The garden of movement: ecological rhetoric tn support of gardening1 practice

Abstract

‘Now too the authority of science is cited to augment the authority of nature and God. Today most landscape architects regard ecological science as an important source of principles of landscape design.’ Like many other historians and critics of garden and landscape design such as Howett,2 Dalton,3 Le Dantec,4 Baridon5 and Racine,6 here Spirn7 notes the dominant influence of ecological science on the contemporary garden, situating the influence of the principles of ecology before the design process. A number of commentators, including Dalton8 and Mozingo9 also stress the difficulty of adequately translating the impact of this new ecological reality in garden and landscape design or, after Conan,10 on the need to define a new aesthetic. In fact, the place of ecology in contemporary garden and landscape design is the focus of much debate.