"The house had been built on rocks that had sunk into the ground, and most of the main beams and joists had rotted," Robin recalls. "The nettles were waist-deep, there were makeshift fences everywhere, a few half-dead lilacs, old fruit trees and, luckily for me, some ancient, first-growth Douglas firs."
Twenty-five years later, the rural Metchosin property, 22.5 kilometres west of Victoria, British Columbia, is a living work of art-testament to the talents of Robin and his wife, Judi Dyelle, also a potter. Of the 2.4 hectares, one is cultivated; the rest have been left untamed, with areas of wildflowers, blackberries and stands of huge Douglas fir and Garry oaks. (The firs, coupled with exotic trees added by Robin, led to the designation of the property as a heritage tree site in 1998 by the Victoria Heritage Tree Foundation.)
"This is the most complex and gratifying work of art I've ever made," he says of the garden. "You can look at it and be inside it at the same time, so it's a bit like being in the middle of a painting or sculpture."
Good gardens, Robin believes, reflect their creators. He calls his "Anglojapanadian" and says it's the sum of who he is, where he's been and his interests. British by birth, he was a travel guide in his youth, touring gardens all through Europe and studying art history. As a ceramic artist, he has travelled and taught from China to Japan and from Arizona to New Zealand. Although there are non-Asian elements in the garden (Mediterranean, bog and xeriscape gardens are all represented), his style has been heavily influenced by the ancient traditions of Japan.
In his garden, Robin has blended together five major Japanese garden styles: the stroll garden, the scroll garden, the tea garden, the Zen garden and the courtyard. Step after step it unfolds with artistic verve, an instinctive sense of aesthetics and an occasional sense of the theatrical, doubtless due in part to the time Robin spent in the make-believe world of theatre design.
Robin is a master illusionist who takes gardening seriously yet also manages to have fun with it. Aside from slugs and weeds, he finds it tremendously relaxing-when he has time: "In two years, when I turn 65, I hope to spend more time outside." Until then, Robin relies on six hours of help a week to keep things manageable.
If the feel of the garden is Asian, the theme is winter form, spring flower, summer coolness and fall colour. "When I moved from Ontario in 1977, I missed the brilliance of fall and I was determined to create that here."
Much of the garden is open to the public and visiting it is like taking a meditative journey. It begins with the visitor's arrival into a vast, cathedral-like space under the Douglas firs on the north, or entrance, side. Starting in the northwest corner, a meandering path leads you in a casual circle west through the rhododendron forest, then south to the Mediterranean garden, daylily orchard and dry garden, and east past tree peonies, a bog garden and an Asian woodland garden. It ends up back in the north near Robin's and Judi's studios and nearby house and gallery.
"I love the whole concept of the circular stroll garden," Robin explains, "and the path is a metaphor for a river where the journey is meant to be spiritual as well as physical."
In the forest, tall rhododendrons flower from February to August. Just a few metres away, wildflowers-such as shooting stars, dog's tooth violets and Oregon lilies-are strung like necklaces below wild spirea, wild snowberry and an elegant katsura tree (Cercidiphyllum japonicum), whose heart-shaped leaves provide excellent fall colour (see "Four-Season Interest"). Since his growing medium is 30 centimetres of good acidic topsoil over clay, Robin is diligent about keeping the ground moist so it doesn't pack down, particularly in the rhodo forest, because rhodos have shallow, fibrous roots that need light, airy soil.
Robin believes the garden should entice people through a variety of means: plants, paths, fences and art. In the middle of the rhodo forest, for instance, is a large sculpture of three figures talking. "To encourage people to slow down and look at the sculptures, I cast cement fans and put them into the ground nearby as stepping stones," he says.
The idea comes from Japanese gardens where the designer controls the movement of the stroll by stopping people with a stone-either placed in the ground or upright-grabbing their interest and then unrolling a scroll or picture. If you look carefully, you'll also catch glimpses of the giant, subtly glazed, clay mushrooms Robin has created to place in areas where nothing else will grow.
The western path through the forested area leads past a fan-shaped bench to the sight of a golden locust tree (Robinia pseudoacacia 'Frisia Aurea') framed by an arch-just one example of a scroll within the garden.
Fan symbols are repeated throughout-on stepping stones, benches and chairs-partly because Robin has always loved their shape and partly because they are a Japanese symbol of authority and scholarship.
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