Have a Seat

The surprisingly sober EAL at Gardening While Intoxicated tells a sweet story of a couple who placed a bench at the edge of their property with a welcome sign on it.  And sober or not, I agree with her about the profound effect that seating can have on our gardens - and on us.

Pictured above is a charming stone chair (of questionable comfort) from the gardens at Oatlands, a Virginia plantation founded in 1798.  Which, by the way, had 128 slaves at the time of the Civil War, housed in what most of us would call slave quarters (left), though this photo from their website is entitled "dependencies."  Technically though euphemistically correct, I suppose.

Now back in my own garden, you've already seen my Adirondack chairs and woodland bench, but here for the first time are my most rustic seats - an old stump placed streamside and a sliced tree section along the woodland path at the bottom of my property. There's no welcome sign but everybody knows the seats are for all of us. (One more photo below the fold.) 

And photographing these seats got me thinking about the large wooded valley they inhabit, jointly owned by about 30 families living along its crest.  Our long skinny properties stretch as far as 500 feet down to the stream at the bottom.  When I arrived in 1985, the area you see here was all jungle and trash, and by "trash" I mean assorted appliances as large as refrigerators, plus tires, liquor bottles, even mountains of construction debris dumped right into the stream.  Back in the days before curb-side garage pick-up, dumping was rampant, no matter that it marred what had been a pristine woodland.  So because I'd hate be judgmental about all those white trash trash-dumping neighbors, I wonder what I or my enlightened present-day neighbors would do with our trash if it weren't picked up for us.

But I seem to have digressed horribly from my topic - the importance of seating to the enjoyment of our gardens.  Because seats aren't just for sitting, you know.  They're for resting, wildlife-watching, scheming, seeing the garden from different viewpoints, and in the right location, saying howdy.  As much as I love porches and decks, there's nothing like sitting in the garden, so have a seat. End of sermon.

Comments

[ginger]

Susan:

Love your seats and it reminded me to make time to go sit on mine in the garden! Thanks!

[blackswamp_girl (Kim)]

I have such trouble with this. I'm a putterer at heart, and when I sit down in the garden I inevitably see a weed that needs to be pulled... and then a bug that needs to be inspected... a new flower to photograph... and before you know it I'm halfway through the yard. So much for sitting down!

[Heather]

Hmm, I find that if I sit still for more than about 10 seconds, the mosquitos have time to get a good grip on me. My dream home in Houston has a screened porch with an industrial ceiling fan, so I can be in the garden, but away from the skeeters and somewhat cool.

[Pam]

I love sitting in my garden. You see different things from a resting perspective, than from a working one. I have one corner than has several small bamboos started - and some gingers - and I'm trying to decide what kind of bench to put there. Probably something similar, a nice piece of wood between two tree stumps.