It takes some courage, but planting a flowerbed with one color can make for a stunning focal point in your garden.
A color scheme based on a single color is known as a monochromatic design. A garden bed or border so designed has the principle properties of boldness, simplicity, and clarity. It is a style that demands some courage on behalf of the designer - many, probably the majority of home gardeners are frightened off the idea, or believe they are missing out by not stuffing into the bed, as wide a range of color as possible.
Reaching the level of the top professionals in garden design takes years of study and experience. There is nothing stopping you though, understanding their approach and mindset.
Designing your garden not only involves creating a grand plan from A-Z, but also adding some shrubs or bedding plants to an existing composition. Whatever its scale or significance, any change in the garden should be approached with the mindset and attitude of a professional designer. While not everyone can successfully design a garden, there is nothing preventing you from seeing things as would a top designer.
While there is no shortage of plants with colored leaves, the home gardener does not always choose them wisely. Here are some tips for getting the best out of them, and avoiding some of then pitfalls.
There is a large range of plants with colored foliage available to the gardener today. Reddish-purple, golden-yellow, silver, and grey-leaved plants, not to speak of the many types of variegated leaf, abound in nurseries and garden centers. Amongst all the plant forms ? from trees to ground covers, one can find varieties that have brightly colored leaves. The challenge is to use them wisely and not be carried away by false notions of novelty or originality.
African daisy plants are not suitable for every location, and may not be to everyone’s taste. In the right place though, they are an important ingredient in dry and Mediterranean gardens.
African daisy is the name commonly used to describe a group of different bedding plants. All come from South Africa, sport a mass of daisy-like flowers (unsurprisingly!), and require similar conditions to grow successfully. Daisy flowers, typical of the Asteraceae botanical family, create a clear mood and design direction. They appear out of place in lush, tropical settings, typified by plants with massive leaves and large garish flowers. They are more suited in my view to the sparser, restrained style of a Mediterranean, dry climate garden.
The naive gardener thinks of the flowerbed exclusively in terms of color. The professional garden designer takes into account other factors as well.
When designing a flower garden, color maybe the single most important consideration, but need not be the only one. Bedding or herbaceous plants have form, size, and shape. Their leaves also possess a definite, visual texture. An excellent way of achieving a satisfying and harmonious composition in the flowerbed is to group together plants whose leaves are finely cut, serrated, or toothed. By so doing, the variety that is attained by contrasting colors is balanced by the unity achieved by the common leaf texture.
Growing annual flowers is not easy in dry climates because of the water shortages. Here are some tips for enjoying flower color, without using too much water.
Annual flowers play an undeniably important role in ornamental gardening. Trees and shrubs can supply flower color at a height that is usually from eye-level upwards, while herbaceous perennials, like annuals, flower at a height ranging from ground level to about a meter. (3ft) While by no means essential for a successful garden, annual plants nonetheless fulfill a number of needs.
Growing annual flowers is not easy in dry climates because of the water shortages. Here are some tips for enjoying flower color, without using too much water.
Annual flowers play an undeniably important role in ornamental gardening. Trees and shrubs can supply flower color at a height that is usually from eye-level upwards, while herbaceous perennials, like annuals, flower at a height ranging from ground level to about a meter. (3ft) While by no means essential for a successful garden, annual plants nonetheless fulfill a number of needs.
Many home gardeners equate the growing of perennial plants with low-maintenance gardening. There are some excellent reasons for preferring perennials to annuals, but saving time and maintenance costs is not one of them.
It is common to find amongst home gardeners, the idea that perennial flowering plants demand far less care and attention than annuals. As annuals live for no more than a season, an annual flowerbed has to be re-planted at least twice during the year, and more usually once more within a season. Conversely, because perennials live beyond a single season, they are often considered a factor in “low-maintenance gardening?. This view from my 24 years gardening experience, is false.
If you want to get the most from your bedding plants, look beyond the question of color, into the form, shape and texture of the plants, and how they fit into the overall garden composition.
Bedding plants, whether annual or perennial, are generally planted to supply color to the garden. This role is most effective when the bedding plants are chosen as part of a specific color scheme, as opposed to being “peppered? around the garden without any clear design purpose. Like all plants however, they also have shape, form and texture. When these properties are taken into account and acted upon, the bedding plants become, as they properly should, an integral and organic part of the overall garden composition.
