Comprising a Life
The Bonsai, Travels and Haiku of Vaughn Banting
Garden renovation of a country hide-away
This project was done for a client in uptown
Among other things I wanted to do with the property was to create a "folly" somewhere within its boundries and I decided to locate it right in the middle of the woods. The folly would consist of parcially exposed pottery artifacts of a classical nature, haphazardly strewn about the woods so as to hopefully suggest the remnants of a lost civilization.
A grouping of like-styled urns would be placed on the corner of the pool deck to suggest they had been excavated from those same woods.
Then trails would be cut through the woods to give guests the opportunity to discover each these artifacts by themselves and eventually the trappings of an archeological dig which would tie whole illusion togeather.
I also in some part wanted to use native or woodsy looking plant materals like Parrotia persica, so the house would seem less strange in its environment.
Since I was no longer able to balance on a shovel, I decided I would go around and document the project's progress; thus the stage by stage (perhaps to a falt) nature of the photograghs below.
I had already survived the removal of two brain tumors by the time this picture was taken but was still walking well enough to direct the project
To create a focal point for this curving mossed-over river of grass, I used a style of Japanese lantern normaly found arching out over water
In keeping with trying to use as much native material as possible, I used Stewartia across the front right wing of the house with an American Holly in the corner.
Mapping out the curving lawn, connecting the pool area to the guest house useing liriope as a common element (as it has been used through out the design).
