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Unity - Part 6 - Form

© Kirk Johnson

This is the sixth in a series on how to create a garden that is a unified work of art.

Garden design is often compared with painting because of the way that colors can be used to compose a garden "picture", but gardening is really closer to sculpture. Unlike paintings, most gardens are intended to be moved through, to be experienced in three dimensions.

We experience form as the contrast between positive and negative space. Positive space is anything solid, we ourselves are positive space, when we move through our gardens, we are part of the positive space in the garden. Negative space is open space, what we are able to move through or put our hands through. Our perception of positive and negative space is totally human, for example to us a lawn is negative space because we move easily across a lawn, to an insect, the same lawn may feel like it is mainly negative space as they have to walk around each blade of grass. Negative space defines positive space, the point where positive space stops intruding into negative space is the outline that we perceive as form. If all of your garden was positive space, you couldn't even breathe in it, there would be no air. Visually, negative space gives the garden "breathing room", a garden which lacks such spaces will feel claustrophobic. It is often effective for parts of the garden to have this claustrophobic feel, but then it is very important to have open areas or "breathing rooms".

Like sculptors, we use both additive and subtractive methods when shaping our gardens. We use the additive method most often, every plant that grows upward into the air displaces negative space. When we pile earth or build walls and other garden structures, we are also sculpting using the additive method. When we excavate the earth, we are sculpting using the subtractive method, we are also doing this when we prune. When we reduce a plant's size or open up a plant to expose the plant's structure, we are taking away positive space and adding negative space. When we excavate to create a pond we are using the subtractive method, when we fill the excavation with water, we are using the additive method. Part of our fascination with water is that when we are looking at the still surface of a pond we see it as a solid, but we know that we can move through water. Like a lawn, a pond will create visual negative space, even though we can't walk on the surface of the water, at least during the growing season. For a part of a garden to feel like negative space, it is not necessary that we really be able to move through the entire space, but the taller the plants, the more closed in the space will feel. If the plants are higher than the visitors knees, they will start to experience a claustrophobic feeling. It is important to remember that all of your garden's visitors will probably not be the same height, to create a "breathing room" in your garden, the plants in this area should not be taller than a toddler's knees.

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