I’m back at the drawing board, and that’s a good thing. Planning is essential to a garden that you can be sure your client appreciates. Elaine, my current client, is an octogenarian plus, and an excellent plantswoman. She really put me through my paces with this design for a small bed in her front yard. Time of bloom, color, texture, ease of maintenance, light, and water needs, and incorporating favorite existing plants all came into play as we planned this together.
Emerald Ash Borer update
This is one of the best summaries I have read regarding this new pest in Colorado. Please click here to review the article by Susan Clotfelter in the Denver Post.
We are at the beginning stages of dealing with the challenges of this pest in Colorado, and many of us will have to make some choices about the ash trees in our landscapes in the future. For now, if you are not in the immediate quarantine, or adjacent area, you probably do not have to make any decisions about your ash trees. However, it is time to become familiar with EAB, and it’s potential for destruction. Consult a qualified arborist if you have concerns about this or the health of any of your trees.
If you are considering planting new trees in your landscape, it’s time to consider alternate species. Please consult this list compiled by CSU. Diversification of our urban forests is a good idea. This list has some terrific trees that are currently underused. I would love to hear which ones are your favorites.
Garden design in a jar
Feeling rather blue, having spent too much time in the office doing the books, and not enough time working with plants, dirt, and design. The recent dry, dry brown Colorado landscape, with no white snow cover hasn’t done much to lift my mood. The prospect of my girlfriend’s birthday today provided the needed dose of creative inspiration. I dashed to the supermarket, and grabbed an interesting array of flowers for a birthday bouquet. As I was creating her “present in a vase”, I noticed that successful floral design includes common principles whether one is working with live plants in the ground, or cut flowers.
Form, texture, shape and finally color, all contribute to a successful composition, whether the plants live in dirt, or in water. Diversity, repetition, and triangulation (meaning 3 spread apart) help create design that is pleasing to the eye. In the picture on the left, note the difference between the tulip shape, and the sunflower shape. See the distinction between the broadleaf greenery (from the tulips), and the feathery limonium (small purple sprigs). Round shapes of the hypericum (berries) contrast with the spiky petals of the lime green mums and the sunflowers. Small leaves of the barberry (barely visible in back) contrast with the broad leaves of the tulips. Different sizes of similar shapes create both repetition and diversity. Notice the how the thin petals of the mums contrast with the broader petals of the sunflowers.
These principles are important in garden design too. A well-designed garden incorporates diversity in form or shape (vase shape, spike, mounded, round), diversity in texture (smooth, spiky, prickly, soft-fuzzy), height, and finally color. Leafing through pictures in garden magazines, the best photos represent gardens that have pleasing compositions using the above design principles. If you use these techniques well, you don’t need to worry as much about bloom time, or color to create excitement in your yard. The next time you go shopping for new additions to your garden, think about what shapes, textures, and heights you already have, and find plants that provide repetition, or contrast to your existing species. Your garden will look professionally designed!