Tag Archives: garden design

Design trends

Garden Drama with Large-Leaf Plants

Gardens have different personalities. Some gardens mimic nature with plants that attract birds and butterflies and other wildlife and look a bit wild. Some are neat and tidy with perennials lined up evenly along pathways and clipped hedges under the windows. Gardens are a reflection of their owners. When I visit a garden to help the owner change, add or “take the garden to the next level” I know which ideas will resonate with that person and which will just not work for them. Sometimes it’s easier for someone looking at a garden for the first time to visualize what’s needed.

Regardless of your style I often recommend one simple solution to update a garden. Many gardens end up with too many small-leafed plants. Nature is the master at this survival strategy. Small leaves are often more efficient at retaining water in drought conditions. When all your leaves are the same size, however, the garden gets boring. Using large, bold architectural plants allows the eye to rest on a focal point rather than try to take in everything at once, scanning back and forth.

Plants, like people, come in all sizes and shapes and so do their leaves. Some have huge and dramatic leaves while others are just showy and outsized enough to work well when viewed up close or at ground level. Some plants look tropical and others are right at home in the redwood understory. Some require regular water while others are able to withstand some drought. There’s a bold, breathtaking plant for every garden.

Because they reflect light, glossy leaves look even larger than they are. Make those leaves variegated or wavy with a dimpled texture and the effect is even more striking.

Here are a few large-leafed plants that work well in our area.

In partial shade try Fatsia japonica also called Japanese aralia. It’s deer resistant with bold foliage that looks tropical but still at home in the forest. Philodendron selloum with its huge, glossy leaves is also easy to grow. Oakleaf hydrangeas have it all: bold foliage that turns red in fall as well as huge white flower clusters in summer.

Tasmanian tree ferns are hardier in our winters than the Australian variety and are also as dramatic a plant as you will find. Bear’s Breech require only moderate water and serve well as a focal point in the garden.

In my own garden, I’m finding the chartreuse leaves of Hosta ‘Sum and Substance’ can take more sun than I originally thought. The deer walk right by their thick, dimpled leaves which is a definite plus. I like all hostas for their bold leaves whether variegated, glossy or wavy.

At ground level, some of my favorite large-leafed perennials that require only moderate water include hellebore, aspidistra, bergenia, coral bells and the dry-shade California native, wild ginger or asarum caudatum.

If you garden in more sun you can add pizzaz to your garden by planting something with large-leaves in front of those tall ceanothus, manzanita and toyon. Matilija poppy is a show stopper if you have room for it. Rhubarb, windmill palm, smoke bush and Western redbud also have huge leaves as do canna lily, banana, sago palm, loquat and angel’s trumpet. These are just a few of the many plants with big leaves that work magic in gardens around here.

Adding plants with dramatic foliage instantly makes-over the garden.

Design trends

Improving Your Garden in a Few Easy Steps

Abelia Confetti pairs nicely with the burgundy foliage of a loropetalum

By this time of the year, you probably have planted some new perennials for color in your garden. But if you look around and still feel something is missing the answer may be that your landscape needs more than color. As a landscape designer I am often called upon for ideas to create richer landscapes that provide four seasons of interest. Here are some tips I pass along.

A more sophisticated appeal and enduring quality in your landscape can be achieved if foliage color is used to complement, or contrast with, other plants within the design. This technique unifies the overall look while offering appeal throughout the season. One plant that would make this happen is Rose Glow Japanese barberry. Their graceful habit with slender, arching branches makes a statement by itself but it’s the vivid marbled red and pinkish foliage that steals the show until they deepen to rose and bronze with age. In the fall, the foliage turns yellow-orange before dropping and bead-like bright red berries stud the branches fall through winter.

Abelia Confetti closeup.

Abelia Confetti is another small shrub that can be used to unify your landscape. Growing only 2-3 ft high and 4-5 ft wide with variegated eaves and foliage turning maroon in cold weather. Abelia are adaptable plants, useful in shrub borders, near the house or as as groundcover on banks. White, bell-shaped flowers are plentiful and showy during summer and early fall.

Texture in foliage is very important in good garden design. Varying the size and shape of leaves creates diversity and variety among neighboring plants. Striking visual interest can even be achieved when working with two different plants with similar shades of green.

An example of this would be combining Gold Star pittosporum tenuifolium with grevillea noellii. The first has dark green oval foliage on 10-15 foot tall dense plants while the latter is clad with narrow inch-long glossy green leaves. Clusters of pink and white flowers bloom in early into late spring and are a favorite of hummingbirds.

