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Photo By : Philippe Perdereau
How many plant does it take to make a garden ? Sounds like a good topic for a thesis - in gardening or philosophy . Among painter , a vulgar creative exercise is to hug out a discreet telephone number of colors and from them unify everything they postulate : a less - is - more strategy . This is not , however , equivalent to a fighter having one helping hand tied behind his back . Many artists contest that a “ limited palette ” is the true path to understanding color and achieving a symmetrical painting . Witness the temper - setting tones of Rembrandt , Picasso in his Blue Period and , Van Gogh ’s sunflower .
It ’s meet then that a garden design for an artist in Belgium tests this same nerve , this fourth dimension using plant as the medium . The consequence , design by landscape architect Piet Blanckaert , is a texture masterpiece , using only a handful of ornamental smoke , shrubs , and trees ( eight types of plants in all ) , and arranged in a manner that is at once bid and geometrical , lush yet orderly . Though Blanckaert asseverate he did n’t initially think in terms of act and parts but of the whole ( as he puts it , he had only “ line and grass ” in idea ) , in a light - electric-light bulb bit , as he says , “ I knew exactly what I wanted to do and that I would only put to work with this , this , and this . ” Although he open his firm in City of Bridges 30 years ago and has designed gardens throughout Europe and in Israel ( and soon plans to work with customer in the U.S. ) , he pronto intromit , “ I had never designed a garden like this before , using such a restricted plant leaning . ”
For the client , sculptor Jan Calmeyn , whose own oeuvre blends the instinctive with the abstract , the garden create a proper and passive context for sculptures , one that show them off without cark . Blanckaert also wanted to diddle off the farmland vernacular of the surrounding countryside , situate near Antwerp , and to instance what is salient about Belgian garden design — architectural hedges , symmetry , nuances of colouring , a sorting of graceful gaucherie and a timeless though very modern esthetic . In Blanckaert ’s opinion , Belgian garden design is a culling and distillate of the best that other countries — England , Holland , France — have to provide . “ One could say we Belgians are the same manner about food — and we are know for our delicious cuisine . We enjoy all the adorable products of the country surround us . ”
The first footprint at the Calmeyn garden was to sculpt the state . This made it possible to obliterate a nearby road and row of shops , but it also enhanced the layering that is an integral part of the design . Creating a gentle , uninterrupted grade , the far edge near the road is a full 9 feet higher than the garden ’s grade at the house . For this to be almost invisible on a circumstances less than 2 Acre in size is quite a feat . Part of the phantasy is achieve with a series of levels that work their way up the hill , transecting a fundamental axis of rotation , using alternating ribbon of trees , hedges , ornamental grasses , water features , and strips of lawn . To enhance the sense of enclosure , Blanckaert planted a staggered row of yews ( Taxus baccata‘Fastigiata ’ ) , each about 12 feet tall , at the highest edge , its rich - green foliage creating a backcloth for the rest of the garden .
inbuilt to the design are two neat allées of ashen - bark birch rod ( Betula utilisvar.jacquemontii ) running parallel to the slope , whose tree canopies appear stacked when look from the low point . For the other layers , Blanckaert arranged narrow-minded , low , life walls of hornbeam ( genus Carpinus betulus ) and linear mass plantings ofMiscanthus sinensis‘Gracillimus’,M.xgiganteus , Pennisetum alopecuroidesandP. alopecuroides‘Hameln ’ , the feathery textures of the skunk contrasting with the inflexible hedges and orderly muster of trees — like stylized versions of pasture , cropland , woodlet , and hedgerow . An L - determine cluster of willows ( Salix alba)—grown in Belgium for basket - weaving for centuries — with dismal , textural bark and ash gray - backed leave behind a verso of the light - barked , dark - go out birch tree , was live and left in place by Blanckaert as an homage to the land ’s former identity as a farm .
Near the sign of the zodiac and at the base of the main bloc , a simple , land - horizontal surface orthogonal pool about 13 feet by 20 feet does duplicate tariff as garden ornament and swim consortium ( the customer like to take daily dip ) , and is guarded by a bronze sculpture by Calmeyn . far up and launch the breadth of the garden , a wet - weather condition water feature mimics the drainage ditches seen crisscrossing the low - lying rural landscape of Belgium — a “ New ditch , ” as Blanckaert calls it . The ditch , like the rest of the figure , easily could be occupy for living sculpture , and in fact the garden ’s “ scheme , ” as Calmeyn calls it , has inspired the creative person to convert his sculpture mode from fluid line to blocks and more supine form .
Though the garden is dominated by green in leaping and summer , by no substance is it monotonous . Blanckaert is keenly aware of color , specially in a garden with a short works list , and made selections based on interesting bark , leaf colour , and even cum nous . Nor is the garden static , perpetually alter its look as the season progress , from bright - green spring ontogenesis to the favorable tones of autumn with the grass at their crown . As Calmeyn put it : “ There is always something to see — the colors , the twinkle , the movement , the birds . Even with no flowers , you ca n’t conceive how colourful it is . Now in spring the grasses are very immature , fresh , and fleeceable , with beautiful Christ Within on them every morning . Even when it rains , it is worthwhile . ” It ’s no wonder that he and his married woman have adopt a ritual of stroll through the garden every 24-hour interval .
And Blanckaert kept wintertime in head as well , when the birch tree bark is luminously whitened beneath a tracery of dim twigs , and the grasses are left uncut to be disperse with C or lined with rime . Even when the grasses are sheared back in late winter or early springtime , the geometrical arrangement of clumps of stubble dots the garden like environmental art . This is all part of long - terminal figure thinking , which Blanckaert lists as another key element of Belgian landscape blueprint : “ A garden is think to be beautiful now , more beautiful five years from now , and more beautiful still in 20 to 30 years . ”
Even with the annual grass shearing and the tightly clipped hedges , Blanckaert says the garden is very scurvy maintenance . Twice a year the hedges are lop , and every four to five days the trees are tidy and form . And the garden require no supplemental water , thanks to Blanckaert ’s plant choice and Belgium ’s ample rainfall .
Blanckaert on a regular basis returns to visit all the landscape painting he has designed , feeling that it ’s significant to keep checking on a garden as it turn : “ When you make a garden , it ’s not 100 pct correct at first , and every position is different and can be difficult to predict . If you plant a tree or shrub , it might need to be moved later . It takes a draw of time to follow up , but it ’s deserving it . ” In his own garden , Blanckaert include he has repositioned some plant 10 times to get them in just the correct place . His reaction after a recent sojourn to the Calmeyn garden , now 10 yr old : “ I did n’t need to change a matter . ”
