The dowager queen French vase from yesterday’s post has a home waiting for her-but not the home I expected. An object of this size would need an even bigger space, wouldn’t you think? What evolved was anything but.
My clients bought a house that had never really been finished. The landscape was much the same; unfinished. My client referred to the property on the side of the house as “the music room mulch garden”. It was bleak. This very small space functioned as a transition space between the front of the property, and the rear-a sheer 8′ foot drop in grade. A boulder retaining wall at grade barely visible in this picture was punctuated by a staircase down with 16 stone steps-maybe more. This left the area with an edge that was in fact a precipice. At the base of the precipice, multiple air conditioning units, and a collection of meters apparent in this picture.
My first design, they flat out rejected; I had missed some important information. My first design did not take into account that they spent their summers at a home on the East Coast. OK, my plan for a cutting garden and whatever went with that was way off the mark. Plan 2-a landscape that would function and look beautiful early and late, and especially over the winter. A small landscaped area that would have big impact. A healthy hedge of Thuja Nigra sporting one lone out of place Thuja Pyramidalis was a starting point.
Three linden espaliers of great age would form a backdrop to this small garden. The green wall they would provide would take up little space, and would screen the clunky boulders and grade changes from view. Enclosing a small space makes for a feeling of intimacy. And the room would need some furnishing.
Three linden espaliers, each about 10 feet wide, completely covered the back. It would be up to my client to decide whether to maintain the horizontal pattern of the branches, or let the the twiggy growth make a solid wall of leaves. Green velvet boxwood organizes the ground plane. The precipitous drop to the rear yard is shielded from view by a hedge of Thuja Nigra that matched the hedge already in place on the street side. Flat and safe spaces are friendly to people. As for the mulch pile we had scraped up-that would be used to mulch the new plantings.
Decomposed granite walkways make it easy to navigate the space. The color is easy on the eye, but provides strong contrast to the green elements. There is no reason a small space cannot be a lively and interesting space.
A simple arrangement of plant material and gravel finishes the landscaping portion of the project. Now what?
From inside the house, a generously proportioned bench makes the space look inviting. The placement of the bench implies there will be something of interest to see. I thought that old French vase might be just the thing.
The colors of each compliment one another. The placement of a large element in a small space can be dramatic.
The view from the bench side is in scale with the size of the house. Should I plant very tall? Short and wide? With what? It will take some time and thought to get the planting just right.
I could easily picture Gertrude Jekyll perched on this old English wood garden bench. Wearing a long skirt, a cardigan, and serviceable brogans, I can hear her in dignified fashion holding forth on some garden design topic or another with as much energy as authority. This straight-backed bench, of slight design and simple materials, is unmistakably English in origin. I have never been to Britain, and I know few people of British extraction-but I have looked at vintage and antique English garden furniture long enough to successfuly guess its origin. 
This decidedly English style high backed bench of utterly simple design is a contemporary piece that seems authentic to the culture of its origin. It used to be there were no designers, just craftspeople with good sense about proportion, practicality, and sturdy construction. What worked was also beautiful. This bench doesn’t try too hard. No doubt it will be in service a very long time, given its heft. Its visual heft makes it a good candidate for a special spot in a garden. It could just as easily hold a number of people waiting for a bus, or a pile of kids intent on climbing it. 
Sir Edwin Lutyens was a British architect of great renown whose practice spanned the late 19th century and early 2oth century. Gardeners all over the world know of him, from his association with Gertrude Jekyll. Her steadfast support of his career, and the projects upon which they collaborated are well documented. The most beautiful bench of his design might be the Hestercombe bench, but the bench most often associated with his name is known as the Lutyens bench. The distinctively curved back and scrolled arms have been the inspiration for subsequent English bench-makers; this version is a beauty. 
Many of our antique and vintage pieces come from dealers in England. Most of them represent garden objects from of other countries, not just their own. As much as the English gardener of my imagination is keenly interested in plants of all sizes, species and habit, the antique dealers we buy from with are game for anything that might endow a garden with beauty and history. 
However, one must go to England to find English garden benches. Their modest and sturdy look is so appealing. Even the old benches clearly have many years of service yet to come. A colony of pale green lichens found a home on this bench-no doubt the result of many years of service in some English garden blessed with regular rain. 
This quietly elegant spindle back bench is likewise mottled with colonies of this lichen and that moss. Its timeworn surface and low key design made it so easy to incorporate into a garden. British wood benches are team players.
This old painted bench had sustained some dry rot from years of contact with the ground. We stabilized the legs from underneath, and placed it on a gravel terrace. Though 70 years old, I think my clients will enjoy it a good many more years. Painted furniture in a garden has a charm all its own. The frilly skirt and the angled back of this bench is a departure in form from most English benches I have known and loved-but how I like it. 