Loropetaum chinense

Using the same plant shape throughout a landscape can create rhythm, balance and harmony and tie the entire design together. Forms and shapes of plants and trees can be columnar, conical, oval, round, pyramidal, weeping, spreading and arching. A loropetalum with its spreading tiers of arching branches could be repeated throughout your garden to create visual interest and balance. A dogwood tree could also repeat this same form as their branches grow horizontally.

Consider also layering plants to create a beautiful garden. From groundcovers all the way up to the tallest tree, natural looking designs mimic nature.

Don’t forget about focal points. This could be a Japanese maple cloaked by a wall of dark evergreens or a statue or pottery at the end of a long, narrow pathway. Focal points draw attention and even distract the eye from an unsightly view.

There are many solutions to make your garden complete. Consider using some of the above design elements to make your landscape beautiful.

arbors, DIY landscape ideas, fences, garden design, garden inspiration, garden paths, paths

DIY Landscape DEsign Ideas

On a lovely spring day recently I spent some time in Palo Alto enjoying local gardens. It?s amazing what can be accomplished on a small lot where every foot counts. If you are looking to add some pizzazz to your garden and not spend much money, one of the gardens I visited will be right up your alley. Here are some take-a ways for your own landscaping.

Using driftwood collected from remote Santa Cruz beaches the owner of one amazing garden created a gate, several fences, flower bed borders to keep the dog out, an arbor and even a gazebo. He found used bricks and stones to build paths and also a patio but it was all the driftwood creations that caught my eye.

Take a few moments to really look at your garden. Look at the view from inside the windows and from the driveway as you enter. Then imagine all it could be with some simple changes.

A hand made driftwood arbor

The elements of garden design, like arrangement of paths, planting beds and open spaces, shape your garden. Have you ever noticed how your eye is drawn along a path through the garden? The plantings along the sides serve to frame but it’s the style of the path itself that enhances your experience in the garden.

The materials you choose for a path determine how fast or slow your walk will be. A casual path of gravel or bark chips lends itself to slow meandering around bends in the path. Flagstone pavers set in sand with spaces left between for low growing ground covers are good choices for both major access walks and smaller paths. Be sure to space the stones no further than a comfortable stride apart.

A curved line or offset sections of paving slows movement inviting you to notice the surroundings. Curves should look as if they are supposed to be there. Place a large plant, rock or sculptural feature at a turning point so that you must walk around the object. Remember a lightly curved path makes a nice entrance walk or a stroll through the garden but stick with straight lines for a path to take out the trash or get fire wood.

Used brick tapered path in a small garden

If your garden is small, a tapering path edged with curving flower beds will seem to converge on the horizon, giving the illusion of depth and distance. Plantings of grasses in the beds will create a sense of movement.

A redwood slab bench invites one to pause to enjoy the meadow.

You can separate plants and people by designing seating along the walkways. A good spot to place seating is at a fork in the path or where two types of paving meet another. Any object you can comfortably sit on is a possibility. Besides wood or ornamental iron benches, rocks, tree stumps, seat walls and planters can also double as seating.

Limit the number of elements in the garden. Rather than trying to include everything in the garden try for a unified look with the fewest number of things. Make each one count.

A short driftwood fence to protect a planting bed

Creating interest outside a window depends not only on plant choices but also simple design solutions. Keep the garden simple and restful. Editing some of the plants will make the garden lower maintenance, too. Plants that have overgrown the space need constant pruning. Move them to a better spot.

Another tip that makes an area more restful visually is to limit your plant palette. Plants that you can see through make a space seem larger. Some plants like Japanese maple, nandina and dogwood are naturally airy while other plants like camellia can be pruned for openness. Low growing, mounding ground covers help unify the garden. Plant soothing greenery for year round appeal with seasonal color from perennials and shrubs.

The great thing about making a garden is that you don’t have to do it all at once. And gardens are easy to alter as your ideas change. A garden is never done.

antique farm tools, garden design, St Phillip's Garden tour, tall bearded iris

Garden Tour & English Tea in Scotts Valley

Path to Heaven tall bearded iris

I know where I?m gonna be on Saturday, May11th. St Phillip?s in Scotts Valley s having their 17th annual garden tour and English tea fundraiser for local charities including their own food pantry and community shelter. This year St.Phillip?s has chosen the Teen Kitchen Project as a special recipient for funds. I?ve previously visited two of the gardens on the tour and am looking forward to the others. Here are some highlights of what you can expect on tour day.

The full High Tea Luncheon includes home made scones with jam and cream, a delicious and light soup, sausage rolls and finger sandwiches plus sweet treats such as English toffee and shortbread cookies.

