la mano aperta, la main ouverte .149

Forse e' questione di colori, di forme, altezza, struttura, trasparenza, volume, foglie a terra e terra: tutte le diverse cose che in una sola pianta formano un giardino. Vedere tutte queste cose saltando di scala in scala alla velocita' di chi le ha gia' viste tante volte ed ora le vede funzionare insieme. Come quando si guarda in trasparenza le cose e le singole loro parti sono un unico movimento in atto.

   Si tratta di guardare il verde della citta' e portarlo in palmo di mano facendo si' che le sue parti funzionino come una Unita' attraverso la loro differenziazione. Soltanto resi diversi, i singoli spazi verdi di una citta' cominciano a funzionare come Unita' ciascuno portando cio' che di particolare ha da dire.

   Aver bisogno di questa diversita' forse deve passare per quei colori e forme della prima riga.

   Non lo so, per me e' cosi', un'abitudine cominciata tempo fa. Un'abitudine a guardare. Dove le cose cominciano se le guardo, altrimenti, non che non succeda nulla, semplicemente cio' che succede mi parla di qualcosa che potrebbe essere molto migliore ed a portata di mano, ma non lo e' ancora. Ecco dove ci si lascia andare e ci si affida alla descrizione delle cose belle. E dare il nome di un colore a cio' che un attimo prima aveva ricevuto il nome che si da alle forme per poi scoprirsi a nominarlo come quando diamo nomi ai vetri e si chiama trasparenza: sono le foglie gialle, palmate e traslucide degli aceri ora che e' autunno.

   Se cominciamo a dare nomi alle cose belle le differenziamo e costruiamo la frase che ci fa entrare gia' in un racconto. Ecco come comincia un parco grande come un'intera citta'. Ecco come comincia l'unita' delle parti verdi che compongono una citta'. Comincia tutto come una descrizione in cui il contorno della nostra mano che tiene nel suo palmo l'intero Verde della citta' non riesce piu' a dire dove comincia il bordo di quel verde e dove comincia il proprio.

   L'architetto francese Le Corbusier aveva disegnato una grande mano aperta che ruotava intorno ad un piedestallo per accogliere i beni che provengono da quell'altro grande Aperto che e' il cielo, cosi' da essere attenta ad ogni direzione del vento che soffia da quel blu dove nascono le idee piu' belle e dove i pensieri ricominciano. Ecco da dove viene il titolo di questa pagina.

Keats scrisse A Song About Myself .148

A Song About Myself

I.
There was a naughty boy,
A naughty boy was he,
He would not stop at home,
He could not quiet be-
He took
In his knapsack
A book
Full of vowels
And a shirt
With some towels,
A slight cap
For night cap,
A hair brush,
Comb ditto,
New stockings
For old ones
Would split O!
This knapsack
Tight at's back
He rivetted close
And followed his nose
To the north,
To the north,
And follow'd his nose
To the north.

II.
There was a naughty boy
And a naughty boy was he,
For nothing would he do
But scribble poetry-
He took
An ink stand
In his hand
And a pen
Big as ten
In the other,
And away
In a pother
He ran
To the mountains
And fountains
And ghostes
And postes
And witches
And ditches
And wrote
In his coat
When the weather
Was cool,
Fear of gout,
And without
When the weather
Was warm-
Och the charm
When we choose
To follow one's nose
To the north,
To the north,
To follow one's nose
To the north!

III.
There was a naughty boy
And a naughty boy was he,
He kept little fishes
In washing tubs three
In spite
Of the might
Of the maid
Nor afraid
Of his Granny-good-
He often would
Hurly burly
Get up early
And go
By hook or crook
To the brook
And bring home
Miller's thumb,
Tittlebat
Not over fat,
Minnows small
As the stall
Of a glove,
Not above
The size
Of a nice
Little baby's
Little fingers-
O he made
'Twas his trade
Of fish a pretty kettle
A kettle-
A kettle
Of fish a pretty kettle
A kettle!

IV.
There was a naughty boy,
And a naughty boy was he,
He ran away to Scotland
The people for to see-
There he found
That the ground
Was as hard,
That a yard
Was as long,
That a song
Was as merry,
That a cherry
Was as red,
That lead
Was as weighty,
That fourscore
Was as eighty,
That a door
Was as wooden
As in England-
So he stood in his shoes
And he wonder'd,
He wonder'd,
He stood in his
Shoes and he wonder'd. 

