Landscaping as Art and Science
In my many years doing my job landscaping in LA County, I can say with certainty that landscaping is both a science and an art. Of course, the job requires a good eye for design and the necessary skills that a landscaper must learn in order for him to be successful, but the truth is, the secret to successful landscaping is to have an understanding of all the elements that you will be working with. It is not as simple as just selecting the most beautiful and colorful plants and placing them in the garden. You will have to understand how these plants grow, where they grow and where to put which ones.
For instance, a client would arrange for me to do a garden that is also partly paved with stamped concrete in Orange County. My attitude would not only entail doing just that job. In my mind, the aspect of aesthetics and practicality merges in one cohesive thought. I create an image of how I want it to look and because of the years of experience behind me, I know exactly what to do. I look at an empty space and I know which plants to get, which stones to acquire, which ones to take away and leave alone. For me, it all just clicks into place.
Every week I would do different projects: tend to a small zen garden in the middle of a building and surrounded by concrete in Riverside County, build stucco retaining walls for a suburban home to fence their backyard or do repairs for a masonry wall in Orange County, but in all of those years honing the craft, I never felt more at home than just tending to a garden. That is where I think I most belong: in a garden with a spade and a watering can. I find balance whenever I am down working with earth and plantlife.
People will always debate whether form follows function, on whether the aesthetics of your work should govern or be subjected to purpose, but I have always believed that science or art is fluid. Why should art be subject to science or the other way around? I think that it should be organic. We don't look at things the exact same way: our emotions define our interpretations of phenomena around us. It is the same with landscaping: you either like something or you don't one day but with a change in emotion, the whole thing turns around on itself.
All in all, working as a landscaper helped me find my balance. You could say it is akin to being a painter or a sculptor or a chef: it is a job that requires creativity and skill but also it reveals one's true self in the work.
