Rosemary Verey OBE and Water Gardens Formal Pools
continued from FOR SAFETYS SAKE
And very often you may be likely to see children rushing, they think, Ah! This is another bit of grass.They could easily slip into it. I had an amusing American from Atlanta, Georgia do that very thing. He was demonstrating [gesticulating with the arms] ... and just took one more step and thought he was walking onto what was just another bit of grass, but in fact it was the water lilies.... And dogs and children will do just the same. So do not totally cover the surface of the water.
Really water gardening, plants, special plants of the water, are a whole new aspect of gardening for me. If ever Im going to do that and put a lot of different water plants in so that I had flowers as well as leaves, I know I would have to go to a special nursery that sells them and really concentrate and really work on it. But for me, Ive got my mixed borders, my wilderness, tree and shrubs and I havent really got into concentrating on which plants we should grow in the pond. and would have a lot of different flowering plants in it.....But they would all be in their own special place so that there was water around them. Think about Giverny where all those marvellous water lily plants were planted.
Rosemary Verey, OBE
I think now that Im 81 that I havent really got time to do it. But you absolutely never know. I may suddenly wake up and say this is the moment I would like to have a pond.
They were really planted from about 1890 onwards when Monet decided he wanted to put more and more water lilies into his pond. They were like floating individual islands. When he was alive one of his gardeners used to go round every morning in a boat and make these clumps into perfect shapes. Then the effect was really whether they were reflections or the real thing. If you havent been to Monets garden, do go. Monet was very much influenced by Latour-Marliac who exhibited at the Paris Exhibition in 1887. So maybe one day Ill be bowled over by lilies like Monet was.
With water in the garden also comes a lot of wildlife. Even if you have a formal pool, you are going to get the dragonflies, other insect, frogs newts and you can keep your goldfish in it... If you do have goldfish, for heavens sake, take care that you are not just feeding the herons. We do a very good job of feeding our local herons in spite of the fact that we try and put up trip wires and things.
Formal pools should be guided by the shape of the garden and must be in perfect proportion to the area in which they are sited. You don't want it too big; you don't want it so small it becomes insignificant. Work it out. Get pieces of string and lay it out, by eye possibly. Or if you are into drawing, draw out the size of your bit of garden and put the formal pond in place.
If it is formal, do think about different textures of the edging. You can have lovely stone; cut stone and then beside the cut stone you can have just a little rill of gravel, and beside the rill of gravel you could have green grass. So then youve got three different textures, all of which adds to the excitement of the water.
Consider the colour of the inside of the pool. Nothing is more ghastly than some of the swimming pools that have got bright blue painted bottoms and surfaces. It is much better, I think, to give the inside of your pond (even if it is formal) a natural look. The formal pond in Warehill in New York, in order to make it look really deep, it has got some special black dye put into it that helps give it a feeling that it is infinitely deep.
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With informal ponds- again the shape and size of that would be governed by the surroundings in the garden and the rest of the garden. I was very impressed by Countess Munster who had the most wonderful garden in Oxfordshire, in Bampton. When she was making a new pond, an informal pond, in the corner of her garden, she puzzled over it for a long time. She had a Sycamore tree, or some such tree, just about where she was going to make a pond, and so she stood back one day and she drew a design of where [the shadow of ] this tree came at 4oclock in the afternoon, so that it was slightly on a slant. It was a perfect shape.
Then youve got to consider with an informal pond, how is it going to be edged? You cant have the soil all falling in. So you want to plant it up enough just to keep the banks of your pond solid and stable. You have a choice of many beautiful water Iris, flowering rush, and scented rush.
Be sure not to make your water garden dangerous for young children at play. I immediately think of a garden in Charleston, South Carolina. Although it is a tiny garden, its divided into 3 sections, all pretty small. In the middle section, it has got a round pond but it is only about half an inch deep, which means birds have always got somewhere to drink and splash, and youve still got the reflections. What is more it is relatively easy to clean out. Thats a sort of small pond that is safe, if you are nervous that your children may fall in. Do try to devise a way that is not dangerous for them.
One way would be to have a water feature on the wall, which drips down perhaps into a water trough or something. Do make it that if you have children 3,4 or 5 they cant put their heads into it. It is very important.
Why not make a safe waterscape with a half whiskey barrel, water and put in one of those marvellous small water lilies that only need 6ins of water. If you are going to do that then choose carefully. My mother always said whatever you do, always choose the best. So always choose the best water lily for the purpose, considering the depth of water and the spread it needs. If it was one that opened in the evening and has a good scent, you could pick one and put it on your dining room table if you have dinner party. Think about all these things, there are infinite possibilities.
Rosemary Verey (Author, Garden Designer And Gardening Guru To Prince Charles) At Her Internationaly Famous Garden At Barnsley House In Gloucestershire Talks to Peter J May About Her Life In Relation To Water Gardens.
Rosemary Verey was a famous British garden designer and writer (born Dec. 21, 1918, Chatham, Kent, England and died May 31, 2001, London, England)