Placing an unexpected object would probably come under the heading of whimsy, you just have to make sure that essential design criteria are met. I think a fixation on staying strictly within a type/style is a creativity killer.

It's not unusual to have one sort of garden in front of a house and something different in the back. One is more public, the other more private, and the uses and time spent in them may be quite different.

Some people have an eye for mixing things up, and can pull off an eclectic garden with style and wit. The rest of us just end up with a mish-mash of non-sequiturs. Inexpensive garden accessories can be an evil temptation. Do not give in.

I believe in editing -- not that I've done *enough* of it, mind you, but it's a good policy. So I gave away the concrete lion head fountain spitter to a friend with an Italianate house and garden (which mine is not), and I'm casting serious doubts on my personal pining for a very large, very expensive, very beautiful, very out of place buddha head for my tropical garden. It simply would not go with the skull collection I have mounted with tillandsias... Besides, even Target is selling buddhas in every form these days, and I don't support the trivialization of art.

Well, I can hear you muttering that the skulls should go, NOW, and puh-lease get the buddha head instead! But I'm emotionally attached to the bones because they were collected on vast empty beaches during happy family vacations, and isn't that more meaningful than a symbol for someone else's religion?

So my answer is: find personal meaning in your garden, and let that guide you.

By the way, I envy anyone who has enough room for a formal garden AND a wild meadow!

I agree with Catkim about use and function--front vs. back.

One way to keep them from being too disparate is to use some of the same shrubs and perennials--lets face it, this is also more economical, especially when you come to perennials.

By the way, I'm not muttering about the skulls--I have an antler stuck in amongst a dried flower arrangement on my front porch--for much the same reason--and I think it looks great.

I love whimsy in the garden, but Target kitsch (and any small kitsch) is not my idea of whimsy. I have a carved bear (named OB--Our Bear), who peaks out from behind an oak leaf hydranga in the back. Also a brass tuba from a yard sale standing in a back corner below my deck with a pot of tall annuals in its "mouth", a metal high-heeled shoe (think railroad spike as the heel) that pops out the top of a pot on a pedestal.

To me, whimsy is surprise--most people don't see the tuba unless they look carefully--and then they giggle--same thing with OB and the shoe.

BusyD says something key here when s/he mentions: I have a carved bear (named OB--Our Bear), who peaks out from behind an oak leaf hydranga in the back...

Key, because the piece of art is incorporated into the plantings, peaking out from behind a hydrangea and not sitting square in the middle of nuthin' on a pedestal. Even objects that are not considered part of any given style, will fit into your chosen style if you make it One With The Universe. :)

Kinda like the Buddhist who said to the hotdog vendor, "Make me one with everything."

I agree with the "kitsch" remark. Strive to find something that is totally "real," meaning it's either a quality item made from natural or quality materials, or else something so simple, rustic and "wabi-sabi" that it has a patina of age, use and primitive appeal, or of natural beauty... such as a beautiful, wave-worn beach stone or piece of driftwood; a chipped and pitted cast stone statue or fountainhead tinged with moss; an old wheel barrow or farm implement put to new use (such as an old wagon or hayrake that now holds baskets of annuals or grasses); a vintage cast metal or wooden chair, or a rusted iron urn. These are genuine articles, not new products contrived to look old and worn. That's one of the main differences between classic and kitsch.

BTW, Catkim, I have a small, antique stone Buddha head tucked into the nook of a very primitive fieldstone wall that came with my ca.1925 "crackerbox bungalow." The shades of gray, pink and cream in my native New England granite, and the soft gray and green (algae) tinged stone of the sculpted figure blend well. But even better, a strand of ground ivy has crept around the Buddha head, caressing its curves and making it even more a part of the wall and garden.

It seems that you could do something on a larger scale with a big Buddha head, similarly integrating it into its surroundings.

I'm not sure if simply including a few pieces of garden ornamentation as mixing styles. Pieces can be chosen and placed/combined simply based on their aesthetic quality or characteristics.

The Japanese-garden-meets-meadow is slightly more so of an issue, or so I would think. It's not so much as mixing the styles as to making them work with one another. The contrast provided could be an asset or could be detrimental, and the transition between the two could offer opportunities to be creative and whimsical (as everyone seems to be in the mood).

The most major issue, I would think (again), is trying to actually fuse the two together. I.e: having a Japanese garden in a meadow-type setting. Wildflowers billowing in the wind framed by clipped yews?

-Audric

I don't disagree with your example of billowing wildflower meadow and Japanese garden, Audric, but ornamentation can be out of place and reflect clashing styles, IMO.

A formal Versailles-type parterre garden would look amiss with Western wagon wheels or a Henry Moore sculpture as its focal point.

