Category Archives: garden design

color in the garden, Garden art, garden design, landscape design

Garden Design Tips

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A garden has many purposes. It's a place to grow delicious tomatoes and mouth watering fruit picked ripe off the tree. It's a place to read your favorite book on a comfy chair in the shade. It's a place to watch birds and butterflies when they visit the flowers you've planted just for them. It's a place that you go when you need to get away from all the hustle and bustle of daily life. And it's a place of healing.

This week I lost my little cat, Jasmine.  I forgive her for the occasional bird she caught. She really wasn't a hunter. Mostly she liked to just lay around in the shade. There is so much life in a garden. For now, mine will be a healing garden.

Gardens serve many functions. With our lovely summer weather they are truly another room – an outdoor room. We all recognize a well designed garden when we see it. All the garden's individual parts make sense together. They feel right. That's why some gardens not only look better, but feel better than others, too.

There are several design principles that you should use to get your garden to look its best. Once you have them down, a garden practically designs itself.  

First of all you want to create unity within your garden. Plants and other hardscape elements in a garden, like decks, paths or even rocks, have visual weight  that needs to be balanced so everything appears in proportion. A tall tree and low mounded shrubs growing opposite a group of airy perennials around a fountain looks natural and random but balanced. Think of a mimosa tree underplanted with Gulf Stream nandina opposite a group of monkey flower.

Your garden should include a variety of textures, seasonal interest and color to hold your attention and create excitement. Things should stand out from each other. Choose one or two contrasting elements, like the small green leaves of loropetalum against  broad, variegated hostas, or a tall, vertical thuja Emerald Green against low, mounding abelia Kaleidescope so your garden doesn't turn into a jumble.

A garden needs at least one object or area that is noticed first and most often. Your focal point can be a red Japanese maple rising above a low, wild ginger groundcover or a water fountain that instantly gets your attention. The sound of water is soothing and it's fun to see all the birds and butterflies that come to visit.

Because our area is nested among the trees or other wild areas I think an informal, naturalistic garden looks more like it belongs here. Curved paths and planting beds move the eye more slowly through the landscape and invite you to come and explore every corner and curve. Stillness and reflection result  when gentle rhythmic, repeating groups of plants curve toward a tall garden arbor, for instance. Create smooth transitions from one area of the landscape to another.

Repeating forms, textures, colors and sizes makes a garden easier to look at. Repetition sets the rhythm for the eye to move around the garden. Evenly space plants produces a predictable, well-controlled, peaceful feeling. A staggered, uneven repetition will have a bouncy, energetic effect.

 

Ahbkazi Garden, color in the garden, Design trends, flowering shrubs, flowers, garden design, groundcovers, landscape design, Pacific Northwest, trees,shrubs,vines,perennials, West Coast Design, wildlife

Ahbkazi Garden – Victoria, BC.

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How many beautiful gardens can one visit on one vacation? I spent a whole day at the spectacular Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island. a couple of hours at St. Ann's Academy heritage garden and the lovely Empress Hotel rose garden is a nice place to watch the sunset over the harbor.  But I wanted more and on the outskirts of Victoria in a residential neighborhood I found the perfect garden.

Smaller and more intimate, Abkhazi Garden offers a fine example of what you can do with a large lot full of rocks and trees if you put your mind to it. Now owned by The Land Conservancy of British Columbia, the property was bought in 1946 by Peggy Pemberton Carter who recognized the possibilities on this last undeveloped lot in the neighborhood. This independent minded woman traveled to the west coast after WW II from a prisoner of war camp in Georgia, using funds she had hidden during the war in talcum powder. She married Prince Abkhazi, a Russian fellow prisoner, when he joined her in Victoria and they began to build the summer house and lay out the garden together.

Over the next 40 years, Prince and Princess Abkhazi  designed, planted and maintained the property. Peggy had lived in Shanghai before the war and it was this influence that plays out in the garden. Chinese gardens are essentially places of meditation, places to withdraw from worldly cares. This must have been very appealing to the Abkhazi's  after their experiences in prisoner of war camps. Nothing in a Chinese garden is hurried or blatant. Paths are not just a way of getting from one point to another, instead they are a way of exploring changing views that slowly shift as you walk through the garden.

As I made my way between massive glaciated rock outcroppings and under mature native Garry oak trees gorgeous views of the snow-covered Olympic mountains and the Straight of San Juan de Fuca could be seen.
Each garden "room" utilizes the natural lay of the land and has a welcoming bench for sitting and taking in the flowers. Lots of birds and butterflies were busy feeding and going about their daily activities.

