What is the recipe for a sunken garden?
What and why are its characters different from the usual garden area?
Sunken Areas
Of course, no two sunken areas would be treated alike, but certain factors are sure to be present, regardless of location or geographic area.
The area included would not be too large, perhaps not more than 100’ feet in major diameter.
It would probably be treated formally, unless perhaps as a sunken rock garden.
While its outline may be square or circular, it would probably be oblong, either geometrical or irregular, or even modernly squeezed until it became almost triangular.
Near the house, it could be visible from the terrace or rooms most used, and its outline and main lines would have related to that part of the property.
The sunken idea is not modern. At least, it is as old as Dutch gardens, but modem ingenuity can add much to its meaning. It is practically an outdoor living room.
Since the area is sunken in the lawn, its sides must be held up by walls, and at least two sets of steps lead down into it.
It may be a sunken depression in the lawn of but 2’ feet or so, and thus a patterned bed.
It may be an old cellar hole or a small glacial pothole.
But if the depth is more than 5’ feet, it becomes a dangerous animal trap and should have its outline protected by a free wall, a railing, or a hedge. Then it is a hidden garden as well as sunken.
Use of Drain Inlets
Of course, drain inlets must be provided to carry away rainwater, or it will become a lake after heavy rains. Yet since it is a low spot, it may have a pool in the center or off-center.
If this garden is for people to sit in or move about, then the area would be mostly turf or paving, and the planting would be at a minimum, perhaps as wall planting in the retaining walls or restricted planting at the base of the walls.
Thus in plan and planting, it might be much like a living room, and the special interests would be within the garden and not in distant views.
The interests would be in plan and furnishings rather than a profusion of flowers.
Special Show Of Plants
If used as a display for plants, then there could be a special show of certain plants such as:
- Small annuals
- Sweet herbs
- Tiny evergreens
- Miniature roses
- Dwarf iris
- Ground covers or a special color scheme
There would be much detail, perhaps a parterre treatment, and the effect would be like an exceptional garden in a flower show on duty the whole year – a difficult assignment.
Nearly all the planting should be low, at least in the middle of the garden.
Few plants should rise above the height of the walls, or the effect of the depression would be ruined.
Sunken Effect As Large Dish Garden
In fact, the sunken effect could be heightened with reduced cost of digging if the plants could be measured in inches rather than feet.
Then, the area could be planned as a larger “dish” garden.
Much of the planting should be evergreen if the garden is on view throughout the year.
However, many “dwarf” conifers and such plants as dwarf boxes get to a considerable size in a few years, and some clipping will be necessary.
Formal Sheared Effect
You must be clever with your shears if a formal sheared effect is not desired.
Some of us no longer like our shrubs with a “crew” haircut. But slow-growing evergreen or deciduous shrubs are very few.
One sunken garden of clipped Chamaecyparis in the pattern was untended during the war years.
Now its contents rise above the lawn level and have become a pattern of colored plush on the green lawn.
Grow Annual and Perennials For Color
For color, whether annuals or perennials, these plants must be low-growing and compact, preferably with a long bloom season.
Suggestions for these would be the following:
Dwarf modern forms of
- Marigolds
- Petunias
- Zinnias
Perennials, such as:
- Dwarf perennial candytuft
- Coralbells
- Cushion chrysanthemums
Many of the smaller spring bulbs will be very useful to open the flower season.
In fact, groups of stills, snowdrops, etc., all backed by tiny dwarf conifers or small broad-leaved evergreens, maybe all the planting needed.
In this garden, there must be partial shade for parts of the day, probably from trees or structures outside the garden area, or it will be too hot there for people or plants, as there is little air circulation in a sunken area.
Tree-Shaded Sunken Area
The extreme might be a tree-shaded sunken area for shade-loving plants, where people could sit on the warmest days – a “garden of quietness.”
Yet a few plants should rise above the wall level, or the area is but a hole with color in it.
Perhaps 1 or 2 picturesque small trees “crooked” is an older word for this shape of the tree) could be planted off-center as an accent or focus. Such as;
- Smaller crab apples
- English hawthorns or a neglected Japanese yew
- Flowering dogwood (American or Japanese)
- The specimens chose to be high-branched and not of a symmetrical shape.
It would give this depression a better “lift” than four or more dipped pyramidal conifers.
Sunken Garden For Modern Dwellings
This type of garden is especially suited to be near modern dwellings, for the sunken area would give added height to the relatively low building, and the small size of the plants would be in scale with the structure.
Unless the “hole” was already provided by the glacier or other act of nature, or an abandoned cellar-hole or quarry created by a previous owner, the cost of excavation and building of walls might be a serious economic item.
But a garden so constructed can give satisfactions that one on the flat terrain can never hope to offer.
44659 by Stephen F. Hamblin