{"id":3739,"date":"2022-02-26T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-26T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simplestead.com\/?p=3739"},"modified":"2022-02-26T05:11:31","modified_gmt":"2022-02-26T10:11:31","slug":"walled-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/simplestead.com\/?p=3739","title":{"rendered":"The Walled Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’ve been enamored with the idea of a walled garden forever. Okay… not actually forever. It’s only been since my first trip to France (over 20 years ago) when I saw how beautiful they could be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before that, walls around yards defined property lines, increased privacy, and gave cats a place to sit. And that was about it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thankfully, American ideas about walls and fences have changed with the gardening boom and the evolution of the outdoor room. Fenced yards everywhere are now becoming enclosed oases for dining, socializing, and growing more of life’s necessities at home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what do you do when you don’t have existing walls to work with? How do you handle large, wide open spaces that have no structure? And what if you don’t have a big budget for buying traditional fence panels or installing stone walls? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can use plants and decorative details to allude to the feeling of spacious enclosure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I know that term “spacious enclosure” seems incongruous. But you need reference points to experience the size of a place. A house without rooms may be large, but it doesn’t feel spacious. It feels empty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walls, ceilings, the layout of doors and windows, furniture, and other decorative details are what convey the sense of size. The same is true in the landscape. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anything that simulates that sense of “spacious enclosure” can make a large garden feel intimate or a small garden expansive. <\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In our case, a few rolls of deer fencing, wooden posts, fast growing kiwi vines, and a painted portion of a fence panel gave my vegetable garden the privacy, protection from wildlife, and presence we wanted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the actual garden is nearly a quarter of an acre, it now seems to recede into the landscape until you open the gate and step inside. Plus the same kiwi wall that gives the vegetable garden its secret garden feeling acts as a backdrop to our outdoor dining room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n