DESIGN IN THE GARDEN
Don’t be intimidated by design. Plant what you want and what you like
as long as you observe this number one rule: choose a plant appropriate
for the site! Shade loving plants for shade; sun loving, drought tolerant
plant for sunny dry conditions; sturdy plants for windy areas; salt tolerant
ones for the coast; trees or shrubs of a size appropriate for the area: e.g.
if you want a tree planted 6 feet from the house, then choose one which
grows no wider then 10 feet – it will grow 5 feet from each side of the
trunk, leaving a foot of access room along the house for maintenance, etc.
If your eave extends out 3 feet then make sure the top or side of the
tree doesn’t grow up into the eave. Most nurseries give a ten year height
on trees and most shrubs unless otherwise noted. But remember – the
plant keeps growing after 10 years! So one listed as “15 feet in ten years”
should be 30’ in 20 years, 45’ in 30 years, etc. Shrubs generally don’t
out grow their listed size. It’s wise, however, to remember that plants
don’t read their labels!
THE PLANT'S ROLE
When trying to decide what plant to choose ask yourself this question:
what is its 9-5 job? Provide me with beauty and fragrance. To block
the neighbor’s hot tub during summer dinner time. To screen out your
garbage bins. To stop the kids from falling off the retaining wall and
into the street. To block headlights from the street. To provide color
and scent in the winter, or spring, or fall. Or to provide herbs and flowers
for the home.
Avoid pitfalls or future problems by asking questions like these: will the
plant block my views; access to sewer or water or cable lines; make a
mess on the patio by dropping leaves or fruit all summer; will it attract
bees you don’t want; will burglars find lovely hiding places in the shrubs;
will vision be blocked when driving out of the driveway; will it just make
a lot of work for us; or will it be low maintenance so we can sit on the
leaf and fruit free patio?
The final question is this: what’s the style or feeling you want your garden
to be or to evoke: southern charm or sleek Italian modern; northwest
natural or New England colonial; winter warmth or summer cool; formal,
natural, quirky, or vaa-vaa voom!
After asking yourself all these questions, go back to the first one: did
I choose a plant appropriate for the site? You have to accept that you
cannot have a sustainable rose garden in the woods, a marsh on hot
sand, or hostas along a shade less sidewalk.
PUTTING IT TOGETHER
A good way to start is by thinking out your design from the winter up.
That is, choose plants that will look good and make beautiful compositions
in the winter. Next, choose plants for autumn interest, moving on to summer
and finally to spring - which is the most seductive and thus easiest season
to design. By creating a pleasing winter composition you will have beauty
year round - even if surrounded by summer muddle. Of course you should
fix the summer muddle when – and if - you discover it.
Evergreens provide permanence and solidity to a design but they can add
heaviness and a dullness in our gray winter light. Choose them wisely.
Not all evergreens are green nor are they “Christmas trees”. There are
yellow, gray, whitish, blue, light and dark green leaved evergreens. Camellias,
azara, bergenia, carex, nandina, hebes, and many other trees, shrubs,
grasses, and perennials and ferns are evergreen and many hued.
Consider the deciduous trees and shrubs which bloom in winter and provide
our gardens with jewel like colors – hamamelis (witch hazels), Viburnum ‘Dawn’,
stachyurus, hazels, pussy willows. The stems of many Japanese maples turn
brilliant greens or reds or oranges in winter sun as do those of the shrubby
dogwoods. Don’t overlook twig and bark color for winter beauty.
LEAF COLOR
Plants with variegated leaves are eye catchers at the nursery – and eye
catchers in your garden, so use them sparingly. Too much variegation
creates an unsettled feeling or cluttered appearance. But if that’s the
look you want then go for it!
Another general rule is that white and cream variegations do best in shade;
while yellows, reds, and purples do best in sun. The color of purple, maroon,
and the liverish hued leaves intensify in the sun creating a vibrancy. Placing
them in shade washes out the color. Dark colors in the shade also read as a
visual black hole – very dull indeed. Yellow and chartreuse colored leaves in
the shade diminish in color, too, but still read bright, like splashes of sunlight
in the shade.
A grey leaved plant usually means sun and drought tolerant – think of
lavender, senecio, thyme, cistus, etc.
Japanese maples are seasonal chameleons, often changing leave color
three or four times, even with light intensity, heat, and nourishment.
Many of the reds do change to dull or olive reds in summer heat –
look for varieties which hold their color in the summer heat. Fall color
is intensified by sunny exposures. Mr. Vertrees has written an excellent
book on Japanese maples which gives the color variations of hundreds of
varieties.
Sometimes the extra – and needed – care given to a new tree keeps it
from displaying its rich summer and autumn coloring. Don’t worry. Once
the tree is established and artificial watering is not longer needed its
summer and autumn color will deepen. If you put a tree in the middle
of a well watered and fertilized lawn don’t expect good fall color for
several years. Try to limit the summer irrigation and lawn fertilizer from
around the established tree.
MOVEMENT OR "MUSIC" IN DESIGN
Music in the garden is not an orchestra or jazz band, nor a Wagnerian
tenor or song birds. It is the movement provided by heads of grass,
rustling bamboos, or the flickering of tree leaves. Music is as much
movement as it is sound. Place a Stipa gigantea, a moor grass, a
panicum in sunny areas among other perennials or shrubs.