Yseult Ogilvie to Niall Hobhouse
As I mentioned I am conflicted.
What isĀ a garden? Inevitably all gardens are a form of artifice. And in Britain barely a blade of grass does not bear man’s smudge. One of my favourite landscapes is the Mojave Desert, the place evinced no cultural meaning in terms of the Western model. Of course the Paiute Indians would have had another dialectic, mapping their world via a network of natural cisterns, the intimate geometry of which protected the precious commodity of water against the process of evaporation. People get drowned in the desert, there are flash-floods where the parched surface is unable to take up the water. Cars get tumbled, which is unimaginable when standing on the rough ground of caliche. And the plant life is extraordinarily varied: Atriplex, which I can only describe as Bruegel-green (with a bit of bling) secretes salt crystals onto the surface of its leaves, to act as tiny reflecters against the brutal sun. Pinyon and creosote bushes, thorn-apple, and Joshua trees all clutch at life. There are strange, brittle ferns unfurling in the deep shade, while up high, where the air thins, a tonsure of pine fringes the mountains. And in spring the desert bursts into bloom, if there has been sufficient rain, if not the seeds can lie dormant for years. To the gardener, seeing plants express their peculiar adaptations is one of the great pleasures of travelling. And what have the Las Vegans done in their gardens? They have planted lawns and roses, and spawned a plague of golf courses, as if they were anywhere on earth but a desert. At Hadspen, is the proposed geometry, particular enough to the site? Will it be understood? Is that important? What is a garden?