Double Serpent Nature Walk | Legge Lewis Legge | Grand-Métis Canada

Double Serpent Nature Walk
Nature Walk, August 2010. Photo credit: ©2010 Louise Tanguay

Nature Walk is a further development of Round Up (After Monet), Legge Lewis Legge’s project commissioned for the 2008 International Garden Festival, held annually at the Jardins de Metis, Reford Gardens, Grand-Métis, Québec, Canada. Round Up (after Monet) was an array of 9 6-foot high earthworks bound with sod, heavy-duty strapping and cam buckles. The steep mounds grew and changed shape individually over time. An act of extreme landscaping, part lawn, pinch, pile and stack, this modern topiary was a growing sculpture sprung from ideas conflating Romantic Impressionism with the typical American lawn. The project spanned 2 entire seasons of the Festival, from 2008 to the spring of 2010, when it was programmatically enhanced to provide further interactivity with the public.

Double Serpent Nature Walk
Round Up (After Monet), installation, June 2008. ©Legge Lewis Legge
Double Serpent Nature Walk
Round Up (After Monet), July 2009. Photo credit: ©Reford Gardens / Jardins de Metis

A new project was built upon the existing one and renamed Double Serpent Nature Walk, in part to comply with the theme of the 2010 Festival, Paradise. Over the previous winter a variety of tall meadow grasses and wildflowers were cultivated in Jardins de Metis greenhouses. In early spring these seedlings were added to the original monoculture of the grown-out turf grass. A low, 4.5-inch-wide pine balance beam was installed in what seemed like a random pattern, flashing through the site at lightening-bolt angles 18 inches above the ground. All was left untended for the season. The beam grazed some mounds and steered wide of others, and each of the two ends cantilevered out over the crushed granite site borders, inviting visitors to step up and into the now overgrown mound array. The experience of a typical ‘nature walk’ was heightened as visitors were encouraged to make their way along the 140 feet of balance beam and not slip off into the ‘unknown’ of the deep, sometimes wet and marsh-like wild landscape.

Double Serpent Nature Walk
Nature Walk, plan, construction drawing, June 2010. ©Legge Lewis Legge
Double Serpent Nature Walk
Nature Walk, detail, installation, June 2010. ©Legge Lewis Legge
Double Serpent Nature Walk
Nature Walk, view looking south, June 2010. ©Legge Lewis Legge
Double Serpent Nature Walk
Nature Walk, July 2010.Photo credit: ©Reford Gardens / Jardins de Metis

Double Serpent Nature Walk

commissioned by: 2010 International Garden Festival,

Jardins de Metis, Reford Gardens, Grand-Métis, Québec, Canada.

Design Team: Legge Lewis Legge (Andrea Legge, Deborah Lewis, Murray Legge)

 

About Damian Holmes 3253 Articles
Damian Holmes is the Founder and Editor of World Landscape Architecture (WLA). He is a registered landscape architect (AILA) working in international design practice in Australia. Damian founded WLA in 2007 to provide a website for landscape architects written by landscape architects. Connect on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/damianholmes/

4 Comments

  1. I love this beautiful work of land art. I wish more sculpture parks and public gardens would commission such imaginative works from LLL, including one near me at Glen Echo, Md, or at Dumbarton Oaks in DC. 

  2. This is a truly wonderful event in the landscape   I wish we could have something like this  them in public parks or sculpture gardens in the US. 

  3. I’m in love with these mounds.  Want them in my garden here in Michigan.  They are lovely and peaceful.  I want to create them in my yard and look at them everyday!
    Thank you for sharing.

  4. I’m in love with these mounds.  I want them in my yard here in Michigan.  They are so beautiful.  THe whole thing is lovely!!  I’m intrigued and want to be in it and see it everyday!
    thanks for sharing.

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