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Uniquely American: Great Gardens of America
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What makes American gardens ‘American’?
That is the question author Tim Richardson seeks to answer in his stunning new book Great Gardens of America.
Richardson’s tour of America’s great gardens includes historic properties such as Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello in Charleston, Virginia, and Middleton Place outside of Charleston, South Carolina. But he also includes more unusual gardens, such as the Donnell Garden in Sonoma, California with the “most beautiful swimming pool in the world” and the wonderfully stark Baja Garden in the Sonoran Desert surrounding Phoenix, Arizona.
But what makes these gardens uniquely American?
By contrasting them with the historic and famous gardens of Europe, which heavily influenced the design of many American gardens, Richardson concludes that American gardens embrace what he calls the “wilderness ideal.” Sweeping vistas that celebrate the unbounded feel of American wilderness are celebrated by American garden makers. In contrast, says Richardson, even the most naturalistic of European gardens display nature as carefully managed and under control rather than wild.
Richardson explains:
In Britain, for example, from the medieval period, another word for wilderness or unfenced land was ‘waste’; it was considered the domain of bandits and dangerous wild animals. In America such places early on became synonymous instead with the idea of plenitude and potential…
American gardens as celebrating the wildness of nature is a theme that Richardson revisits throughout the tour of the 25 gardens showcased in the book.
The photographs in the book are by Andrea Jones, an acclaimed photographer who also produced the sumptuous volume Plantworlds.
Don’t mistake Great Gardens of America as a dry an academic treatise or just another coffee table book though. Richardson’s writing is well-researched and often sprinkled with a wry phrase that makes you chuckle when you least expect it. He manages to convey the expanse and feel of the gardens’ character through his narrative—a not insignificant task, if you’ve ever tried describing a garden. There is much to learn from his descriptions and his overarching theme of the American garden as embracing wilderness.
Don’t miss the slide show of some of the book’s most mouth-watering images.
You can reach Robin at gardeningexaminer@gmail.com and can follow her on Twitter at @RobinRipley. You can read her food columns at the D.C. Fresh Foods Examiner.
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