Garden of Cosmic Speculation

Now who wouldn't be interested in a garden with a name such as this?!!  ..The ‘Garden of Cosmic Speculation’ in Dumfries, Scotland is a study in green. Here, Charles Jencks and his late wife, Maggie Keswick, created on the grounds of her mother’s 30 acre estate what some call, ‘the first true garden of the 21st century’.

Jencks, an architectural writer and garden designer, wanted to celebrate the fundamental magic of nature via landscape design, using the garden as a microcosm of a greater world. “What is a garden if not a miniaturization, and celebration, of the place we are in, the universe?” asked Jencks.

The couple built a magnificent landscape that features sweeping earth works and meandering waterways. The spiral shape is prominent in the gardens. It can seen in the tall, cone shaped grassed mound that  rises several stories above - and reflected beautifully in - a body of curving, still water.

Jencks’ fascination with quantum science is evident in this verdant setting...Some say the spiraling paths of the mound can be viewed as a template of the DNA molecule or the spirals of Nature ... Today, the conical green mound with a spiraling path is Jencks’ trademark of sorts and he incorporates them in various parks around the world....

Look to the Scotland's National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh for another Jencks landscape. Here, the grounds were similarly constructed to create 'Landform Ueda', described as a "stepped, serpentine-shaped mound complemented by crescent-shaped pools of water. A combination of artwork, garden and social space, the landform was inspired by chaos theory and shapes found in nature. "

Cosmic, indeed.