Monday, January 28, 2008

The Art of More Paths

Lawns can be more than just a lawn in a garden.
A garden is are considered to be made up of trees, plants, flowers and flower beds. Certainly all of these elements are an integral and important part of a garden. Sometimes, lawns are sometimes looked upon as just the green stuff, the filler if you will between the flamboyant and colourful beds of well-designed and beautiful flowers and shrubs.

But, in reality, the lawn is more than just filler. It is the adhesive that binds all these sometimes diverse and varied elements together. The lawn can be a frame for the flowers. And, it can be the canvas on which the garden is painted.

We visited the Brookgreen Gardens in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina a few years ago. Here in addition to being the background for the camellias and azaleas, the lawns are also there to enhance the many figurative statues that grace the 9,200 acre site.

The photo I took is of the The Live Oak Allee garden. These 250 year old live oaks trees were planted in the early 1700s when Brookgreen Gardens was a thriving rice plantation. These inspiring matriarchs frame this garden space like a living cathedral. But here, also the lawn is an important element in allowing the visitor to take in all the beauty.

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