by David Saladino, master gardener, creator and caretaker of the garden
The new Union Church Memorial Garden came about when the old garden was impacted during the 2012 renovation, part of which was to put in new drainage in this area.
The making of the new garden was the most difficult project I’ve ever undertaken; a job with many hurdles to overcome before actual work on the garden could proceed. Some of these include having to overcoming compaction of the heavy wet clay, the discovery of a steam tunnel under the concrete sidewalk spanning the doors between chapel and limited sunlight.
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The New Garden
My vision for the new area was to be in the style of a modified English Cottage Garden. The path would be a flagstone walk leading from both doors to an oval center, containing specimen plantings, with the walk continuing on in a graceful curve toward Boone Tavern.
Sunlight was in short supply due to the “walls” actually being the W. and E sides of the church that framed the 30’ wide rectangular space. Available light, in such confinement, was in short supply at all times of the day save the middle four hours of high summer.
Here are some thoughts about what constitutes a Modified English Cottage Garden…
The cottage garden is a style that uses informal design, traditional materials, dense plantings, and a mixture of ornamental plants, shrubs and trees.
This style is informal – with plants tumbling over each other contained by fences or walls and walkways that wend their way through the habitat.
Hardscape details – A picket fence, an iron gate, a brick or stone pathway, or perhaps a traditional arched arbor can instantly create the feeling of a quaint, old-time garden. Benches, flower urns, other garden accessories and structures heighten the sense of style underpinning and framing the plantings.
Profusion of plants – Abundance, exuberance, and jumbled are words that might describe the way plants fill and overflow the beds. Ground covers form lush mats of vegetation from which trees, shrubs and perennials rise.
Roses – The planting scheme benefits from the addition of roses from the heritage/heirloom types with many petals to the single shrub roses, that give an air of architectural grace seen around traditional homes in earlier times.
A Blending of Formality and Informality – This effect is achieved by hard structures such as benches, walls and walks, or large stones—two of which are located in the Garden—upon which bronze plagues are mounted containing names of church members who have passed that loved ones remember and pay tribute to—as well as evergreens that maintain their formal structure throughout the year, but especially winter. And a place where larger shrubs and small trees, whose leaves change color with the seasons, provide a stately skeletal design during the bleak months of the year.
The Effect – Entering such a garden space invites reflection on simpler times where the cares and pressures of modern life are set aside and exchanged for tranquil reflection and communion of souls.
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