1 The partial, built shell that lets a garden grow

Whether in public gardens, or in private gardens, the quality of exterior space which comes from living process has a particular and definable morphology. […] Simple, and nearly crude, only the essentials are present. Nature dominates, but within a structure roughly made, by geometric centers of construction — concrete, stone — which supply the infrastructure that allows the plants, trees, bushes, water, to find their place.
That is the essence of all gardens and all agriculture: that built materials, human-made structures create a setting in which people, animals and plants can thrive. It is the geometry of these built structures, which, like the shell of a mollusc, makes the growing of the garden, and its resulting richness, possible.

#book/The Nature of Order/3 A Vision of a Living World/7 The Character of Gardens#