After giving it a once-over (that’s how I read magazines: zip through them and then go back and actually read them), I read Frank Ronan’s column. Unfortunately it was not on the website so I can’t link to it, but it was all about disregarding the style of your house when designing a garden. The subhead was, “Planting your garden to conform to the period of your house is ridiculous, says Frank.”
According to Ronan: “The house is a fixture, and I agree that if you extend the original architecture should be respected. But the garden around it is a fluid thing, which cannot stand still for a day, let alone the aeon that a solid house should last. To make the garden conform to the architecture is as ridiculous as dressing in the clothes of the period, and as pretentious.”
I’ll be honest: I have always tied garden design to a house’s architecture in some way. I have a hard time envisioning my house with anything other than a cottage-style garden. In no way can I imagine a walled English garden at my parents’ mid-century modern house.
At the same time, I’ve long preached that you don’t have to follow the rules in your garden. It’s yours; do what you want. Maybe that means I fall somewhere in the middle on this. Still, it seems to me that some houses are MADE for a specific kind of garden.
Would this work outside any other style of house?
What kind of house would you expect to see attached to this garden?
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