A Place for the Heart and Head

After visiting the Dunn Gardens a visitor once wrote to us that it was a place to visit with the heart as well as the head.

After visiting the Dunn Gardens a visitor once wrote us that it was a place to visit with the heart as well as the head. So what brought that thought to her mind?  There are probably many ways to answer but as a garden based on Olmstedian principles there is likely a good response to be found in taking up that line of thought.

Elegance of design, in the view of the esteemed landscape designer, Frederick Law Olmsted, meant subjugating the details into a whole. A rock, tree, particular grass, or ground cover should be thought of only as a thread in a fabric or a part of a body. None is to be of particular significance in its own right but only as it contributes to the harmony of the whole. In practice this means there is no large tree or artifice shouting, ‘look at me,’ to act as a distraction and disrupt the gentle pleasure of being in a space full of mottled light and shade. Not too many places in the world you can find such a welcome and a respite. It truly warms the heart being in a spot that feels so true.