Adam and Eve were too busy eating apples to define where they were but we British should have come up with a definition by now. Even the OED definition ("enclosed piece of ground devoted to the cultivation of flowers, fruit or vegetables") was deemed inadequate. Last year, in the High Court, Lord Justice Moses said, 'That definition is clearly now too narrow, as the current fashion for wild gardens and meadow areas amply demonstrates.
'The reality is that no description will categorically establish whether a piece of land is a garden or not. It is incumbent on the fact finder to determine its use.
'It is important to look at the relationship between the owner and the land, and the history and character of the land and space.'
Is the true definition: ‘the only place where the British feel able to express themselves’?
Your thoughts here, please.
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Stephen suggested that, if a plot lacks plants, it's a question of, ‘Come into the Installation Maude’
Lila Das Gupta talked about Gardens Without Plants in terms of shock jock stuff.
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Was the evening becoming tired and emotional when OE artist/ceramicist Jonathan Garratt www.jonathangarratt.com suggested planting up either side of airport runways to make ‘accelerated gardens’? These are gardens designed to be viewed at twenty miles an hour or whatever it takes for a Ryanair jet to crawl into the sky.
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Professor Caroline Evans from Central St Martins brought a whole new angle to the party. She enjoys pursuing gardens - catching up with them as they change. Like the Pursuit of Happiness I suppose. She presented us with Plant-free Garden equivalents from her world. Apparently one fashion collection had no clothes - nothing.
On an equally surreal note Stephen wondered if it were possible to make a garden by wrapping the whole of the RHS Council and leaving the resulting bundle outside.
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Andrew Fisher Tomlin, who helped pull this debate together, has been hired by the RHS to tutor the Shows Department in design speak. Good thinking. Cuts down misunderstandings. Maybe this new urge to communicate properly will avoid future appearances of dreary plots like the Plastercine garden.
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