Caleb Melchior
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​THE CURIOUS GARDENER: WEB JOURNAL

Overgrown: An Overenthusiastic Book Review

3/27/2019

3 Comments

 
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A week after I got a copy of Overgrown: Practices between Landscape Architecture and Gardening in the mail, special ordered from the Big Bad, I received a few Facebook messages from the phenomenal Ann Amato - “Have you read this book? It sounds great…” Great minds - at least those interested in phenomenology and place (and gardens) seem to run on parallel tracks.

I don’t know how I’d missed this book’s publication. Perhaps because I’m very bad about actually reading materials from ASLA, the landscape architects’ society?
But, once I got into it, I was very pleased with this book.
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I hadn’t heard of Julian Raxworthy before reading this book. Despite my enthusiasm for subtropical landscapes, I don’t know that much about gardens in the southern hemisphere. Throughout my five years of landscape architecture school, my only instruction about about landscapes south of the equator was in summary discussions of the dandelion water features in Sydney (thanks to Jeannette Ciesyzkowski) and articles by James Corner (who is an honorary American at this point). I’m trying to learn more post-design school, but there seems to be a weird disconnect between subtropical horticulture in the United States and that of the rest of the world.
Overgrown attempts to tarmac over that knowledge gap by focusing on universal issues in landscape design. Raxworthy brings his experience as both hands-on-the-tool landscaper and hands-on-the-mouse designer to bear in this treatise. As someone with a similar range of professional experience, I see this book as a starting point for discussion and exploration rather than a definitive theoretical framework.
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Raxworthy focuses on several issues in landscape. One of his primary foci is the gap between designers and gardeners. Raxworthy notes that landscape architects and planting designers are most accustomed to working with secondary forms of landscape representation - plans and perspectives. By contrast, landscapers and gardeners are accustomed to dealing with plants directly. They deal with living plants - not computer models and drawn simulations.

In Overgrown, Raxworthy examines six landscapes, situating them on a spectrum from the most architectural/designed to the most relaxed/informal. He introduces the concept of the “viridic”, a unique synthesis between the biologic growth of plants and the intentions of human designers/strategists. Reading these sections, I wished I’d had Raxworthy’s vocabulary to describe the concepts I was thinking about during my studies in planting design at Kansas State.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Overgrown, for me, was the breadth of citations and research referenced. I spent a significant time googling people and projects of interest. If you’re anything like me, you will, too. These are only a few of the significant ideas in Overgrown. Go get your own copy - give it a read and mark it up. Then shoot me an email with your thoughts. We’ll keep this viridic conversation growing...

3 Comments
James Golden link
3/28/2019 08:18:35 am

Thanks for this post. I'm reading this book. Although I find it exciting, and and think it may be an important book in changing landscape architecture to be more plant conscious and broader as a discipline, I find Rexworthy's wordy, jargon-laden prose hard going. If he can make a statement sound more complex, rather than simpler and easier to understand, he does. I wonder if all landscape architect PhDs feel the need to use such "elevated" language. Nevertheless, I find it an exciting book. I'm also pleased to find he uses E.P. Dutton's One Branch Against the Sky as one of his case studies.

Reply
Caleb Melchior link
3/28/2019 06:36:28 pm

Thanks for commenting, James - I'm glad to hear that you're reading this, too. Hmmm my experience with the writing style was different. I guess I've had enough immersion in landscape architecture theory and writing that what you're seeing as jargon read as specificity to me? I hope that the going gets easier as you get farther into the book. I was also pleased to see One Branch Against the Sky referenced.

Reply
Dr Julian Raxworthy link
4/26/2019 08:16:05 pm

Caleb, thanks for your review of the book; I'm glad you're enjoying it.

I'm sorry you find the writing tough going James. Although I worked hard to make it readable, it is still to done degree academic, albeit aimed at both professionals and amateurs.

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    Caleb
    Melchior

    Plant Geek | Observer
    Writer | Designer
    Landscape Poet

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