A Small Homage to Derek Jarman's Garden

Years ago while browsing gardening books, I came across the title Derek Jarman's Garden.  Something in the recesses of my brain recognized that name, so I opened the book and was immediately intrigued by the images.  Further prodding of the gray matter helped me remember where that name came from.  I was transported back in time to a film appreciation course I took in college populated with people who enjoyed showing off their vocabulary and fawning over the professor.  Derek Jarman was a talented man primarily known for his films and his unapologetic fight for gay rights. In the final years of his life he created a garden at Prospect Cottage on the south coast of England at Dungeness. The tar covered cottage and its garden are situated in an exposed, stark landscape, within the shadow of a nuclear power station.  What draws me to this spot is its nearly bleak, windswept setting, the tough plants, and especially the use of flotsam (in my world one can never have too many pieces of flotsam, gifts from the sea they are).  While England is a country full of many remarkable and grand gardens, this is the one I want to see most.

(This picture is in the public domain and was copied from Wikipedia Commons)

While I have not deliberately copied ideas from Jarman's garden in my own, there are some similarities.  My friend D. has a cottage in Corova, NC a not easily accessible community in the dunes, just south of the Va. state line, and her wild garden there reminds me of Jarman's.  She and her boyfriend scour the beach and the local dump for material they use in found object sculptures set in the sand.  Gardening in Corova is very difficult, not only because of the sand, the salt and the exposure, but D. also has to contend with hungry wild horses.  She does a lot of her gardening in pots high up on the deck away from those big teeth.

Earlier this month we had some hypertufa pots go half price at work, and I took the opportunity to snatch up the only round planter and filled it with some tough drought tolerant plants.  I put in two varieties of Sempervivum, two different thymes and a blue spruce sedum.  I mulched with seashells and plopped a beach-weathered piece of copper down in the middle.  The final results reminded me of something that would be at home on the steps of Prospect Cottage.

If you would like to get a good feel for what Derek Jarman's garden is like, click here to a Flickr set from Angus Fraser.