A new compendium of garden elements

Over a decade or so beginning in the mid-1980s, I traveled a lot to see famous gardens, most of them in England. The touring was designed to acquaint myself with gardens regarded as important and necessary for a garden writer to know.

The only tangible reminder of those days is a box full of slides, which I dont look at much because I know that when I do, gardens I once found genuinely thrilling now seem dated or pedestrian. There is magic, still, in some of the images: not so much in plant combinations, alas, but with garden elements clean, broad stone steps of just the right proportion, or the filigreed silhouette of an iron gate.

The late Washington landscape designer Michael Bartlett was keenly aware of the elevating qualities of fine elements; he liked to create garden rooms that were distinct but flowed from one to the next. In a way, his gardens belonged to an earlier age, developed with and for patrons rather than clients. He crafted spaces that were ambitiously architectural but still restrained and elegant. I doubt he would have been a big fan of todays hairy, ecologically driven horticulture. He hated ornamental grasses, said his wife, Rose Bartlett.

Gardens come and go, along with our perceptions of them, but Michael Bartlett has left one useful legacy. Twice a year, he and Rose would go on garden sojourns, and over a span of 30 years they visited perhaps a thousand gardens in 21 countries. They were always taking pictures of the garden bling they noticed, whether benches or dovecotes, and in time amassed approximately 10,000 slides.

He was still pondering them as he grew ill with a brain tumor. He died in 2008 at the age of 55. Six years later, the fruits of all that work have ripened with the publication of the Bartlett Book of Garden Elements, co-authored by Rose Bartlett.

The reader will find about a thousand photos of such elements as paving, bridges, fences, benches, fountains and gazebos, demonstrating that design comes in many forms.

Many of the elements are not to my taste, to be sure; I find iron benches as tough on the eye as on the lower back, and if I never see another turquoise Japanese bridge framed by weeping willows over a pond with water lilies, I will somehow cope with the loss. But there are things to covet in these pages: a sturdy but elegant wooden gate between brick piers, with open trellis work; square red bricks in a running bond pattern; the lovely clipped Linden Allee at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Herding these elements into likes and dislikes is fun, but the greater value is in understanding the breadth of design options when we put gardens together.

The Bartletts began their garden odyssey together in the 1970s. Michael would design and attend to the construction of his clients gardens. Rose would devise planting schemes for herb gardens and the like.

The images were used for slide talks and to show clients, but more important, the photo library became the vehicle for the couple to visit as many gardens as they could, rain or shine.

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A new compendium of garden elements