Five Wisdoms of Garden Design
By Clive Russell, OAA — Inside and Out Garden Design
Garden design in the Western world has been enriched by successive waves of influence from the east. For more than fifty years, Japanese garden design had an enormous impact on how we see our outdoor spaces, and more recently Chinese Feng Shui has begun to affect garden arrangements and relationship to the house and its surroundings. Although one would not think of the snow swept ridges of the Himalayas as a place to learn about gardens, an extremely useful way of relating to garden design has now come to us from that region. Known in the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition as The Five Buddha Families, and less literally translated as the Five Wisdoms, it offers a way of organizing and understanding the complex of aesthetic, cultural and practical issues surrounding any design problem.
The principle of the Five Wisdoms is often used in Tibetan Buddhism for understanding one’s relationship to life because it gives expression to the often hidden energetic qualities that exist in any situation, from one’s own personality to the natural world. In that way, it is an ideal medium for creating a garden that satisfies one’s needs. The Five Wisdoms; PASSION, RICHNESS, ACTIVITY, CLARITY, AND SPACIOUSNESS; can act as a kind of checklist that enhances our ability to create beautiful, useful and imaginative gardens.
PASSION is the desire to have a garden in the first place; one’s love and appreciation of the natural world, and the longing to be part of it. In terms of design, it is the principle that creates a sense of invitation- that magnetizes and engages you- that draws you in. It is the skillful design of views into the garden, gateways, arbors and pathways, and creation of a sense of mystery and romance that makes you long to be in the garden. Passion results from the skillful interplay of seduction and reserve. It is a quiet, elegant quality that at the same time suggests wildness and abandon. A garden without passion, without a sense of invitation and love, would be a sad place indeed.
RICHNESS is satisfaction of that longing- providing fullness of experience through colour and texture, earthiness, scents and a sense of place. It is the feeling of hospitality that every successful garden needs to have that is grounded in enjoyment of the present, but which also projects a sense of potential- of ripening, blossoming, continuing on. Richness is created by mounded beds, layers of plantings, yellows and golds, depth and multiplicity of experience that goes beyond one’s ability to take it all in.
CLARITY is found in the distinct ordering of the parts- a sense of sharpness in the garden’s organization, perspectives, and lines. Clarity allows for an intellectual understanding of how the different elements are balanced one to another. Natural landscapes have their own kind of clarity resulting from the forces that created them. In gardens, clarity is often expressed through the man-made structures, and through delineation of paths or the edges of beds, the types of planting, fencing, or repetition of motifs. Clarity is expressed through surface qualities rather than depth- the lines and textures, reflections and directions that define the garden’s shape.
ACTIVITY is associated with the effectiveness of the design in terms of accomplishing its practical functions. How well is it designed in terms of growing conditions for each of the plantings? How easily can it be maintained? How appropriate is the layout in terms of access from one place to another in the different seasons? How well are activities such as dining, play, resting accommodated? How are tools and furniture accommodated? How well integrated is the garden’s design with its environment? How well does it accommodate wildlife- the birds, the bees, the dragonflies, the variety of insects and squirrels and chipmunks, spiders and frogs - the apparent and hidden business that occurs in all seasons everywhere, the teaming qualities of the garden.
SPACIOUSNESS is the container within which the other principles operate. It is the sense of simple accommodation, peaceful receptivity and contentedness that allows the activity of the garden to take place but always within a context of openness and essential timelessness. The physical shape of a garden’s space is an important and often ignored element of garden design. An urban garden is often defined by its fencing as a rectilinear box- finite and so not spacious at all. The designer’s role is to reshape the space so that it has a sense of the infinite- a sense that it can accommodate whatever needs to be accommodated and still feel open and receptive.
Working with these principles can be an enlightening experience. Each of the Wisdoms has its counterpoint- the confused, or inauthentic expression of that particular quality. Just as, in personalities, desire can become neediness, in a garden passion can be expressed as kitsch, schmaltz or cliché; richness as a hopeless jumble; clarity as sterility or obsessive orderliness; activity as function without form; and spaciousness as dull emptiness.
Balancing the qualities with one another, weaving them together in a conscious way, is a powerful antidote to the inauthentic, and the mere examination of a garden design in terms of these qualities provokes awareness of ways in which the inherent wisdoms can authentically be expressed. Different types of gardens will have more or less emphasis on one or another of the principles, giving each garden its own character. An English country garden may emphasize passion and richness, and an urban courtyard clarity and activity, but all qualities must be present and alive in a successful design. The acknowledgement and balancing process that the Five Wisdoms provokes can enrich, clarify, and open up the design process, and help to create a garden that is both passionate and effective.