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Secret Gardens

© Carol Wallace

Open the door in that high brick wall and step into an enchanted place, away from the cares of the day, alone with the sun and the birds and the flowers and plants, shielded from the world. The secret garden, where all is beauty and cares are not invited to intrude. A dream for most of us, and a reality for all too few.

Somehow our notion of secret gardens seem to have been molded by the book of that name. (And if you haven't read it yet, look here). Few of us have those mellowed brick walls handy — unless they're the walls of our house. Walled gardens aren't exactly common in 1997. But there are other ways to create a hidden place to escape from time for a while. What you really need is a sense of enclosure.

If you have a big budget and the space, you could create a maze. Don't give the map to anyone else, and you will always have a private retreat in the center. It's a tempting thought, but perhaps a bit out of range for most of us.

A hedge, however, doesn' t have to be yew or box. It only has to be about six to seven feet tall and relatively dense. I used buddleia to create a living wall around one of my gardens. Tall grasses also work well. Your secret garden won't be very secret in spring, if you live in the north as I do, but by the time you're done with the spring and early summer rush of garden work and ready to sit back and relax, your garden will be enclosed.

I am truly fortunate in that given the layout of our property and the established buildings and plantings, I have been able to create not one but three secret gardens. I didn't even know one was a secret until after it was done.

My first "garden" was a line of roses in front of the stone foundation of a barn we had to knock down. The foundation is about five feet tall and forms an L-shape that eventually became the walled half of my secret garden. When the gardening bug really bit, I created a matching garden opposite it, built in a raised bed surrounded by a drywall of fieldstone that matched the barn foundation. This garden is the one backed by buddleia. Viewed from the house, these shrubs entirely hide the garden, and appear to be the side boundary of our property. But walk closer and you'll see a rose-covered arbor. Walk through it and you find a garden, complete with pond.

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