Purple allium flowers the size of grapefruit caught my attention. Growing nearby, pale yellow Candelabra primula[/caption]Japanese iris bordered one of the paths. Fragrant dianthus, several varieties of campanula and euphorbia, lady's mantle and candelabra primula were all blooming and the weeping Crimson Queen Japanese maples were pruned to perfection.

More than just a collection of plants, this garden flows with the natural contours and blends the house with it's surroundings. it is a stunning example of West Coast design. The garden flows around the rock outcroppings, taking advantage of deeper pockets of soil for conifers, Japanese maples and rhododendrons. The original Lily-of-the-Valley beds still carpet a slope. Alpine plants are placed like little jewels around the boulders and woodland plants border the undulating lawns.

A small waterfall flows into a pond where 2 large turtles sunned themselves on the rock edge while a third rested on a waterlily pad, it's red ear markings picking up the dark pink color of the waterlily flower. A stand of stately white calla lilies emerged through a piece of drifwood near a resting spot. The garden is magical. One that you could imagine on your own property if you had the next 40 years to plant and maintain it.
 
It would have been  a terrible loss if the property had not been purchased in 2000 by The Land Conservancy. After the death of the Abkhazis the land was slated to become a townhouse development. This unique garden
is truly a place of wonder. a place to meditate and to withdraw from worldly cares.
 

California Native Plants, garden design, perennials

Diamond Heights ceanothus, Sunroses & Ligularia

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Some plants have become the darlings of the garden while other perfectly good plants are being left in the dust ( no pun intended ) and ignored. Take Hot Lips salvia, for instance. Seems every garden now has a few. I know, I know, I’m as enamored with this variety as anybody and responsible for extolling its virtues but I want to give credit where credit it due to some underused but awesome plants. Who are these forgotten all stars?

One of my favorite groundcovers for sunny areas that looks beautiful as it fills in between other low water use plants is Ceanothus ‘Diamond Heights‘.  Carpet an area with a dense, low mat of golden yellow and lime-green variegated foliage that looks great year round.  The pretty light blue spring flowers take second place to the leaves.

This is one of those versatile plants, performing just as well in dry soils and tough situations as it does in sheltered gardens with partial shade and rich soils. If you want a spectacular effect, plant it as a group. Each plant covers 3-5 ft. Because the foliage makes a cover that weeds seldom manage to penetrate, it’s a real maintenance saver. Use it on difficult sites such as banks as well as in garden beds and raised beds. It’s also a stunner as a container plant, the foliage spreading wide on all sides.

What looks good with Diamond Heights? Try putting it with wispy, grey-blue lavender Little Spires perovskia and Hidcote lavender or Blue-eyed grass and coffeeberry.  It’s vibrant foliage also brightens the ground beneath native oaks.

Another perennial groundcover that I love to use in a tough, particularly problematic spot is Helianthemum or Sunrose. If you have enough thyme in your garden, it’s time to branch out and try this plant. Masses of colorful, inch wide flowers appear in early summer and last well into autumn. Colors include soft yellow, pinks, oranges, apricot and reds.

While the flowers are the main attraction, I find the range of foliage almost as wonderful. Some varieties have soft, grayish leaves, others a light green while some even have crinkled bright green foliage. Sunroses are work horses, hugging the ground and making an excellent low ground cover 2-3 ft across for a sunny location. They are very drought tolerant when established and don’t mind poor soils or even sandy soils.

My favorite cultivar is Belgravia Rose with its bright rose-pink flowers and grey leaves but compact Wisley Primrose covered with bright yellow flowers is also high on my list. This tough plants is rarely bothered by pests or diseases as long as there is good drainage and are attractive to bees and butterflies adding to their garden appeal.

Rounding out my list of favorite underused plants is one for shade gardeners. Because there are not many yellow flowers for the shade garden, Ligularia dentata Othello is a perennial that I like to include in a border. It’s like adding a little sunshine. This clump-forming perennial with bold leaves and 4" daisy-like golden flowers in July and August are born on plants that reach 2-3 ft tall and 2-3 ft wide. This variety likes moist soil. Plant them with other moisture loving plants such as ferns, hostas and Japanese forest grass. Ligularias are deer resistant.

These are just a few of the plants that I use in landscape designs to add punch to a garden. If you’re looking for something different in your landscape give them a try.