Vapid Gardens

I see flat tracts of land, with gardens initiated upon them. The gardens are not a reflection of the people inside. They are merely dull. The garden is not a reflection of the plants chosen. It is merely unanimated. The garden is not made out of hate, but it is insipid. The garden does not feel a deficit in any way, but it is spiritless. But one thing that these gardens are not that vapid is, is dead.

A look at the total landscape works in your neighborhood might get you wondering. Part of the problem might be the tendancy to limit landscapes to spaces worthy of the pursuit. Less prestigious places are left to lurk in the shadows.

What if a person made a garden with all these points in mind, instead of just ending up that way? Is it possible to make a vapid garden with tragic beauty?

Afterall, isn't it those areas that are abandoned and derelict in your neighbourhood the ones with the most eye candy? Do gardens always have to be happy? Can they just be interesting?

Would-be gentrifiers sometimes initiate urban de-newal through massive overplanting techniques. Take for example many gardens out of the East-Van herbaceous school. This includes massing many perennials (preferably tall) right over the sidewalk, and repeated on the boulevard. The cold rainy nights of Vancouver are made more 'interesting' through masses of dripping foliage and decaying seedheads.

These gardens are irritating, but they are not dead.

More vapidity lays across the pond in Victoria, B.C. Hanging baskets dot the tourism areas in gay abandon. Young Carpinus line the streets. It's fairly stale, but on a neighbourhood level, Victoria is a city of gardens. Victoria is not dead.

Some of the most vapid gardens are put together at the corners of gas stations. Often there is a similar theme in the median strip of the veritable freeway it is next to. This is a mainly suburban phenomenon, but in actuality knows no boundaries. These plantings have ruined Escallonias for too many.

Traffic calming in many areas requires the use of traffic circles, small roundabouts in intersections. The city of Vancouver filled the circles with soil and invited anyone who wanted to make a garden there. Some circles were planted by one gardener. Others were shared. Many more were a result of locals putting a left over bulb here, and a marigold seed there. What lived was what could live with the lack of irrigation. In at least one place in mount Pleasant, it is hard to see around the traffic circle because of massive Lavateras and Perovskia. Most contain opium poppies (!) and daffodils.

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