Sunday, December 14, 2008

Pictures In A Crowded Closet



Maybe you can have it both ways in your garden; have good, clear views of flowering shrubs so that they photograph well, and yet have those meandering pathways, mystery, and sense of discovery in the garden that most of us like. If so, I don't have the secret.
I think our garden is an interesting one to wander about in, but it doesn't photograph worth a lick; you will notice that an unusually high percentage of the pictures in this blog are close-ups, or at best medium-range shots. When I try to show one of the shrubs or trees, more often than not I show one branch, which pretty much gets lost in the picture in the surrounding background tangle. Once a reader asked me to post a full picture of an uncommon shrub, and I finally just gave up; it was hemmed in on one side by a hydrangea, on the other side by a double-file viburnum, overhung by an amur maple, and a red climbing rose draped over it. It's like trying to take a photograph in a crowded closet. Last year, a charming gal from Chicago stopped in for a garden tour; she works for a publishing company that puts out a couple of well-known garden magazines, and her job is to travel about and find gardens to photograph and feature in these magazines. I told her that our garden just doesn't photograph well, but she stopped by anyway, and took some snapshots that she would share with her editors, and they would get back to me if they wanted to formally photograph the garden. I suspect they had a good laugh trying to pick out the flowers in the jungle; sort of like 'Where's Waldo?" Needless to say, I've not yet heard back from them; perhaps they are waiting until they start their new magazine, "Midwest Gardens Close-up".

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Comments:
I think your garden paths are charming and beautiful. :) I'd love to be able to stroll through them any time.
 
I love your lush garden look, with many layers. The winding paths taking you on the tour are well done. In your photos, I get the urge to peek around the corner at the end of the path. It would be perfect for a woodland garden issue. If they showcased you plants, it would be a very long article.
 
What a good idea--a REAL garden magazine, with REAL plant life, aka natural plant specimans doing natural things. I think that's what yer getting at, right? Still and honor to have someone think enough to stop by, even if your photos are now on a corporate dart bored.
 
Your gardens are beautiful! Crowded? Only complementarily (did I make a new word?) so. Besides, if you'd ever peek in one of my closets (heaven forbid), you'd find Much Denser Clutter! In this world of acronyms, that would be MDC! ;-)
 
Nancy... you have an open invitation, if you ever get to Iowa (come for the cornfest, stay to see my garden).

Northern... that's what I most have tried to achieve; sort of the garden as a journey.

Benjamin... I think one of the bad things that has happened to gardening is that the magazines are geared towards selling expensive "stuff" in their ads, and their articles.I've pretty much dropped all my subscriptions, because the articles are just fluff.

Shady... we just like dense planting.

Don
 
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