A shelter from the sun
Above and below: Choose a wonderful vantage point for your gazebo as did Beth Gornall in the photo above. Right: Gail Braun chose copper to provide a shady spot under an old maple tree.
by Jack Farley Many pergolas are covered only by A
cool haven from the sun, a temporary protection from the rain, a screened in escape from
mosquitoes: arbours, gazebos and pergolas offer us an often romantic outdoor room.
Pergolas Pergolas go back over 3,000 years.
There is even a surviving garden plan dating back to 1,400 BC showing a pergola as the entry way to a garden belonging to a high Egyptian offi- cial in Thebes. Pergolas are frequently designed as walkways and sometimes used to transition from one space to another.
18 • SUMMER 2013
vines and may be open on all sides. They can serve as lovely hanging gardens (imagine a pergola filled with baskets of everbearing strawberries or dripping with grapes). In ancient times, the pillars were made of stone or even marble, topped with vines or by wooden structures that span the two sides or may be latticed for vines to climb on. In early gardens, pergolas or arbours
were sometimes made by simply inter- twining branches to form a protected passageway. Today, they are made from just about
anything, from wood to metal to plas- tics. You can have a very elaborate one
built by a contractor or order the components from one of the box stores and do it yourself.
Gazebos Gazebos are a bit more of a construc-
tion than a pergola, but there are still kits that allow you to do the construc- tion yourself – or that a contractor can
set up for you if you are backwards with a hammer and nails. Gazebos have been traditionally
designed in a variety of geometrical shapes, hexagonal being one of the favourites, although they can be round, square, rectangular or even octagonal. Gazebos have roofs. Other than that,
there are no rules. Some have screened in sides, others are open. Gazebos, like pergolas, go back to at
least Egyptian times where they were situated in gardens featuring cooling water brought in by underground aque- ducts. The Greeks made their gazebos from marble and dedicated them to the gods. They were placed in gardens or near temples where they were available for public use. The Romans had private gardens featuring gazebos where one could escape the sometimes bloody stresses of Roman life. In Asia, pagodas, a type of gazebo,
were made in lacquered wood by the Chinese. They were used for medi- tation, while in Japan gazebo-like
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