"John Morgan" wrote in
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Franz Heymann wrote in
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"John Morgan"
wrote in
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. The more natural looking the garden, the
more it gets admired.

That is loose talk. {:-((

Where in *nature* would you expect to find plants from
Africa, The Americas, Asia and Europe juxtaposed in
the same patch of ground?
Where in nature would you expect to find campanulas or
geraniums thriving in the absence of an unselected
environment of weedy plants?

My use of the word natural is colloquial, with it's meaning
somewhat divorced from its root. Here one is supposed to
understand that nature has existences at more than one level
in our consciousness and the overall appearance of a garden,
as with raw nature, transcends the individual items creating
it. Gardens that capture this essence and even improve it
would be regarded as having a natural beauty whatever the
component plants are. I believe this means they should look
as though they just happened and no man's hand is apparent.

As the Japanese have shown, the number of components can be
much lower than would make up many vistas in nature, yet
their gardens, aesthetically-speaking, often still seem
'natural'. Gravel and a chain link fence is too minimalist
for my taste, but I see many gardens that consist of just
that. But I never see many passers-by standing to gawp at
such a spectacle, though ;-))

What you have described has little to do with "natural", and a lot
with "gardenesque". The latter term meaning whatever it is that is
currently in fashion in the gardening scene.

Franz