A garden seat is certainly appropriate
in most gardens.
It could be by the backdoor
to sit with a coffee,
in the early morning sun, before you hit the road.
In my own tiny garden it is a ‘gin and tonic bench’ on a raised terrace where the glow of the evening sun hits the garden.
My cats love it too because the sun is vital to them. And they snatch every last ray greedily, whilst dispensing with the gin!
In larger gardens several garden seats may be appropriate for a pause on the walk around ‘the estate’.
And it is good if these seats make some sort of sculptural, focal, or unifying statement or face a defining view, as well as of course being places of rest in themselves.
I particularly liked the monumental solidity of this little bench we saw recently, juxtaposed with the fragility of its backing grasses.
Truth to tell there were a number in this public garden. And in this area each had some text inscribed on the seat.
(You may be aware of a trend to introduce a subtext and indeed text into gardens so that the garden becomes more than just a beautiful outside space, but makes some sort of personal, literary, intellectual or historical statement – a garden with meaning.)
Text in a garden can be informative, poignant, amuse or intrigue.
But there is a great risk of the trite, the pretentious and if it is too long, the sense that you would prefer to read a novel when you choose to do so!
This little bench gave several pause for thought:
In case you cannot read it ( I wish we could use larger pics in our blog but 558 pixels is our limit!) I enlarge the text for you below:
As we wandered round the comparatively small space I noticed various reactions to that seat.
The extremely nubile half of one attractive couple compulsively grasped her partner’s strong forearm and her look said ‘Let’s get a room!’ I couldn’t see his face. I hope he agreed!
An elderly man chuckled. You felt he had lived life.
But a woman, whose demeanour and clothes suggested the great and the good, ( I am thinking Magistrate at the very least) arched her eyebrows and wrinkled her nose as though she had encountered some frankly noxious miasma. ( I am avoiding another f word!)
I think in private spaces you need to be quite sure that whatever text it is will stand the test of time as far as your are concerned. If it celebrates your first marriage it might be the first thing your partner changes in the second!
And great as visitor interaction with gardens and art is, in public spaces you also need to consider sensibilities.
Personally I reserve the F word for the privacy of my own car and some kind of spontaneous near death (literally!) driving experience when I think I am heading to casualty if I am lucky!
R
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