How to Build a Modern Garden
It is ironic to think that every historical garden style was once the latest thing, fresh and exciting. But what makes a garden modern today? Certainly not the plants themselves, for the world contains no more un¬explored continents to offer us startling new introduc¬tions as it did during the last 400 years; and while we can reconstruct or draw inspiration from period styles to make something new, the result would not im-mediately be called a modern garden.
The most clearly modern tendency in gardening is to follow the leads of modern architecture and paint¬ing towards a minimalist style, using plenty of clean, modern hard landscaping materials and a much re¬duced palette of plants. The plants, such as grasses and bamboos, are often chosen more for their foliage and architectural qualities than for their flowers, because the modern style springs precisely from the contrast of shapes and textures between plant and plant, and between plant and hard landscaping.
Due to this predominance of hard landscaping, the modern style is especially suitable for town gardens and courtyards. Here sculpture can bring life to this kind of precise, discreet garden, and it looks more at home than in some traditional styles. Water can be used in mirror pools, trickling over pebbles or in fountains to bring light and movement to the design.
There are so many different modern paving mat¬erials that the possibilities for interesting effects are endless. Concrete paving slabs come in all sizes and colours, from simple rectangles to hexagons. Bricks offer a wonderful range of colours and opportunities for patterned textures. Wooden decking is increas¬ingly used in warm dry climates as a means of surfac¬ing outdoor areas, and it can easily accommodate sud¬den changes in level.
Another development of modern architecture has been the large plate glass window, which has helped to bring the garden into the house. Equally, everyone likes to have a living area outside in the garden, where the family can eat, read or amuse themselves when the weather permits. These two factors have combined to blurr the distinction between indoors and outdoors. Swimming pools have further emphasized this ambi-guity and have also introduced another form of hard landscaping into the garden, a feature that requires careful placing and design. Materials usually found indoors have come to be used outside, and it is not unusual to see ceramic tiles on the floor and walls of a patio, as well as in swimming pools. Where shade is needed for outdoor living, modern gardens have made use of specimen trees with ornamental bark set off by a gravel surround, so that the beauty of the trunk becomes a feature in itself.
It is in the modern garden that the curve, the organic shape, has found its proper home. Curved lawns, curved pools and curved paving marry in well with this flowing, informal style.
Tags: colours, concrete paving slabs, dry climates, garden style, gravel, minimalist style, modern style, plate glass window, town gardens