Circles

My Pinterest feed is full of pictures of garden circles. I like to cruise pictures of gardens and plants, and apparently I kept pinning the same style over and over, because I started to see nothing but that design in my feed. 

Pinterest is frustrating in so many ways -- the push to buy stuff, the annoying joke memes, the bra ads, the certainty that you only want to see what you've already seen. But I have to admit I do like pictures of gardens built like this:

I'm not sure what to call this style; it's a gravel or paved circle around a central island, and the whole is surrounded by a round border of low growing plants. Paths radiate out on an axis.

It's not a parterre (formal boxed gardens transected by paths) and it's not a Colonial herb garden although it is round, with paths. It has the layout of a potager, but has no vegetables and isn't a kitchen garden. It's not a formal Italian courtyard, although it can look Mediterranean, especially if there's a large oil jar in the middle.

It can be vaguely Japanese looking and informal. Or at least Asian inspired.

Or it can be cottage inspired with lots of flowers jumbled around a tidy center.

There doesn't even have to be a focal point in the center island, it can just be a bricked circle with nothing in the middle, as long as the stone or brickwork is interesting.

In my former New England garden on half an acre of flat, open space I had plenty of room to execute this kind of garden. I wanted to, and sort of tried to in increments, but didn't yet have the confidence or plant knowledge or design experience to make it happen.

I do have those means now, but in my tiny southwest courtyard I don't have the room to do it justice. The one below is here in Santa Fe at a home nearby. It needs something, and the circular borders aren't planted up, but it has the room to be a graceful shape and it has moss rock outlines to start.

Here's another southwest circle garden shown below, although not in Santa Fe. I like the limbed up desert willow by the fence and the exuberance of the plants around the birdbath.

What I think I like about these circle designs is the tension of a formal, controlled shape surrounded by busy, lush plant borders. 

Straight path lines opening to round circles. Structure, but chaos. A stopping point in the middle of paths leading somewhere. I like the push and pull of it.

I'll leave you with one last photo, but know that there are many more on my Pinterest board. 

Wait, that wasn't the end, here's one more: