The writer is a Glenmont resident and the owner of the garden design business Perennial Wisdom.
When Walter Cudnohufsky talks about his “Principles of Residential Landscape Design,” I listen with my designer’s ear. But my “how to live a better life” ear perks up too.
I have signed up for his “Traveling Design Clinic,” a course offered through the Berkshire Botanical Garden. Some members of the class have paid extra to have us visit their homes and do on-the-spot problem solving under Walter’s guidance. We are standing in the back yard of one of these sites.
It is afternoon on a beautiful September day but at this moment most of us are uncomfortable. We have been on the road visiting landscapes in need of help since 9 a.m. This site strikes those of us who don’t own it as the worst we have seen. It is unprepossessing at best, actually boring and dreary. A large back deck projects out over a gravel patch and looks down a grass slope to scrub brush. Blue spruces line the two sides of the yard; from my perspective there are about 16 blue spruces too many. Does the yard need to look like a bowling alley, I wonder?
We shuffle, scrunch, and twist as Walter keeps pressing his point. “You must find the positives. We are not leaving this site until you can find them, and as many positives as negatives. You can’t solve problems until you know the positives. Keep looking, they are there.”
We look again, dig deeper (those blue spruces create a great privacy screen, the scrub brush provides habitat for wildlife) and finally come up with a list that satisfies him. But I am thinking, “This would be a good way to approach the backyard of my life!”
I got my first hint that a course in landscape design could also be a course in life skills earlier in the day. Before we started, Walter prepped us by emphasizing the importance of observation. “Effective design starts with response to what exists,” he said, “so the first thing you have to do is see what’s there.”
At the first site we visit, hands fly up as everyone rushes to share what they see: “I see a large maple that looks diseased”; “I see a fence that has no point”; “the driveway comes too close to the house”; “there is a problem of proportion between barn and house.” But Walter is shaking his head. It appears that seeing what’s there is not as easy as we eager beavers thought.
“I want description, not judgment,” says Walter. “If you start with judgment – the fence has no point, the tree is diseased, the driveway’s too close, the path is nice – you will rush to solution before you know what you have to work with. Judgment has its time and place, but that time and place is not now!”
Then he delivers my favorite line of the day: “Preconceived notions are the enemy of good solutions.”
While the rest of the class struggles to supply him with observations stripped of judgment – “three white pines in a clump,” “clapboard house with wrap around porch,” “side lawn slopes down to stream” – I wonder if things might go better in my life if I had fewer preconceived notions when trying to solve a problem. What if I were to make an “inventory of the actual” before coming to judgments and designing solutions?
Walter has moved on. Now he is talking about feelings. He directs us back to our first impressions and asks us how we felt when we first saw the site. “Feelings are crucial,” he says, addressing us as would-be landscape designers. “If the driveway makes you anxious because it is too close to the house, you must honor this feeling and see where it leads. Chances are it makes your clients anxious too.”
We move on once again to explore solutions and he cautions us about proportion. “Use a level 5 solution for a level 5 problem. Don’t use a level 10 solution for a level 5 problem. You may need to move the driveway; you don’t need to move the house!”
By the end of the day my head is reeling and I am exhausted. Maximize the positive, see what’s there, honor your feelings, use a level 5 solution for a level 5 problem. I feel I have gotten as many life lessons as lessons in landscape design. I say goodbye to my fellow travelers. We have bonded through struggling to keep up with Walter. We agree that if he offers the class again we will take it, but privately I hope it won’t be soon. I have a lot to practice before I live another day, much less take on another job or attend another class!
