Formal Balls: Revisiting the Original Concept

The drawing above is from the article in the Telegraph.

I found an article today about the Telegraph Garden for the 2014 Chelsea Flower Show. The designers are Tommaso del Buono and Paul Gazerwitz. They favor more formal gardens and their drawings for Chelsea are no exception. "The 2014 Telegraph garden combines some of the guiding principles of Italy’s great horticultural tradition but reinterpreted for a 21st-century design. Inspiration for the garden has come from revisiting the components traditionally found in celebrated historical Italian gardens, to create a bold and uncompromising modern garden."

This garden reminded me of my original idea about the terraces in my own garden. Charles Platt's work in Cornish, NH and Villa Gamberaia, outside Florence, had inspired me to consider a formal Italianate design approach. Now I am revisiting that idea.

Here is a photograph I took of the Lower Garden last fall with boxwoods drawn in a very simple, symmetrical and elegant way rather than the random arrangement in the last two posts. Ten years ago, this is the feel I was going for. My latest idea is that the Upper Garden has boxwoods artfully arranged and the Hall with Balls has a random placement. Maybe I could leave the Lower Garden more formal but add boxwood balls on the slope of the Woodland Garden below as if they were rolling down the hill there. There would be whimsy in the woodland but a more conservative approach here in the Lower Garden. I have some interesting some choices to consider and plenty of time to think about it before all the snow melts!