An ornament is anything which enhances the appearance of a person, a place, or an object. A gorgeous piece of vintage Miriam Haskell costume jewelry can dress up a simple black dress. Christmas decorations collected over a lifetime ornament a tree, and the family traditions that come with the celebration of a holiday. Hand screened en grisailles wallpaper from Zuber in Paris can supply a room with all the ornament it could ever possibly need. A good friend just opened the door for me on this particular kind of ornamental-thanks, M. The decorative arts spans as many cultures as it does centuries. Early 20th century handmade American quilts ornamented many a bed and bedroom. Hand made furniture, hand embroidered linens, a vase of cut flowers, hand made candles, hats suitable for church on Sunday, letterpress wedding invitations, chandeliers, great shoes-ornament celebrates every aspect of daily life.
Ornamental is a word frequently applied to those trees whose sole function is about beauty. We grow lime, lemon, pecan and avacado trees for the fruit they provide. We grow shade trees in hopes for a cool spot in the garden in the heat of the summer. Some trees are farmed for their wood, their apples, or their rubber. Ornamental trees are cherished for their extraordinarily beautiful leaves, flowers, fruit, bark, shape, or fall color. This group of trees ornament the landscape. The crabapples blooming are the ballerinas of the spring. Those clouds of white, pink and carmine flowers can be breathtaking. There is that spring moment when all the talk is about the crabapples blooming. The magnolias provide strikingly large and architectural flowers and large leaves. Yellow magnolias are unusual, and are ornamental for that reason additional to their lustrous bark, large leaves, and architectural shape.
The dwarf Japanese maples delight the eye with their forms and leaf colors. The standard acer palmatum features beautiful bark, lacy leaves, and a mature size around 25 feet. Princeton Gold maples shower the garden below with lime green in the spring. The white flowers of chionanthus fluttering in a spring breeze-delightful. The kousa dogwood features flowers that bloom late enough to escape our early spring frosts. Old kousas are prized for their exfoliating bark. Witch hazels bloom early enough in my zone that their subtly wispy flowers attract attention. Tree lilacs bloom later in the summer. Flowers overhead-ornamental. The substantive and shiny foliage of hellebores is enough for any gardener to plant them. The early spring flowers thrown in spite of cold weather-they ornament the garden.
Ornament for the garden-I have a big interest. I am not particularly partisan. I like figurative sculpture in the garden. I like French cast iron urns from the 19th century. I like Belgian wood planter boxes. I like English hand carved stone troughs. I like classically shaped and hand made Italian terra cotta pots. I like braided steel cable fencing. Galvanized horse troughs available at the local feed store make great containers for vegetables, or lotuses. I like to see a mix of all of the above, selected by that particular gardener with confidence.
I all but covered this 20′ long table for spring in the shop some years ago. This would not be a table about to host a dinner-where could you possibly put your plate? It is strictly ornamental. Just for the sheer visual joy of it. Memories are made from how every gardener chooses to ornament their gardening life. I remember each and every detail of those gardens that strike a chord with me. I ornament my landscape as if I had a very important garden party looming. Though chances are good I will never host a garden party of any consequence, I like strikingly beautiful landscapes and gardens. When I do my best, I sleep well.
Pots planted with spring flowers are not especially utilitarian. I have never eaten a pansy. But my eyes have feasted on the shapes and colors of spring flowers planted in pots. To say pots such as these enhance the appearance of my garden is an understatement. Buck tells me that organic matters. He is so right. But the manner in which that organic gets delivered matters too. This means the fencing and the gates to the vegetable garden matter, in the visual scheme of things. This means that a gardener with a very small property needs to choose those few ornamental trees which delight them the most. Ornament is so much about the result of the process of choosing.
This is my driveway. I pull up here at the end of every day. What I see first when I get home-ornamental. My idea of ornamental-mine and Buck’s, that is. Our idea of ornamental-that what makes our house and garden truly ours.
