African-American Gardens - Design and Development: Part 3

Richard Westmacott, professor of Environmental Design, University of Georgia (Athens)in his book African-American Gardens and Yards in the Rural South, begins to put together answers to these questions. To accomplish this, he conducted a study with participants from the deep South - places in the low country of South Carolina, the southern piedmont area of Georgia and the black belt of Alabama.

He organized descriptions and analyses of yard space and use in forty-seven homes from these southern rural communities. He breaks down and analyses the design of these living and working spaces - everyday gardens that demonstrate customs and traditions that the owners probably use without thinking too much about them.

Westmacott, born and educated in Great Britain, maintains interests begun there in rural history and development, and vernacular gardens. Now living and working in the United States, Westmacott brings fresh eyes in his observations of gardens in the rural south. Smithsonian Institution anthropologist Theresa A. Singleton, in her preface to this book, compares Westmacott's observations to those of Frederick Law Olmstead who recorded, in the late 19th century, details of southern life that native southerners took for granted. Singleton, author of Archaeology of Slavery and Plantation Life, also states that Westmacott's work is a major source of information on African-American gardens that will be a foundation for more research.

What are some characteristics of the gardening traditions Westmacott discovered in his work?

• A confident or unselfconscious approach to how yard space is used;
  
• Shrubs set out as individuals rather than in groups, hedges or foundation shrubs;
  
• Yards swept bare;
  
• Discarded household objects used as planters or ornamentation.

I don't do it because it's my way or the African way. I just do it because that's the way I like it being done is the matter of fact or unselfconscious way Sara Johnson (Georgia) describes her garden style.

Westmacott also says he found ...little obvious evidence of African beliefs among black gardeners. A car trip for any traditional gardener through rural areas and neighborhoods also reveals that yard space is most often used without regard to gardening books, magazines, or other conventional exchanges of ideas.