Doc Hencke’s entry garden

One of the gardens on the tour has been featured several times in my column. Richard Hencke?s garden – I call him Doc – in Scott?s Valley is one not to be missed. From his roots in Oklahoma and Texas he describes himself as the ?Hillbilly Gardener? but with his extensive knowledge of trees, vines and just about anything that grows he is one of the most successful and enthusiastic horticulturists I know. Wear your walking shoes to truly enjoy this garden and the changes he?s made in his landscape over the past few years – before, during and after the drought.

Richard redid his pond a couple years ago. He was tired of fighting the raccoons and algae. Steeper sides will deter the raccoons and deeper water will help to prevent algae growth. He was forced to remove a curly willow that shed leaves into the pond as their natural salicylic acid was poisoning the pond.

Below the patio the golden Mexican marigold and blue Pride of Madeira should be in full bloom along with a gorgeous stand of weeping leptospermum. Among Doc?s passions is creating visual boundaries with flowering vines that grow up into the trees. Richard will be the first to admit that some are growing better than others. Sound familiar in your own garden? Even this expert propagator is sometimes stymied by Mother Nature.

I love to hear Doc Hencke?s stories as he shows me around. Stopping at a China Doll houseplant that has now grown into a tree he tells me he thinks it?s one of the tallest specimens ever. Richard?s new desert garden along the driveway is growing in nicely although he told me that the excessive rains and cold snap this year has caused come havoc. I?m not sure about the yucca he and his brother dug up in Texas that finally bloomed a couple years ago. ?I?ve only waited 52 years for it?, he laughed.

Watering can collection on vintage wagon

The other garden I?ve had the pleasure to visit is the tall bearded iris farm of Jim and Irene Cummins. Also in Scotts Valley, the iris farm has been so successful that this year when the National Convention is being hosted by Region 14 their garden will be one of the host gardens on the tour.

When I asked Jim for the growing tips last year that make his iris so spectacular he told me he mostly uses lawn trimmings and tree leaves along with the native sand to break the soil down. ?Iris don?t seem to care much as to soil type, they just need good drainage?, he said. He fertilizes with a balanced granular 15-15-15 fertilizer, using only an 1/8 cup or less sprinkled around each clump around Valentines Day and again in August or September. Another tip he told me was to be sure to plant the rhizomes very shallow with only the tops showing and about 12-18 inches apart. They water every 2-3 weeks although he says they can go longer between irrigations.

Among the beds of prized bearded iris there is an impressive antique farming implement collection. This historic property dates back to 1849 when an older house was built as a stagecoach stop. Everywhere you look the Cummins? have created an interesting vignette of plants and artifacts. On the old barn there is an impressive vintage wrench collection as well as dozens of spigot handles. Antique tractor seats, watering cans, washing tubs, rusted bed frames, wagons, old kiddie cars- you name it, Jim and Irene have collected it.

All this and more can be yours when you purchase a ticket for the tour online at http://www.stphilip-sv.net or by calling their office at 831-438-4360.

California native fragrant plants, drought tolerant groundcovers, drought tolerant plants, groundcovers

Autumnal Equinox in the Garden

The autumnal equinox happens on Saturday, September 22nd this year. It’s the official start of fall when the sun crosses the celestial equator and moves southward. The earth’s axis of rotation is perpendicular to the line connecting the centers of the earth and the sun on this day. Many people believe that the earth experiences 12 hours each of day and night on the equinox. However, this is not exactly the case.

During the equinox, the length is nearly equal but not entirely because the day is slightly longer in places that are further away from the equator ( like where we live ). Also the sun takes longer to rise and set in these locations as it does not set straight down but in a horizontal direction.

ceanothus ‘Heart’s Desire’

With the changing of the season, take advantage of fall planting weather by looking at what’s covering your ground. Be it the small lawn for the kids to play on, ground cover to keep the weeds at bay or erosion control to keep the hillside intact, this is an excellent time to plan for winter.

Let’s start with the lawn. If you still need a space for recreation, this is a good time to reseed those bare spots. Also to keep the lawn healthy by removing underlying thatch with a thatching rake. Then aerate the lawn by poking holes in the sod and fertilize with a complete lawn fertilizer like an organic all-purpose. Your lawn needs the phosphorus in the fall to encourage deep, strong roots for the winter.

If the kids are grown and no one is using that lawn, why not rip out the water guzzling grass and replace it with a walk-on groundcover? There are many to choose from like dymondia, lippia, potentilla, duchesnea strawberry or any of the kinds of thyme.

