#5 Gardens as Art?

20 Common Questions about my Immersive Garden at Havenwood

The Birch Walk in my garden at Havenwood

“The deep satisfaction of seeing the picture, painted not with oils, but with the living mobile of leaf, bud, flower and fruit…”

🌿   Edith Schaeffer on gardening

Welcome back to my series on some common questions that people ask about our intensive, immersive garden in northwestern Pennsylvania zone 5. Today we will talk about the hotly contested topic of:

#6 Gardens as Art?

Creatively Crafted for People and Places

Recently, I helped to form an arts collaborative and suggested that along with groups for writing, painting, and drama, there be a group for gardeners. This spurred some discussions as to whether gardening should be included with the traditional arts, and whether gardeners ever consider themselves as artists. To answer that issue, we first had to define what art is.

What is art?

The dictionary definition is:

Art, a visual object or experience consciously created through an expression of skill or imagination.¹

When does a garden become art?