These days, with the "outdoor room" trend still very much desired, it isn't unusual to see landscapes and gardens with different theme "rooms," not unlike the variety of exotic decors one might see at a honeymoon hotel with a "Lunar Landing Suite," a "Hawaiian Paradise Suite," and a "Sheik's Harem Suite." :) So, why not a wildflower meadow that segues into a wildflower meadow...

I'm being cheeky, I hope you realize.

The whole list of landscape principles being debated includes "flow," "unity" and "rhythm" among its fundamentals. These refer to a continuing, recognizable theme throughout the garden that tie one end to the other without abrupt shifts that would jar the eye and sensibility. In interior decorating, this might mean using the same color carpet and wall coloring throughout a house so the eye doesn't have to shift gears when gazing from one room to another, particularly in a more-or-less open floorplan.

In a garden, one could ostensibly use different styles or themes in each garden room, shifting from Japanese-style woodland scene or rock garden to French parterre, by including similar continuity -- perhaps in the materials and plantings in and alongside the path that leads the stroller from one garden to the next, and in repetition of certain plant materials, or at least their textures, colors and forms.

Consider some of the world's best botanical gardens which display examples of many habitats from far-flung parts of the globe. They manage to tie all these disparate "looks" together by creating a flowing campus that encompasses and displays each habitat separately, yet as part of a whole. Maybe a mixed-style garden could be pulled off in the same way, though on a much smaller scale size-wise.

Done right, you could have a true work of art. Done wrong, you'd end up with Graceland. (Cue: Google search of Elvis Presley's mansion...) ;)

I was reading Natural Home and Garden (March 2006) today and it describes a garden that includes a Japanese Tea house complete with shoji screens. The garden can only be described as standard shady perennial garden. Lawn in the center, mature trees (deciduous) and flower beds around the outside. Plants are standard perennial plants.

A quote from the article "the garden they have created nods to Asian style while embracing European impressionism. It uses the Japanese love of plabt texture, weeping trees, and artfully placed rocks, but not the formal Japanese plantings that require so much work." Based on the pictures, I see nothing that would be taken from a Japanese garden, except the tea house and a Japanese lanturn stuck behind some day lillies and another one behind some hostas.

It is surprising how well the tea house fits. Sitting next to a green lawn, and backed by mature deciduous trees and shrubs.

The roof uses srandard house shingles and maybe this makes the tea house a bit more North American, which in turn makes it fit better?

I agree with most of what Cady is saying, but not necessarily with the comment about 'jaring the eye'. I've sepnt a lot of time in the last two years looking at garden mags trying to better understand what I like. Almost always, when I see a picture a really like, there is something in the garden that is unexpected. The unusual is what makes a garden special for me. I would probably agree that these unusual things are jaring my eye enough to be special, but no much to make me hate it. Without this 'unexpected thing' most gardens are just 'common'. They maybe be very nice, but still common.

In the article I referenced, there were two Japanese lanturns. Instead of being front and center as you find in most Japanese gardens, they were partially hidden by the plants. In this way they become more of a art object, then a real lanturn. That may explain why they seem to work in this garden.

I've seen different cultural styles integrated successfully, mostly in estate gardens both private and public/museum. Butchart Gardens in BC is a prime example. On a homier scale, many garden magazines have featured the Portland, Oregon-area property of Nani Waddoups and Ron Wagoner. They used over-the-top Thai exotic style with elements of Italianate and European provincial styles, and the overall garden works well even in the Pacific Northwest.

Again, it comes down to using related elements throughout that give a common thread to the different "rooms," such as the same natural materials.

BTW, in my previous post, I wrote "So why not a wildflower meadow that segues into a wildflower meadow..." I meant, "So why not a wildflower meadow that segues into a formal parterre garden." Somehow, I got hooked on the wildflower meadow concept. ;)

Rules was meant to be broken. Well, maybe not really, but there are people out there who seem to break all "the rules" and do beautiful work in the process. But usually if you study it really hard, you'll find that some of the rules are the backbone of making everything work despite the obvious rules that are broken.

Nothing is completely sacred, but when you conciously throw a monkey wrench into your design, you have to work your way out of it.

Mixing styles is really no different than dealing with other design obstacles. Sometimes you have existing conditions that are not ideal, but you use your resources and resourcefulness to make it work. Making things work has to be a habit if you are going to function as a landscape designer. It becomes a way of thinking.

So, while introducing an obstacle is not inherently a good thing, it is not necessarily a bad thing either. It just takes more to make it work right.

There might be "beginner's luck," but in reality, it is only those who have mastered the fundamentals and principles who successfully "break the rules."

If you look carefully, you discover that even then, they didn't break the rules in the full sense of the term; rather, they have found alternative ways to fulfill the "obligations" of the principles so that nothing is truly missing. The principles are obeyed, but with such a refined subtlety that their presence isn't always immediately evident to the untrained eye.

Exactly!