Have you ever wished for a secret garden, like the one in the famous children's story where an intrepid young lady brings to bloom both the neglected garden and the motherless invalid boy? The garden in Frances Hodgson Burnett's book is walled and locked, and within it the children discover a mysterious, inspiring world.
It would be relaxing to come home from a hard day and step into such a serene and secluded place, wouldn't it? The lack of an English manor house surrounded by acres of grounds shouldn't discourage you. With a little planning and ingenuity, you can turn your garden, or part of your garden, into a hidden refuge.
In landscape terminology, this practice is called "spatial enclosure." It offers the illusion that the world is sealed out, and the garden is its own little sphere. Generally it refers to screening the sides of your space, but you can also screen from above with a canopy of leafy boughs. A high masonry wall, like the one in the story, is the most severe form of enclosure, but the feelings of seclusion and security can come from all sorts of strategies.
For instance, you may not need to enclose the entire garden. You could close off part of the yard with plantings or a hedge, leaving room inside for a bench and maybe a bit of sculpture or a sundial.
If you have a deck, you might want to enclose part of it for more privacy. The deck at the back of my house is enclosed on one side by a six-foot-tall fence of wooden lattice, neatly finished with wood frames and fitted with a shelf for plants. The rest is open to the wooded surroundings, but the feeling created simply by not being able to see the neighbor's windows is enough to provide a sense of privacy.
Any element that is a barrier offers enclosure. There's a wonderful garden "room" at Hillwood Museum and Gardens in Washington, the former home of Marjorie Merriweather Post, that has "walls" made of ivy. The ivy is supported by an iron fence, but you can't see the metal; the ivy is clipped to about six inches on either side of it. Of course, it takes a while to cover an eight-foot-tall fence with ivy -- three years, Hillwood horticulturist Bill Johnson said. You can use other plants that grow faster, such as crossvine (Bignonia capreolata), trumpet vine (campsis radicans) or honeysuckle.
Actually, the barrier doesn't have to be either tall or solid to create a feeling of seclusion. Sometimes a sense or a suggestion of enclosure is all you need. An old-fashioned picket fence can turn a yard into a more private space. A couple of pieces of fencing, placed at right angles, can screen a busy corner and lend a note of privacy.
An herb garden could be surrounded by short boxwood hedges or other plants. Tiny street-front gardens in the oldest parts of Charleston are often bordered by liriope, as tidy as a frame around a painting.
Clients once asked me to enclose their backyard swimming pool without blocking their views of the rolling lawn and woods behind. I used masses of flowers -- black-eyed Susans, purple coneflowers and other plants -- along the far edge and side of the paving around the pool. When you're sitting by the pool, you feel completely enclosed by the plants, but from the house and anywhere else on the property, the flowers are merely a pretty ripple in the long vista.
In the case of many of the large houses being built today, the greatest challenge is to tie them into the landscape. Enclosing them with trees does the trick, perhaps by planting a grove of three to six river birches in front of the house. The trees not only make the house look more a part of the natural landscape, but they also create an enclosure that makes the front of the house feel less exposed.
