Lake & Garden: Transcending time

Even at Smith Mountain Lake, where the pace of living is slower, sometimes it feels as if life is spinning out of control and we’re not so much managing time as being controlled by it. In the garden, we have the opportunity to slow down. There’s a rhythm there that transcends the modern world’s time-driven agendas. Time in the garden unfolds slowly, driven by the sun and the seasons. And so the nicest – and time-honored – way to mark the hours in the garden is with an ancient timekeeping device, the sundial.

Sundials speak of a simpler age when life was less frenetic – or so we like to think. Many are inscribed with mottoes that can amuse. For example, there’s “Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be,” and “Let others tell of storms and showers, I’ll only mark your sunny hours.” On a more cautionary note are those inscriptions that urge us to face our mortality: “Me ortum vides forsan non occasum” (Thou hast seen me rise but mayst not see me set) or Confucius’ admonition that, “An inch of time on the sundial is worth more than a foot of jade.”

SUNDIALS THROUGH TIME
While it is not known for certain who first invented the sundial, historians suspect it was the Babylonians in what is present-day Iraq. The idea makes sense, as the ancient Babylonians were known to be advanced mathematicians and astronomers. Adding credence to the theory is the Greek historian Herodotus who wrote in about 450 B.C., “It was from the Babylonians that the Greeks learned about the pole, the gnomon, and the 12 parts of the day.” The Greeks improved on the early sun clocks, making them ever more complex and ingenious. Their knowledge was passed to the Romans, who gave us the word “dial” from the Latin word dies for day since a sundial marks the 12 divisions of the day according the sun’s placement in the sky.

For the most part, people were grateful for the invention of a way to mark the hours, although the Roman comic poet and dramatist Titus Maccius Plautus (about 254-184 BC) wrote a poem condemning  “the wretch who first ... set a sundial in the marketplace to chop my day to pieces.”  His lament on the tyranny of time resonates through the centuries. 

21ST CENTURY SUNDIALS
Today, most gardeners are more interested in the decorative qualities of a sundial than they are in its time-keeping properties. Mass produced and generally inexpensive, sundials are available in garden centers, through mail-order catalogs or online. However, for those who want to get serious about keeping time by the sun, it is possible to buy finely made and calibrated sundials that are works of art. The science and art of sundials, called gnomonics, is enjoying a renaissance. Surf the web and you’ll find scads of artisans who are making fine sundials designed to be works of art as well as accurate timekeepers. 

ORNAMENTAL VALUE
Whether an inexpensive item or a fine work of art, sundials are delightful ornamental features in the garden. A vertical sundial makes a lovely focal point on a bare wall, breaking up the blank expanse. Make sure the wall faces due south. In a garden where the design is primarily horizontal, consider placing a sundial on a pedestal to add height. Put one in the center of your lawn as a focal point, or at the end of a path to lure strollers to walk the length. 

A sundial or other tall ornament is the traditional focal point to a symmetrical, formal garden as well as to formally laid-out herb gardens, but it is equally at home in an informal, cottage-style garden surrounded by bouquets of flowers jostling each other for position.

SETTING ACCURATE SUNDIAL TIME
In order to keep correct time, a horizontal sundial must be calibrated to its location.  
Use a protractor to set the gnomon (the sundial arm that casts the shadow) so the upper angled edge (called the style) is at 37 degrees, the latitude for Smith Mountain Lake. Shim the face of the dial, adjusting it until it’s sitting at that angle.

In the northern hemisphere, the gnomon should point to the number 12, and must also face the North Star, which is geographic or true north. To determine geographic north, level the surface where you plan to set the dial.  Draw several concentric circles on the ground centered on the spot for the sundial. One circle will do, but if you make several, you are not tied down to a specific time of day to take your measurements. 

Fix a dowel or stake into the ground at the exact center of the circles, making sure the stick is absolutely perpendicular to the ground. In the morning, watch the shadow cast by the dowel, and mark the point where it touches one of the circles. 

Go back in the afternoon and watch for the shadow to touch the same circle on the opposite side.  If you make the first mark at 9 a.m., three hours before noon, you can expect the shadow to hit the circle on the opposite side at about 3 p.m., six hours later. Mark that point and draw a line between these two points. Draw another line that bisects the first at right angles. Position the sundial so the gnomon points north along the second line.