Michael Tortorello, profiling landscape architect Thomas Ranier’s home garden:
You envision a garden from on high: In the trade, this exalted perspective is called “plan view.” But you dig and plant at ground level with the stuff you have. For all his training and vision, then, Mr. Rainer’s yard is a lot like everyone else’s: a compromise.
It is a three-dimensional equation of compromise, actually, where the X axis is taste, the Y axis is money and the Z axis is time. To be specific, Mr. Rainer has an overabundance of X, a scarcity of Y and, hold on, where did all the Z go?