Pictured above is a panel of a terra cotta square pot made by the Galloway Company from Philadelphia Pennsylvania in the early 20th century. The river bottom clay from whence their pots were made is naturally this color. There is no mistaking this is a natural material, even if you have never seen anything made from cream colored clay. The surface is genuine; it rings right.
Do you even have a number in mind for all the different kinds of leaves that must exist? Their surfaces can be hairy, shiny, matte, smooth-there is no end of variation. But what they all have in common are surfaces that are unmistakeably alive. They live and breathe. I could not really explain what it is about a living surface that is so evident. Suffice it to say that I have yet to see an imitation that was truly convincing. 
Concrete is a man made material which I greatly like. These terra cotta oyster floats have blobs of concrete which help to weigh the floats down in the water. Concrete as a material is at its most beautiful when its surface accurately represents exactly what it is-concrete. Of course everyone has had to make concessions of one kind or another over their garden. I myself have concrete terra cotta pots made in the style of classical Italian terra cotta. I have three places where I wanted a pot in situ 12 months of the year. My concrete pots enable this. Their workmanship is incredibly good. However nothing moves me more than the clay. 
Steel and iron are likewise a product of human technology. The surface of steel will age, as it corrodes. The pits in the surface can provide a home for small plants, just like terra cotta. How steel ages can be very beautiful; age on a man made surface greatly enhances its appearance.
The surface of this terra cotta pot looks like a painting. I have no idea how it was done, but there is no evidence of paint. Whatever altered the surface has soaked in, and become part of the clay. I am told the material is mineral based-as are many pigments.This treatment I can live with. The shape and texture of this pot is beautiful as well-it reminds me of a squash, without trying to look like a squash.
For the better part of six years I did nothing to this yard except bark the existing perennial beds, and mow the grass. It took all my energy to handle my work-or so it seemed. I am embarrassed to say that somewhere along the line I got an anonymous postcard in the mail: “It is hard to believe that a person whose career is landscape would have weeds six feet tall in her front yard”. No matter the delivery, the person had a point.
But perhaps even more importantly, I was ignoring the fact that whatever I did at home would need time to come of age-and that perhaps I would want to still be around to see that. Planning my own landscape was agonizingly slow. I had no problem designing for others; I was a wreck designing for myself. Slow turned out to be fine; who can do everything at once anyway? Getting started-that was the key.
The one hundred Hicks yews across the west and down the north side came first. Given the slope of my property from the south to the north, time would prove to be an essential element. The hedge is 4 feet tall on the south side, and nine feet tall on the north side-but every one of them is level with the horizon. This hedge took eight years to grow in.
The boxwood was even slower growing; the 18″-24″ plants I put in the ground were already seven years old when I planted them. The shaggy densiformis yews are the newest evergreen addition; they have only been in four years. I like all this evergreen; I can successfully maintain it. I knew I could never devote the time needed to a big perennial garden-why come home and be frustrated about what isn’t done? Two giant blocks of Limelight hydrangeas, and 6 pots of flowers give me perennial garden pleasure, in a manageable form.
I planted this city-mini allee of Yellow Butterflies magnolias for Buck-he loves yellow. The boxwood is a big evergreen groundcover. The petals falling on this boxwood is one of my garden’s best spring moments. The mini-boxwood strips in the foreground-this year’s landscape project. The slope of the ground here made it difficult to mow the grass. The magnolias have grown considerably, and the shade they cast was not optimal for lawn. Wall stone behind them retains the soil, and in a few years, will be invisible.
The magnolias were planted to frame the view to the side yard. It is hard arrange a long view on a city lot, making visual use of the neighbor’s mature elm adds much to the illusion of distance.
The big Yew hedge divides my public landscape, from the house landscape. The big pots are centered in front of big panels of windows; I have good views from inside. The ground is carpeted with herniaria glabra-rupturewort. This plant grows like thyme, but is much more water tolerant.
