A well-designed garden is a narrative; there should be surprises, suspense, and foreshadowing--seduction is a given. Great gardens have been inspired by stories and vice-versa. In the Chinese Myth, the Mystical Island of the Blest, islands that appeared and disappeared off the mainland were home to immortals. Renditions of this island were part of the first recorded garden installation. Han Emperor Wei (140-89) installed an artificial lake large enough for mystical islands to appear in the midst. These unattainable islands represent yearning for immortality, or the infinite. Symbolic representation of these islands are seen in Japanese garden design.--what may look like simple stones are symbols of enchanted islands.

Fernidad Bac wrote in his illustrated book on landscaping, Le CoIombier and the Enchanted Gardens, that a visit through a garden should be an adventure , a fairy tale with mystery and magic--and the visitor comes to them to discover his or her own identity. Of course, his gardens, with the secrets coves and statuary like mini-temples, were on huge estates on the Mediterranean. Urban gardens are short stories. When I designed and installed rooftop and small brownstone backyards in New York City the needed to be to the point, pragmatic, and often minimalist with little back-story.

And my own arable plot in Brooklyn was a 36-inch herb box that got a lot of play from ornery Brooklyn wildlife. If extending the metaphor of garden as narrative, my window box was a small, unimpressive haiku.

Starlings ate all herbs
Pigeons scared to lay their eggs
Squirrels copulate

But I just went bi-coastal, and this is about to change.