Gardens, of course, are always changing. Dinnick says, ?The changes I make now are the ones I?m forced to make when things don?t work out or a plant dies.? She is also having to accommodate an increasing amount of shade from the surrounding trees including a London plane tree, a huge spruce (which she?d love to remove because it is out of scale with the rest of the garden), a black walnut, birches and honey locusts.
And she is changing, too. As a landscape architect, Dinnick is known for her formal gardens and soft romantic palette. But what she wants to do now are modern gardens with clean lines and ultra-crisp edges. She says she longs to do gorgeous stucco walls inspired by the work of Mexican architect Luis Barraga?n. It means working on an entirely different scale, with no soft layering.
?In a way, I wish I was starting all over again,? she says. And, in a way, she is. The couple has just bought a farm that is in need of her design magic. It sounds like an interesting proposition ?geometrically speaking, of course.
Originally published: June 2007. Gardening Life.