Garden Sitting Places

October 29th, 2013

Gardeners tend not to sit a lot.

Maybe you’ve heard the line, “Garden benches are for purely ornamental purpose because gardeners never actually sit.”

How true. There’s always one more weed to pull or one more daylily to deadhead. Gardens don’t weed and deadhead themselves, you know.

I’ve been learning the value of sitting lately. Aging bones make a good teacher.

And I’ve learned there’s no better place to sit than in a garden – or at least somewhere in the vicinity of plants.

My favorite sitting spot is on a bench that looks into my back-yard, four-square vegetable garden – which happens to be my favorite garden.

Years ago, my wife and I built a clematis-covered lattice wall with a 2-foot overhang that makes a little nook for this bench. Ornamental grasses flank both sides.

The effect is a shady hiding place that oversees a corner of the world where all is peaceful and well and right – except when blight starts on the tomato plants or groundhogs show up.

But that’s for later. For now, I’ll enjoy the cheerful red peppers, the green, gray and burgundy leaves of the mesclun patch, and the last of the season’s green beans.

This got me thinking about some other excellent garden settings where my butt has been parked – ones you also might want to check out sometime, such as:

* The white arbor-bench in the Rose Garden at Hershey Gardens. This custom-made structure is more like a gardener’s throne overlooking the rose “kingdom” and the rose-lined, man-made lake below. The current one is a replica made by Nick and Scott Leitner in the likeness of the original one that was placed there soon after Hershey Gardens was built.

* The Pat Odom Fern Glen at the Wildwood campus of Harrisburg Area Community Campus. I suspect that even most people who frequent HACC aren’t aware of this serene shade garden behind the Hall Technology Center. The super sitting spot is sunken, down a stone stairway, next to a water feature and flanked on both sides by banks of ferns and other shade plants. A few seats are down there, or you can sit on a stone retaining wall. Very nice place.

Scott Arboretum’s amphitheater.

* The amphitheater at Scott Arboretum. The campus of Swarthmore College (which IS Scott Arboretum) has a unique and amazing outdoor auditorium with curving, stone-block terraces. It’s carved out of the woods and so is shady, but enough light gets in to allow grass to grow between the stone-block layers. It seats hundreds when used for events such as Swarthmore’s graduation, but most of the time you have this whole stunning place to yourself.

* Above the Chimes Tower at Longwood Gardens. My favorite public garden of all time has lots of great sitting places, but my favorite was on a secluded bench just above the big waterfall that drops into a lake by Longwood’s Chimes Tower. You couldn’t actually see the waterfall because you’re tucked into a nook of yews, but you could hear the roaring and swishing somewhere behind you. I found it very peaceful and relaxing. I’m using the past tense because, for some reason, this bench is no longer there. There are other benches nearby, though. They’ll do. But the placement of the removed one was perfect.

Butchart’s Quarry Garden.

* Overlooking the Sunken Garden at Butchart Gardens. Farther away from home on Victoria Island off the coast of Vancouver, Canada, is a one-time quarry that’s been converted into one of the world’s most magnificent gardens. You get to see it all from above, not to mention a nearby lake that’s been fitted with a series of huge dancing fountains. Quite a spectacle. I could watch it for hours.

Those are five of my favorites.

Any you’d like to share for the benefit of fellow weary gardeners who could use a good sit?

Add your places in the Comments box below.