Depicting mood = Sorrow, in the garden

I once read a book or magazine article telling one how to create a garden that connoted an air of "melancholy", or "sorrow"....but I've long since forgotten the title of the book or article. Does anyone know WHERE I can find such a resource? (The only 2 tips I remember from my reading, were, to use "weeping" trees and Iris in dark maroons & dark colors....)

Don't know, but it sounds very interesting. Believe purple was a Victorian colour of mourning.

Not the same thing, but the saddest garden is an abandoned garden, as happens when the gardener becomes too infirm or passes on.

interesting.

Here's a discussion and story on it...
http://www.suite101.com/discussion.cfm/garden_design/84476
http://www.onesanctuary.com/sanctuary/gardensanctuary/moodgarden.pdf

Further to the references, I tend to associate sorrow with bereavement and hope I'm deeply sympathetic to those in this condition. At the same time, I don't identify with the (apparently poetic) "Pleasures of Melancholy".

Perhaps melancholy and sorrow have different connotations. To "hide away away in the comfort of darkness and shadows" would seem to be related to the former. Tombstones and pet burials would seem to be related to the latter.

Maybe the two should be separated out?
Or perhaps I have no imagination!

i like these ideas. i'm not sure about the tombstones though?

I love this idea, and I would think that any emotion can be conveyed in an artistic way in the garden. For sorrow, hanging "bell" or "teardrop" shaped flowers would be good. Darker colors, too, especially dark foliage.

This gets me to thinking about other ideas like a "Joy" garden, or an "Anger" garden, or a "Love" garden...any emotion could be translated to artistic gardening...

For years, the night blooming garden plants have been referred to as Tranquility and Romance plantings. Gorze. I searched around for a while looking for leads on your article, but no luck. What I did find goes to what JulieQ is saying.

We associate certain things/words with various emotions...."sunny disposition" "Cheery color", etc. You can translate that into garden plantings, for example: a "happy" garden would be full of color, usually red/yellow/orange and plants that embody that emotion such as Daisies, and freckle faced tiger lilies, clown face torenias, day-lilies, and shrubs that bloom and attract butterflies and humming birds...

So, for your Melancholy garden, plant things that evoke that emotion....darker colors of the red/purple families, herbs whose fragrance remind you of times gone by, like lavender and rosemary remind me of my long gone grandmother...melancholia is not necessarily just grief, but a momentary sadness for things that are no more.

Must say I like happy, but would question it's association primarily with what have been called the hot colours of summer and also specific plants. The softer? spring colours of lungbanes, jacob's ladders, brunnera and forget-me-nots and the like make me happy. This is in part, I guess, because we have colour in the garden again.

Being sad (the poetic? kind) in fall is mentioned in one of the articles referenced. Must say I'm happy in fall because we're looking at a forced break from physical gardening.

What I'm saying, I think, is it's very subjective to identify specific plants as inducing happiness, or whatever. I know the following is not the case here, but I'm downright hostile to follow-the-leader (e.g. Gertrude Jekyll) colour preferences.

I agree, Sunny, but my examples were generalizations from the language. In garden articles, "happy, cheery" words are used to describe those plants and colors, oft-times. It is, as are all individual gardens, a subjective choice rather than a dictated choice, as very few gardeners want paint-by-number plantings a'la Ms, Jekyll, despite her knowledge and success.

This thread is so wonderful, might i suggest people post some pix of moods from their gardens? It would be so great to see what different people see in their own plantings.

Accept your point, Moonhowl. Like your comment on the Jekyll approach.

Friend of mine has major peeve about many garden articles being written by journalists who are not gardeners, but I'm off-topic.

Good suggestion, Wonderearth. I'm certainly interested to see how different gardeners react to a garden or garden feature.

For me a woodland garden can be melancholy, but one of my favorites. Woodland "ephemerals" are fleeting beauties to be remembered the rest of the year.

Woodland gardens are truly 4 seasons of memories, especially those that encourage your attention with small and interesting plantings that peek out through-out the year. I tend to remember things forward in the garden....probably has something to do with my optimism.

Ephemerals (trilliums) in woodland,
behind a garden,
in Aurora, On (May 2009).

Part of a friend's garden:
Merlin's Hollow, Aurora,
June 2009.
Tranquil?

A currently nicer bit of the front garden (late August 2009).
Hope it says; "Be happy".

It absolutely says Happy. the reds and yellows are bright and snappy, the blues are pleasant pauses.Nice bed.

Sunnyboarders, Love your cheerful garden. Job well done.
confussedlady

SunnyBorders, I think your picture of "Be Happy" is beautiful, but I must say that the colors are more vivid than what I consider when thinking of "happiness". To quote you in an earlier post: "the softer spring colors" rather than the "hot colors of summer:"

The bright colors make me feel energized and alive. What would that emotion be called?
May be a fine line here and artistic tastes do differ! haha

I think this is a great discussion and wonder if any botanical gardens have tried to depict
emotions in the garden...

I love all of these thanks SunnyB! This is one of the most interesting threads I have seen in a while. Just food for thought -- has anyone ever seen an angry garden? Maybe lots of red and thorns and sword shaped leaves? Geometrical plants? Strange to think of. It would be striking I bet. Slightly unsettling maybe? lol.

Like your associations, Julie, 'happy' versus 'energized/alive'. Lot better than 'happy' versus 'wired'!

Don't know about botanical gardens, but gardens and artists come to mind, especially the Impressionists. Monet, particularly, was a dedicated gardener. He produced over 300 paintings of his garden. Don't know much about art, but the feeling I get from the Impressionist art that I've seen brings both happiness and joie de vivre together.

