Moreover, can we find a balance between chaos and order in our garden design, and benefit from the exciting tension that results, instead of boxing ourselves (or being boxed) into one aesthetic or the other?

I believe that intentional order and serendipitous chaos can exist together and — dare I say — should exist together in good garden design, each element softening the edges of the other’s worst tendencies.

Void against mass. Bold shapes in the midst of frothy undulation. Moments of frothy undulation in the midst of bold shapes. Or simply, garden rooms for both.

Our eyes instinctively search for opposites as we scan a garden. In a pinched and primped front yard, where gumballs and obelisks reign, we are drawn to the excitement of a rambling rose or a trailing clematis dipping toes into an ordered mix. In a mono-textural mass of meadow perennials, wide mown paths or an upraised viewing platform give our eyes a place to rest and regroup – providing contrast, and inviting immersion.

It doesn’t need to be one or the other. The best gardens I visit recognize this beautiful tension and play with it. The worst – of either type – bore the pants off me.

Playing with Chaos

My own ornamental garden – made up of both native and non-native plants – satisfies my yearning for both elements — though it would not necessarily win awards for design; and would definitely horrify the HOA clipboard police just as surely as the strident floral nativists.

The plants touch each other (regardless of passport), the turf is untreated and rife with many species, and volunteer seedlings often battle and best the plants that were carefully chosen.

They romp and battle each other in beds that live under the threat of encroaching woodland and its aggressive/invasive understory (which is in itself a tension between chaos and order).

I weed out sycamore and sassafras seedlings along with the box elder and ailanthus, and know that I am only here for this tiniest of moments, creating and tending this garden.

There are moments when it all feels out of control, and moments when it gels, but in each space, each bed, I try to showcase one of three energies: The exciting potential of what will be; the sustained climax of what is, and the gentle, attractive decline of what was.

When all three come together, it is magic. And I am helped in this quest by limiting my palette not by passport, but by performance; planting for true, inclusive diversity, and respecting the new connections slowly being forged between flora and fauna in a changing climate.

Dabbling in Order

In other parts of my garden, order reigns. My enclosed vegetable garden is made up of raised beds arranged geometrically and precisely in graveled paths. A manicured collection of hardy succulent troughs tempts me into fussiness. And a minimalist platform with seats for gathering friends overlooks all.

Nearby, a cedar greenhouse rises from the mix of vegetables, artfully hiding tools and gear and what feels like a thousand black plastic pots. With the door closed, they all go away.

When we renovated this vegetable garden three years ago in response to rotting raised beds and mulched paths weedier than the beds themselves, my overall goal was to create a sense of ordered abundance. Paths that didn’t look like dirt. Clear boundaries between beds and bare. It worked.

When the majority of the ornamental garden is having an over-enthusiastic moment and overwhelming the senses, I can retreat to a simple chair on a simple platform that overlooks a simple design, and breathe deeply – plunging once again into the fray when my energy matches its abundance.

The macro-garden that’s created with all of these elements is a duality of opposites that instinctively feels harmonious to me. Too much of either and I’m instantly bored and turned off. Mono-textural landscapes so common to the native plant movement do not move me any more than tightly pinched gardens ruled by chemical-wielding gardeners in immaculate aprons.

Order and chaos. Yin and Yang. The universe is ruled by this tension, why not our gardens? -MW