunate that there are now several
nurseries that provide us with this native diversity. It is possible to have
native plants bloom from April to November in our region. Because they are not
selected for showy flowers, some species require a larger mass to stand out.
They produce nectar that attracts gorgeous butterflies. Less than 0.1% of that
plant community exists today. Therefore, every plant we add to gardens from this
habitat provides an important refuge for butterflies and the web of life that
depend on these plants.
Opening to the knowledge within us is a key to successful spiritual design. As
Julie Messervy says in “Inward Garden”, each of us have a garden within us, a
personal place that is a blend of our imagination, memory, character and dreams.
We should know both our own and our clients’ inner gardens. The goal is to
create spaces where harmony flows easily between the landscape and people who
visit. This requires getting to know your site, feeling it intimately, perhaps
through sitting our walking meditation.
Some designers feel that if we are able to create a space that is set apart from
normal life it becomes sacred (Peg Streep Spiritual Gardening). It would allow
visitors to see and respond to the larger patterns and life cycles. Whether
you're a gardener or garden designer or just learning about plants, whether you
live in a suburban ranch house or on a wooded estate or in a studio apartment in
the sky, let this book help you create your own magic land.
References
Messervy, Julie Moir, (March 1995) “The Inward Garden”, Little Brown & Company;
ISBN: 0316567922; www.Amazon.com