Don't know about 'angry', but have seen slides of surrealist gardens. I think I've got this right, but surrealist art may depict situations as ominous and threatening. Think I was told that it was hardscape (walls, etc,) that was particularly used to produce the intimidating aspect of 'the surrealist garden'.

Sunnyborders, very thoughtful...I've always loved Monet's work, and his gardens. Have you noticed his later work when he was losing his eyesight is much darker? Darker colors and to me it seemed like a darker mood.
I have a semi weeping crabapple tree, each season this tree means something else to me. Right now it's making it's red berries as a bounty for the birds in winter, a gift before dormancy.

I never thought about gardens being therapeutic, but now that I've heard your inputs I know why I love it so much. A mad garden hummm sure would beat having a punching bag in my eyes lol. You guys are tops in my book.

Something i have noticed over the years is the trend in decorating to "bring the outside in" and in most cases the first thing that is done is to "mute" or "de-intensify" colors for interior use.This has to do with the difference in colors seen in sunlight and artificial light.
Julie suggested your garden made her feel energized/alive....is this not considered part of an overall sense of happiness? I think you have to look at the definitions of the actual word....Happy, a sense of well-being, joy, an up-lifted emotion; as opposed to content, a sense of calm acceptance for the status quo, to be at peace with one's situation, harmony.
There are shades of emotion just as there are shades of a color....and designers have discovered this. Imagine painting all 4 walls the bright rich yellow of your rudbeckias as opposed to stepping that color down to a softer yellow. In the garden the words cheerful and bright come to mind....in a home, jarring and vivid come to mind.
Surrealist art is a form that takes you from the "known" to the 'imagined/unknown" an art form that moves you from your comfort zone and leaves you with a sense of being"unsettled".

Very interesting, Lynnie.
Going to take a look at that.
Guess a question would be, is the darker due to seeing more darkly, or feeling darker, or both (as you imply).

The mood is coming back to Gorse2's original question re melancholy and sorrow.

But also totally agree that this is a 'big' thread. There are so many interesting things to include and so many interesting opinions, and feelings!, to consider.

At the time when I was looking at it I thought he was angry about losing his eyesight, but maybe the gardens literally looked darker and he wasn't angry? I've never had ANY art training, that was just an observation and I've never read any autibiographies on Monet, maybe now I will though! I've been a big admirer,but I like to make my own opinions before reading input from serious critcs.
Totally spot on Moon about surrealism...
Energized....I can be energized from joy or anger lol I prefer joy.

I am might be creating a whole new garden soon and this is all such good food for thought. I found myself filled with thoughts of what goes where and potting sheds and what plants I already have in pots that could be used and such very practical thinking, how much of the beds and in what formation should i devote to annuals and self seeders.... this is a whole other frame of mind to consider and I like it. Now to go on site and see what spots are leaning towards what moods. Very sophisticated. lol
I do think a shady lily pond underneath a weeping willow a la monet would be the perfect place to be melancholy.

I like to weed when I'm mad.

this one is dark almost creepy to me

Lynnie, while I agree that anger can create a sense of energy....it rarely evokes feelings of being "alive" as much as it does twigging our senses of justice/injustice, vengence/revenge or moral outrage...and while we may feel invigorated, it is , I think, more from the determination to set things right than from any sense of being 'alive"....IMHO. and you know how opinionated I am....GRIN

I think in the case of Monet, given his previous works, it was more a matter of his impending loss of vision changing his perception of color, and perhaps that gave his work a darkness perceived by the viewer rather than the artist.

Then, of course, there are the perceptions of Melancholy and Nostalgia.....(discuss) grin

an interesting thread, people.

I can offer an observation. my dh is an artist. most of his work is abstract, but yet you can see images in the chaos. (that's HIS word)

I've noticed I can tell his emotions about the paintings by the colors he uses. He may tell me what the painting is about, but I can see the colors followed after, a natural progression for the work.

So opposed to picking out plants by color to convey an emotion, I think if the gardener were to pick out the plants (subject matter) by emotion, the colors would follow.

I don't know if my fingers explained what my mind meant.

angry weeding...been there done that wonderearth!
I'm on coffee break from cooking/cleaning for I don't know, 50, 60 people coming in less than an hour lol but I'm looking forward to coming back!
But I'll just throw this out before I go...our own perceptions color the mood of the garden, too. An all white garden may look melancholy to one person, calm to another person, and boring to yet another.

excellent observation Lynnie.

The shape, texture & foliage of the plants?
(Really going now! Peopel are coming! lol)

no formal art training doesn't mean you're not artistic Lynnie!

My garden was happy mostly yellows, blues and red now I want to add black lilies and black columbine guess that part of garden will be the sad side of me.

Some very interesting comments.

Returning briefly to the gardens I saw presented as surrealist, they emphasized hardscape, not plants. One was a roof garden, in Paris, with a few strategically placed pieces of furniture. They were all stark, which I guess was intended to unsettle (as Moon says), or maybe shock the viewer.

This leads to: what is a garden? Can it be all hardscape, or trees and hedges, with no flowers. My kind of gardening is mixed perennial gardening with deep beds, lots of different plants and changing colours through the growing season. Don't like statuary, stone work, objet d'art and the like, in the garden, as I feel it detracts from the flowers.

Like the idea of planting like Monet did for a composition, like painting with flowers. Of course, Monet could then paint wonderful scenes of his painting.

Haven't read much on the history of melancholy gardens. Judging from the poem the "Pleasures of Melancholy" (1745), referenced above, formal? melancholy (melancholia) gardens seem dated.

This message was edited Sep 7, 2009 1:31 PM

I have a little bit of everything. It's a mishmosh backyard. Mostly pinks and purples, which is strange because I didn't plan it that way. I wonder what that means??

SunnyB, that's a great line: painting with flowers. It just inspired me to re-think next spring.