framing the garden view

Here are just a few more pho­tos left over from my post yes­ter­day on the Huntington’s recently-opened Chi­nese Garden.

I men­tioned how there were many lay­ers to the spaces there. The fol­low­ing are some of the doors and win­dows in the gar­den that help to frame the views and con­tribute to the sense of layering.

Leaf-shaped win­dow near the Stu­dio of Pure Scents.

Stacked por­tals of the Ter­race of the Jade Mirror.

These last two win­dows in the out­side wall, the Wall of the Col­or­ful Clouds, are inter­est­ing in that they’re not per­fect squares. The top, left and right sides form part of a square, but their bot­tom sides par­al­lel the con­tours of rolling ground where the wall is sited. Even though you’re look­ing at an ele­ment in the human-created hard­scape, this tech­nique acknowl­edges the earth where the wall stands.

Yet to come: posts on the Huntington’s Japan­ese Gar­den, Con­ser­va­tory and Desert Gar­den.

December 29 2009 | Categories: gardening • landscape design • places | Tags: • • • • | 5 Comments »

new huntington chinese garden

On the way up to Los Ange­les we had a chance to make a quick stop at the Hunt­ing­ton Library, Art Col­lec­tion and Botan­i­cal Gar­dens in San Marino. Their Chi­nese gar­den, Liu Fang Yuan, the Gar­den of Flow­ing Fra­grance, opened to the pub­lic just last year. Fund-raising is ongo­ing for a sec­ond phase of con­struc­tion, and the plants that are there are still on the young side. Still, it’s not too early to take a look at what’s being billed as the largest gar­den of its kind out­side of China.

Two stone lions guard one of the alter­nate entrances into the garden.

Hand-carved stonework and elab­o­rate hard­scape details fig­ure promi­nently in the garden’s design. It’s worth tak­ing your time to appre­ci­ate the details close up.

This walk­way resolves to the adja­cent plant­ing in swoop­ing tiled edges.

Pat­terns made from peb­bles fixed in cement take sev­eral forms. Here’s one design.

…And a detail of another designs…

…And an overview of yet another of the pat­terns using pebbles.

These hard­scape details are dense and busy. Plant­i­ngs are also fairly dense, with many kinds of plants used in a small space. Move a few feet in any direc­tion and your view of the gar­den changes radically.

The over­all effect is kalei­do­scopic, and the gar­den encour­ages active engage­ment with the space.
con­tinue reading »

December 28 2009 | Categories: gardening • landscape design • places | Tags: • • | 11 Comments »