Sunday, August 24, 2008

Ramblings in Gardening

A View from Federal Twist - Ramblings of a "New American" Gardener is the blog of the New York gardener James Golden written about his own garden and, as the title shows, about his ramblings in other gardens. All the pictures below are of him.

I found his blog by way of someone who came from there to mine. I visited it, and I was absolutely amazed that someone on the other end of the world composed the garden of my dreams.

Although it is not easy for him either. He has to cope with a heavy, wet clay, and he can dedicate time to his own garden only in the weekends.

Our taste is so similar that the second link in his blog is my favorite Canadian nursery specialized in grasses and willows, the Bluestem Nurserey. But this is not the only one among my favorites that I have found at him.

This picture of James recalls my great ideal, the garden of Beth Chatto. (You are invited to visit the page composed with the pictures of the Beth Chatto Gardens on our homepage Hortus Carmeli.)

And as you can predict on the basis of the pictures, I also found on his page the gardener from whom I learned the most besides Beth Chatto, Piet Oudolf. (Check his page by all means! And then, for a further visit, check the page of a Dutch nursery with a lot of beautiful pictures of him. And as his books are absolutely unavailable at us in Hungary, here you are the Timber Press – just now I see that this is also one of James Golden’s keywords – where you can order them. I have no experience with them, I bought my own copies in Britain.)

One of James’ August posts is for example about a work by Piet Oudolf in the Battery Gardens that I have already saved as a link. It was very interesting to see the same through the eyes of James.

And as one can suspect from the large amount of grasses, Noel Kingsbury is also a recurrent guest in James Golden’s blog. I learned a lot from his book written together with Piet Oudolf (Gardening with Grasses, Frances Lincoln 1998). I can recommend it to everybody who wants to do something with grasses. And the world is small: the foreword was written by Beth Chatto. They chose their motto from Ernst Pagel. He is a fantastic German gardener from the former German Democratic Republic. He has no homepage, but you can buy his plants at Gaissmayer. He himself refers to another wonderful German gardener, Karl Foerster, whose plants are also on sale at Gaissmayer. Beth Chatto considers Foerster as her master, while Piet Oudolf simply calls him my hero.

And another gardener from whom I have learned a lot about the meaning of freedom in the garden: Dan Pearson. He is also known to the Hungarian public through his book A modern kertművészet (The art of modern gardens) (Park Könyvkiadó 1999). And a famous name, John Brookes. He was the first English gardener known to me, and now as I already know more about gardening, I see how excellent he is, too.

And finally back to the Old World. On the blog of James Golden there is also a German garden, the Hermanshoff that I knew from the journal of the English Royal Horticultural Society, the Garden. Exactly that blend of sensitivity and thoroughnes that I love so much in German culture.

In the blog Neues von Lindenhof that I found in the last autumn, on October 16, 2007 there was a detailed report with many pictures about Hermanshoff. The blog of Lis is also worth to follow. I love her own garden, too, but she also regularly gives account of various gardens and gardening events. And – just to round the world off – the Gaissmayer nursery, who sell the plants of Ernst Pagel and Karl Foerster, the masters of Beth Chatto, Piet Oudolf and James Golden, regularly participates at these events.

2 comments:

Anne Marie said...

Yonaput!
I am of Hungarian Decent, and I just absolutely love your gardens. I am told, that I am very much like my nudmama from Hungary - from the Buda Hills - who loved gardening -
I posted an article on my Hungarian Grandfather calle 'having a dig in the garden' that I would love to share with you at my blog: http://nadafarm.wordpress.com
Blessings and Peace.
Anne Marie (Anushka)

Templom Kata said...

Dear Anushka (or, in Hungarian, Annuska),

Please forgive me that I answer only now, but my computer got damaged and just now I installed the new one. I was very happy to read your post. It is so good to find a relative so far away. I had a look at your page, and I found it so beautiful not only because it reminds me of my village childhood, but also because I find so beautiful all that life that you live there. I have also read your post on your grandmother. It is wonderful. I am convinced she is proud of you, too. I wish you that your granddaughter may write something like this about you many years later.

With love, Kata