Sentinels of Time
As a sentinal of time, the sundial has marked the passing of days and years as it stands silent in the garden. Knowing the passing of seasons, the sun dial has witnessed baked vertical rays of summer, the oblique yellow light of autumn, the clouded obscurity of winter hours and awakened in the spring with thin morning slivers. It has guarded over the passing generations of birds and insects, children that grow to adults, gardens that go through their many molts as they evolve passing through time. Time is the river we all swim in, moving at speeds that can be drudgingly slow, or we can be swept into rapids and swirled in the eddys along it's course, but we all only get to be in the river for a while; an undefined allotment of time. The mysterious properties of time have tantalized us for eons. Inscriptions found on garden sundials is testament to our respect and awe we have for our companion, time. Some are from the fatalists viewpoint and others are the optimists. "Disce Tuos Numerare Dies"-Learn to number thy days; "Fumus et umbra sumus"-We are nothing but smoke and shadow. "Now is Yesterday's Tomorrow"; "Trifle not, your time is short"; "Festinat Suprema"-The last hour approaches. "Eheu fugaces labuntur anni"-Alas, the fleeting years slip away; "Nihil velocius annis"-Nothing is swifter than time. On the sunnier side of sundial inscriptions is "Sol splendit omnibus"- The sun shines for all; "Lead Kindly Light"; "A Clock the time may tell, I, Never if the sun shines well". Or the "Live for the moment" school of thought, which inscribed, "C'est L'heure de boire"-It's time to drink. One would assume that means to drink of life, but it is French…
Sundials have been around in various forms for at least 4,000 years, probably more. Babylonian, Greek, Roman, and Egyptian civilizations were among the first to measure the passage of time by the movement of the sun's shadow on a fixed object. The earliest sundials were vertical, and because they were not available to the common person, they were often found in public squares or in church yards. Some were in the shape of a cross or carved into the side of the church building. In the 16th century horizontally oriented sundials came into use, and are the style we find in most garden applications. The sundials we use today are composed of two parts: a face or plane, and a gnomon or shadow arm. The gnomon rises at an angle from the center of the face and needs to point to celestial north. Mostly our sundials are used as ornament only, so precision setting is not a requirement of them. Very precise sundials will tell you for which latitude they were constructed and correction is needed in the set up if the sundial is moved north or south of the latitude for which it was intended. The gnomon should parallel the earths north-south axis. To correct for this, the sundial is tilted slightly off level to accommodate the latitudinal difference. If you are really serious about setting the correct time, there are books to really get exact. If precision is not as important, you can use your watch to set the sundial. At exactly 12:00 noon, (1:00 PM daylight savings time) turn the sundial until the shadow from the gnoman falls in the middle of the noon mark. You will get an approximation of time which won't exactly correspond to the GMT, or your watch time. The closest you will come to synchronization will be on April 1, June 15, September 1 and December 24. On all other days the clock will be faster or slower than the sundial. The difference is known as the "equation of time". I don't do equations, so that's up to you.
The sundial can be used in the garden to accent an area. A sunny spot is of course important for a sundial, at an intersection of two garden paths, on a pedestal, or on a retaining wall. An upturned pot serves as a base for a sundial, or the base of a bird bath whose top has gotten broken can find a new purpose. A sunroom, or greenhouse should have a sundial. Sundials remind of simpler times. They are enduring and beautiful. They bring poetry and philosophy into the garden.
The sizes and styles of sundials are quite varied and availabilty is good due to their popularity; old designs have been found and copied. Most are brass or bronze, although some are available in engraved stone that can be laid into masonry work. There are also stone sundials, in large scale that can be incorporated into a patio or walkway in which the gnoman, a brass rod, is placed into a hole in the stone face to tell the time-a design straight out of an Italian villa.
The entire world moves on the passing of a shadow, and it is our time to make of it what we will. "Hoc Tuum Est"-the present is all you may claim as yours.
Carol de Maintenon is a member of Garden Writers of America and owner of Benicia Garden & Nursery.
