It’s been a big movement in gardening lately – transforming your back yard into an outdoor living space. You’ve probably read about turning your garden into a series of rooms as an extension of your home’s function and décor. Magazines show seductive images of tables set al fresco showcasing mouthwatering delicacies. Some truly daring homeowners even move their boudoirs into the great outdoors, draping every reachable support with fabrics and candles.
There’s nothing like being in the great outdoors, so why try to change it? Enjoy it for what it is.
Photo Credit: Tres Fromme
You’d be hard-pressed to find the rich textures, sensual plantings and soothing sounds of this garden inside any home.
Photo Credit: Tres Fromme
Yes, these lovely vignettes certainly sparkle with all sorts of glamour. But really, how realistic are they? How many of us have the time to sit in our gardens, much less make room for such luxurious outdoor sleeping arrangements? The only napping a true gardener does outdoors is a result of exhaustion, and it rarely requires accessories worthy of a Persian desert caravan. (While I’m pressed to even find time for a nap, I’ll admit that the thought of pulling nutsedge while reclining on a divan has a flair I find a bit appealing.)
But let’s get real. I’ve got a few problems with the “taking the indoors outdoors” model of garden design. If you’re like me and you live in the real, time-pinched gardening world, you’d rather spend your time actually enjoying what outdoor spaces are uniquely able to offer.
For me it all starts with the fact that I already have a living room, bedroom, kitchen and all the other amenities of a typical house. And frankly, my yard has a limited amount of square footage, so every inch is important. Yes, I may lay some paving for a seating area and add a discrete grill for cookouts, but I don’t want another media room in my garden. In fact, I refuse to make indoor accessories a focal point of garden living.
What I do want out of my garden is all the wonder and vitality that plants bring to a place. I want plenty of space for plants so I can enjoy them in all their glory and for all their diverse uses. I want to create enclosures from hedges, get shade from trees, choreograph color schemes from perennials and delight in delectable fruit that’s freshly grown. I want to craft intimate relationships with other living things – my plants and the wildlife they draw. I relish the glorious unpredictability of a garden, waiting each spring for the first bulbs to bloom, reveling in the beauty summer brings and anticipating all the autumn fragrances of my favorite shrubs. Can any media room offer me that?
When it comes down to it, I’m not sure why people model outdoor spaces on their interior rooms. It just seems odd to me since gardens offer compelling and engaging experiences that indoor architecture is completely unable to achieve: Gardens continually and naturally change and evolve from day to day, season to season, and year to year. No indoor room can do that.
Gardens stimulate the senses with tastes, sounds, fragrances and textures – I mean really, when have you ever tried to smell your couch? Just sit in your garden for a few hours and enjoy the ever-changing relationships between light and shade, heat and cool, openness and enclosure. Truly, I’ve never been able to bask in the dappled shade of my end table, and my coffee table has never redefined my living room the way the changing fall foliage characterizes my autumn garden.
I believe that as gardeners, we need to harness the unique qualities of our outdoor spaces and the plants within them so we can explore what outdoor environments are able to offer our lives. The history of garden design and landscape architecture offers countless examples of what landscapes have that buildings lack: water features, symphonies of color, elevated vistas, sun-dappled strolls, edible fruits and flowers, and rolling lawns. The list goes on and on.
So the next time you’re looking through one of those gorgeous gardening magazines featuring a beautiful outdoor “living room,” ask yourself if that’s something you’d really enjoy. Or maybe like me, you’d rather just focus on your garden.
