A Tapestry of Textures

Contrast is the key to making great combinations of foliage, flowers, and seed heads

I yearn for a garden whose beauty lasts all twelvemonth , a garden filled with heart - appealing combinations that entice me from one blot to the next . I ’ve searched far and all-embracing for path to convey this special magic to my garden , and I ’ve looked in some strange places . Some of my ideas are drawn from psychology and chemistry , the scientific discipline of change and transformation . Alchemy , dating from the Middle Ages , was an other variety of chemical science . Its practitioners invoked mystical and raw big businessman in an effort to change lead story and other fundament metals into gold . By combining two or more unsubdivided , crude materials , medieval alchemist sought to make an entirely different constituent , an alloy more fascinating and exciting than the join of its region .

That ’s what I attempt to do in my garden with plants and other materials . Alchemy is a wonderful metaphor for gardening . By mixing and contrast divers flora and their parts — let in leaves , stanch , and cum head — I can redo a endearing garden picture and , hopefully , make a new composition that ’s deserving its weight in gold .

Opposites are attractive

I wish plants with dynamic visual appeal : spectacular foliage , beautiful silklike flowers , spiky semen forefront . A plant life with any one of these qualities is lovely by itself . But over the years , I ’ve check the literal beauty of a garden lies in its combinations , and that a undivided lovely plant becomes an even more striking musician when placed near another flora or target that is in some way its visual opposite . Placing something unsmooth next to something liquid , something large next to something modest , or even something around next to something linear , make a dramatic apposition . Now I even use parts of the hardscape to enhance my textural garden compositions . Boulders , unusual spate , and gravel paths all make for office in the visually copious textures at the heart of my garden .

One of my favourite ways to make visual texture is to combine plant in ways that emphasize and dramatize their difference . redact a towering flora with large leafage , like plume poppy ( Macleaya cordata ) , next to something that cuddle against the priming coat with very midget leaf , like cat’s foot ( Antennaria parvifolia‘McClintock ’ ) , for deterrent example , dramatizes their differences and creates a spirited pairing .

The principle of geminate opposition also holds true for any pigeonholing of plants ground on radically different feature , whether it is size , shape , or habit . This can be especially in force with ornamental Grass . I placed the vertical plumes of feather reed grass ( Calamagrostis acutiflora‘Karl Foerster ’ ) next to a billowy clump of hairy brome ( Bromus ramosus ) . Although both grasses are about the same tone of tan late in the time of year , their strikingly dissimilar silhouettes — one drooping and one stanchly perpendicular — make a pleasing pairing . A clump of prickly - looking , blue ball of insipid sea holly ( Eryngium planum ) next to the grasses add another textural element to the composition .

variegate plant height also contributes to active garden compositions . In my garden , I ’ve emphasized contrasts in size by placing bunch of small , item - deep plants against a background panorama of tall plants with bluff , textural lineament .

Use all parts of a plant, from stems to seed heads

My garden reinvents itself as bounce , summer , and come progress , creating vibrant snap of plants in different phases of their seasonal cycles . At one sentence of year , a industrial plant ’s contribution to the garden movie may be its blurred leave or thorny stems , at another , it may be soft , delicate flower . later on still , it may be barbellate seeded player heads .

beloved - in - a - mist ( Nigella damascena ) is the perfect example of a works that ’s constantly evolving to create new compositions . With ferny foliage , frilly - looking prime , and , afterward in the time of year , spiky , swollen seedpods , its ever - changing feature can roleplay all sorts of roles . Using it with blanket efflorescence ( Gaillardiaspp . ) creates an interesting effect . Though they are both round , the cool , prickly - attend sexual love - in - a - mist seedpod and the warm , sensuous mantle flower efflorescence are strikingly different . The contrast between the two invite inspection .

Grasses bestow great interest and shape to the garden , and can be contrasted with other industrial plant in bombastic or small scale . But I discover them just as useful for their ticklish germ head . The seed heads of most skunk are an airy , feathery finale to the grow season and bring a sentiency of frangibility to pairings with more sturdy , architectural foliation . The airy , wandlike seed heads of sheep ’s fescue ( Festuca ovina ) offer spectacular direct contrast against the more intricate leaves of a bally crane’s bill ( Geranium sanguineum ) and fast - spread cypress tree spurge ( Euphorbia cyparissias ) .

Put the hardscape to work too

My garden ’s hardscape — crushed rock paths , politic ceramic containers , and rugged - calculate boulders — also plays a role in creating ocular textures . Just as with flora , the key is meld the visual “ spirit ” of these inorganic elements — their hardness , smoothness , or coarse texture — with something that looks dramatically different .

In one spot of the garden , I placed a smooth , string - robe , corpse vas next to a gravel path , where the choppiness of the tiny stones plays against the silken spirit of the pot . To append even richer textures , I planted the expanse with Borago officinalis ( Borago officinalis ) , whose blurred foliage brings balminess to the composition . Even the colors work — the blue of the borage , the burnt orange of the skunk , and the tawny hue of the gravel create a solidly earthy pallet . I see the conglutination of these many opposition as an electrifying alchemic outcome . Each element pull out on the other , making this a excellent garden moment .

I even apply the boulder which graze up here and there in my garden to help link my plantings visually . They add a sense of the ageless , and their solidness provides a resting place for the eye against the ado of foliation and flower that enriches so much of the garden . To me , the stones and the tufts of supergrass I engraft near them bind my garden into a cohesive whole by create a recurring , textural theme .

The stones dally another , more cerebral role for me . I garden near Denver , Colorado , and the bowlder have a broken , inorganic role that makes the overlay of living plant life seem even more magical . It ’s almost like a microcosm of my Rocky Mountain surround .

Practice the fine art of restraint

As much as I like the play of opposites in my garden , I ’m heedful to forfend enter too much contrast and busyness . That only creates confusion and a ocular mess . Instead , I form to make something with more nuance , and look for a soft confederation between hardscape and plants , something that seem more like a refined dance than a tempestuous fling . Finding that balance can be hard , but I ’ve learned to trust my eye , my tactual sensation , and my hunches . After all , I ’m the one it ’s got to please most .

I ’ve made plenty of mistakes over the years , but I do n’t lose eternal rest over them . If I make something that is over the top , I just unwrap it . plant life and low objects can always be incite , and even the good gardens can be enhanced and meliorate . Making a full garden well is part of the sport of gardening .

I enjoy watching and mould in my garden as it grows and evolves from time of year to season . And I enjoy the aeonian saltation of its elements , the pairing of its opposites , and the alchemic deception that transforms it to something that , to me , has the splendour of amber .

Fine Gardening commend ware

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