Lois de Vries' Garden Views

Meet me at Flower Fest on April 9th at the Ocean County Library, 101 Washington St, in Toms River, NJ, where I'll be presenting Cultivating the Inner Gardener, an illustrated talk that focuses on how gardening from the inside out creates a personal space that is not only beautiful and healthy, but also provides a sanctuary from today's hectic world. The presentation includes photos of gardens that hold special meaning for their owners and shows how they have incorporated their own values and fondest memories to produce a garden rich in personal meaning. Flower Fest is the library's celebration of the arrival of spring with displays from local garden clubs, horticultural societies, florists, and environmental organizations who will show visitors some gardening tricks, flower arranging, ways to have an eco-friendly garden, and much more. For more information, contact Scott Walker by phone (732) 349-6200, ext. 5914 or e-mail swalker@theoceancountylibrary.org .

 Informal design and balance  The irregular, curved lines of beds and paths in informal gardens contrast sharply with the geometrical lines of formal gardens. Similarly, the look conveyed by overflowing sprays of flowers, shrubs, and ornamental grasses left to grow into their natural sizes and shapes is strikingly softer than that of a formal box hedge smartly clipped into a perfect trapezoid. Among the styles of informal gardens are cottage, woodland, meadow, and wild. Despite their grand scale, gardens designed by William Robinson, Gertrude Jekyll, Monet, and Vita Sackville-West typify our concept of informal design and the cottage style. Such gardens may appear deceptively casual, even though they have a definite underlying structure. Once again, making a choice between symmetrical and asymmetrical balance comes into play. The most easily understood example is a cottage dooryard garden. The beds on either side of the entry may be the same size and shape (symmetrically ...