Living ground covers add beauty to the garden while holding the soil in place and preventing erosion. They contribute to soil health by encouraging microorganisms. A garden wouldn?t thrive as well without groundcovers.

One of my favorites is Elfin thyme. It doesn’t need mowing, edging or fertilizing or much irrigation. You can walk on it and it stays green all winter, shading into bronze tones when the weather cools. It even blooms in midsummer for several weeks. Note that bees are attracted to it as with all of the ground covers in the thyme family at this time.

kurapia

Another favorite that I have in my own garden is kurapia. It?s deep rooted, doesn?t require much water, is compact and low maintenance. It?s been bred to have sterile seeds. This is a good groundcover if pollination of nearby fruit trees is needed or you want to encourage bees to your garden for pollination. If bees are an issue kurapia can be mowed to cut off the blooms.

There are also Ca. native and prairie meadow grasses that you can walk on. They need little irrigation and even less mowing. Some can be planted from seed, others from plugs or sod. Good choices include Idaho, California and red fescue, carex pansa, June grass and Hall’s bentgrass.

grevillea lanigera ‘Mt Tamboritha’

If you don’t need to walk on your groundcover, low-growing native shrubs that are good groundcovers are baccharis, ceanothus maritimus, ?Anchor Bay or ?Heart?s Desire?, manzanita, creeping snowberry, creeping mahonia, salvia ?Bee?s Bliss? and ribes viburnifolium. Mediterranean ground covers like cistus salviifolius, grevillea lanigera, rosemany prostratus, rubus pentalabous are also good low-water choices.

It’s time to enjoy fall weather and cover that ground before winter.

blue flowers, California Native Plants, garden design, perennials

Tranquil Blue in the Garden

With the heat of summertime upon us I?m drawn to those areas in my garden that have blue, white and lavender flowers. A hot day just seems cooler there.

Washed out magenta is nature?s favorite go-to color and the shade that hybrids will revert to it if allowed to go to seed. Among gardeners, red is a favorite color. Orange and yellow come next, then pink and purple with blue and white both comparatively rare in nature last on the list.

geranium ‘Orion’

So naturally, most of us gardeners want the elusive blue flower in our gardens. Knowing that cool colors recede, place them around the edges or at the back of a garden to make your space appear wider or deeper.

True blue flowers are rare. We use words like cerulean, azure, cobalt, sapphire, turquoise, electric blue or steel blue when describing blue flowers. Hybridizers have tried for years to produce a true blue rose or blue daylily. Blue plant pigment is hard to manipulate. It occurs in the daylily as a sap-soluble pigment and is difficult to segregate. Lilacs, purples, orchids and mauves we have and working with them hybridizers may eventually get near blue, but pure blue probably never. Recently, some companies have found a way to insert some blue in the center of their daylily flowers but a totally blue daylily has never been produced.

Rose hybridizers striving for true blue have come close by

hydrangea macrophylla

crossbreeding lavender hybrid teas in order to produce offspring having optimum amount of cyanidin, the pigment that imparts purple or magenta tones and flavone, the pigment that gives light yellow tones.The results have been more of a silvery lilac or mauve. A blue rose is still in the future although labs in Australia and Japan are genetically modifying the pigments from petunias to produce a blue rose. Their results are not yet perfected and these roses are more of a lilac in color and can not survive conditions outside the lab. It is apparently very difficult to isolate the pigment cyanadin. Delphiniums have a monopoly on it.

omphaloides

The color blue is calming and tranquil. It is the color of serenity and peace and is said to slow down the metabolism and reduce the appetite. When brightened with white or combined with yellow or orange in a complementary color scheme the results of blue in the garden are breathtaking. The great English gardener Gertrude Jekyll used plants with golden leaves or clear yellow flowers to spice up blue gardens. Just remember that blues and purples are the first flowers to fade as darkness falls so be sure to have those whites and yellows to carry your garden into evening.

There are many blue perennials as handsome as they are durable that we can enjoy in our gardens today.
Some of my favorites are old fashioned hydrangeas, violas and campanula. Both are valuable in the shade garden along with omphaloides and brunnera. The blue spikes of a long blooming peach-leaf campanula just go together with the white and green variegated foliage of Jack Frost Siberian bugloss.

agapanthus africanus

In early spring we are dazzled by our native ceanothus which bloom with deep blue, sky blue or electric blue flowers. Emerald Blue phlox subulata carpets the ground in spring with clear blue flowers that top creeping stems. Penstemon Blue Springs, a California native hybrid, carries dense spikes of bright blue, bell-shaped blossoms.

Make sure your garden has a blue section to cool you on a hot day.