John Keats



Incipit vita nova .147

Il melocotogno e' caduto... come puo' essere che il peso delle melecotogne abbia fatto cadere, sradicare, rovinare a terra il mio alberello, il melocotogno?... E dopo solo due giorni dalla rottura del melograno... E per di piu' con tutto il peso sulle anemoni ed il pero... insomma non ho potuto fare altro che una marmellata: melecotogne, mele verdi e banane in omaggio ad un albero orizzontale in giardino dal quale cresceranno ramoscelli lungo un tronco ancora attaccato al terreno sotto il quale cresceranno felci, epimedi, anemoni, anemoni, anemoni. Incipit vita nova

BBPR .146

Il melograno in giardino si e' rotto sotto il peso delle melegrane.

   Un'amica mi ricorda i BBPR. Il loro quadrato attraversato dall'aria come quando si pota un melo e si dice che tra i rami deve poter passare un uccello.

"garden me" / A writing about a wished frontier for the natural gardening

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Ecological Planting Design

Ecological Planting Design

Drifts / Fillers (Matrix) / Natural Dispersion / Intermingling with accents/ Successional Planting / Self seeding
What do these words mean? Some principles of ecological planting design. (from the book: "A New Naturalism" by C. Heatherington, J. Sargeant, Packard Publishing, Chichester)
Selection of the right plants for the specific site.
Real structural plants marked down into the Planting Plan. The other plants put randomly into the matrix: No. of plants per msq of the grid, randomly intermingling (even tall plants). Succession through the year.
Complete perennial weed control.
High planting density. Close planting allows the plants to quickly form a covering to shade out weeds.
Use perennials and grasses creating planting specifications that can be placed almost randomly.
Matrix: layers (successional planting for seasonal interest) of vegetation that make up un intermingling (random-scattering) planting scheme: below the surface, the mat forming plants happy in semi-shade, and the layer of sun-loving perennials.
Plants are placed completely randomly: planting individual plants, groups of two, or grouping plants to give the impression of their having dispersed naturally. Even more with the use of individual emergent plants (singletons) that do not self-seed, dispersed through the planting.
An intricate matrix of small plants underscores simple combinations of larger perennials placed randomly in twos or threes giving the illusion of having seeded from a larger group.
The dispersion effect is maintained and enhanced by the natural rhythm of the grasses that give consistency to the design. They flow round the garden while the taller perennials form visual anchors.
Allow self-seeding (dynamism) using a competitive static plant to prevent self-seeders from taking over: Aruncus to control self-seeding Angelica.
Sustainable plant communities based on selection (plants chosen for their suitability to the soil conditions and matched for their competitiveness) and proportions (balance ephemeral plants with static forms and combinations such as clumpforming perennials that do not need dividing: 20% ephemeral, self-seeding plants, 80% static plants) of the different species, dependent on their flowering season (a smaller numbers of early-flowering perennials, from woodland edges, which will emerge to give a carpet of green in the spring and will be happy in semi-shade later in the year, followed by a larger proportion of the taller-growing perennials which keep their form and seed-heads into the autumn and the winter).
Year-round interest and a naturalistic intermingling of plant forms.
Ecological compatibility in terms of plants suitability to the site and plants competitive ability to mach each other.
Working with seed mixes and randomly planted mixtures.
Perennials laid out in clumps and Stipa tenuissima dotted in the gaps. Over the time the grass forms drifts around the more static perennials and shrublike planting while the verbascum and kniphofia disperse naturally throughout the steppe.
Accents: Select strong, long lasting vertical forms with a good winter seed-heads. Select plants that will not self-seed, unless a natural dispersion model is required.
Planes: if designing a monoculture or with a limited palette, more competitive plants may be selected to prevent seeding of other plants into the group.
Drifts: to create drifts of naturalistic planting that are static in their shape over time use not-naturalizing, not self-seeding, not running plants.
Create naturalistic blocks for the seeding plants to drift around. For the static forms select plants that do not allow the ephemerals to seed into them.
Blocks: use not-naturalizing species, in high densities, in large groups.
Select compatible plants of similar competitiveness to allow for high-density planting (to enable planting at high density in small gardens).
Achieve rhythm by repeating colours and forms over a large-scale planting.