Your above comments are really thought provoking as I'm in the process of setting up my grand design strategy for my 6.2 acre property. These past 30 years I put our efforts in developing every corner of it structurally. Wind breaks were set up planted and have grown to full size; the land was divided up in plots, some as orchards, others as grazing areas for our sheep, still others for immediate gardens around our main farmhouse buildings. Also areas for greenhouses actual and future.
Meanwhile, I've concentrated around my gardening activities as I pulled out of the commercial vegetable venture which I handed over to my godson.
Now my main interest lies in filling every corner with beauty. Whether by now adding ornamental trees or developing specific gardens ( in plural because they are spread around) I share concerns around colour and pleasure. This leads me to a concept that is brewing inside for quite a long time: my personal motile habits in my gardens and the general property. Thus some are just for visual attraction. Others that need closer vision and interaction (care); fragrance should be placed where I pass by more often, because it calls for slowing my pace. Alternatively, visual focal points can be far away with short blooming bursts if they are comprised of plants that put on their show for short periods of time. Its nice to got our for a stroll and have friendly chat with a flowering fruit tree, or a bunch of peonies doing their thing although notwatched closely every day.No wonder, I'm new to peonies, while I've been growing roses for 3 decades by now. My future peonies will be spread out in distant parts, along with roses that can provide colour later. If they have fragrance better, but if not they will still do their thing! This also adds the requisite of deeper understanding of perennials that could be placed in less attention demanding gardens. I enjoy immensely growing plants of any kind from towering Abies (= aka firs),main theme of my arboretum, all the way down to lesser spring bulbs like Fritillarias, which were sown yesterday. My work yard and pot ghetto provides me as much pleasure as my well balanced borders. They provide happiness in a different way.
How can put up with so many on going projects at the same time, while none are ready for display for third parties?: NGA
@dirtdorphins member perfectly described the mechanism ( Post #2761871 ): selective vision.
My borders contain actual plants that grow there
plus those I would imagine would look great growing along!
and this view is ever expanding...
So the outcome is that all of my gardens are at some stage of
work in progress category. I'm not a perpetual dissatisfied person. I'm very satisfied with what I already have and very greatful and blessed about it. But my greatest blessing is that I love the tension between continuity and change. Certain things have to go, others have to stay and life spreads out in between. If I were blessed with eternal life, that would be exactly my game.... my joy lies in doing, learning, studying, experimenting, playing, combining,expanding, defying (
all those things that can't be achieved)... always in the
ing ending of even many more verbs...( I understand that is called the gerund in grammar . It is both a noun and verb at the same time.)
Perhaps this post resonates only for those large property managers. Yet most of us do not belong to the large estate owner categories yet are still blessed with room. There's so much opportunity to squeeze in beauty even in lesser properties! It is just an invitation to see perhaps space slightly in a different fashion...
Arturo
