Blue Sticks

Following the garden festival theme of my last post: the Blue Stick Garden (Jardin de Batons Bleus) designed by Claude Cormier is intriguing and joyously simple (something which I believe is extremely challenging to 'design'). Blue Sticks was exhibited at the Jardin de Metis International Garden Festival in Quebec in 2000.

I find it refreshing to view designs, such as Blue Sticks, which approach the creation of landscapes from a different perspective. After time spent focusing on the nuances of planting designs and configurations it is uplifting to be presented with a landscape where plant species are not physically dominant, but where they inform the design expression. Blue Sticks evolved as a concept directly related to its site of exhibtion at the Jardin de Metis. The initial concept for the installation arose from the blue poppies adapted to the site's microclimate and featured extensively in the heritage mixed flower borders at the Jardin de Metis. It is wonderful to see a design in direct relation to the site itself - too many modern landscape designs seem to be shallow layered concepts that have no connection with the site they occupy or with the broader urban fabric they are a part of.

What intrigued me most about Blue Sticks however, was the simple visual trick employed by painting the long sticks blue on three sides, leaving one remaining side to be painted a vivid contrasting orange. To vistors surpise, the labyrinth-like layout of the design revealed this dramatic colour change only once they had turned around to view the path they had just walked through the garden. This chameleon-like transformation is deliciously simple and uncomplicated. It is this simplicity (almost child-like in its effortlessness) that is something we need to see alot more of in contemporay (usually over-complex) landscapes.