Is it Good...or is it Great?

A few times a week, a simple conversation will set me up for a time of reflection in the garden. One such encounter was with a family stating that Hatcher Garden feels unique, and they had really no idea how to describe what “it” was for them. I was meeting with Peggy early in my season here and said that we need to ask our visitors what they love about the garden, then focus on that thing to improve within our garden design. Instead of focusing on what we don’t do well, we put our energy in what is working and make it exceptional. 

In a recent conversation with a prominent garden designer, we were debating what a good design looks like in a garden. One opinion is that you design to encourage visitors to move in certain ways while the another is that a garden is a reflection of the curator. I have been told that Hatcher Garden is special, but it is often so subtle that unless you really study the moment you will miss it. I watch our visitors encounter a garden that is highly designed to look undesigned. I see people pondering every tree that is planted and they may or may not be straight. After all, how many trees are straight in the natural world? 

Hatcher Garden is blessed in this season with wonderful leadership, a generous community that supports what we want to do, staff that all know where we want to go, and an army of volunteers who contribute to that vision. Good garden design can reflect the designer or move people through a garden.  But great garden design leaves visitors wondering what they just experienced. 

Written by Dan Shook, Garden Manager