Garden Design 1

Between the years 1994 - 2001, I used to run a hobby business that I called Astrid's Garden Design. Local landscape contractors would contact me about doing a design for clients who wanted their front or backyard landscaped. I would plan out the overall design and suggest planting material, and then the contractor would install it.

I combined my love of drawing with horticultural knowledge and had a grand time designing gardens!
Let me show you one of my projects from the year 2000 and I'll explain what I did and why.

This customer had a brand new house that had a blank palette front yard and backyard - there was nothing there but grass. He and his wife wanted a large patio off the back kitchen sliding doors where they could sit and entertain. They also requested relatively low maintenance plants because they were new to gardening and often away a lot in the summer.

Here is what I designed for them. I apologize for the lack of focus especially with the print and names on the first diagram but I wanted you to be able to see the overall design and how I tried to create a flow using curved lines. I will blow up a portion of the design to discuss it - then you should be able to see the plant names more clearly.

The residence is the large blank in the middle. I tried to balance the backyard by making the patio a large curve, whose shape was echoed in the large sugar maple on the other side of the yard. Both circular shapes were balanced by a large evergreen in the opposite corner.
Shrubs, perennials and vines filled the space across the back fence as well as small pond in the upper right corner. The backyard faced north so I chose the plants that could tolerate shade - hostas, daylilies, and hydrangeas.

Viburnum opulus (Cranberry bush)  tolerates sunny or shady conditions

Daylilies and Hostas are good in partial shade

I always tried to mix trees and shrubs in with perennials to add structure. (I'm using my yard as an example - I rarely got to see the finished product of what I had designed).

I liked to add boulders and rocks to a border as well, but remember - do it only in proportion to the whole picture. Don't add too many or they look unnatural and lose their focal impact.

My Dad's garden is a great example of how curved garden beds enhance a square yard.

And evergreens in a corner add a strong sense of stability as well as year round colour and structure

Please visit my recipe blog : the latest post is Warm Fennel Salad with Olives, Pine nuts and Orange.

Mother Nature as Design Teacher

It's interesting to look at peoples' front yards and backyards. Some have been designed by the owner, others professionally landscaped. Many are great, but others somehow look "wrong".
Perhaps the proportions are incorrect: too few small plants in a sinewy shape clinging to the edge of a large house. Other times it's big boulders and rocks just plunked near the driveway, attempting to make them look natural.
So the question is: how do you make a landscape look as if it just "happened"?
Sometimes you need to observe how Mother Nature did it and the ideas are right before your eyes.

This past weekend we were at up at a friend's cottage and the more I looked around, the more I saw rock formations and plant groupings worth photographing.

Large rocks only look natural if they are buried at least halfway if not two thirds of the way into the ground.

Groups of trees in a front yard look very tidy and formal but here they look very good too, growing where the original seed landed.

Another example of how deeply rocks should be into the ground.

This grouping of a large rock as focal point, with smaller rocks scattered nearby, would probably work best in a rural setting. I loved those little round pockets of vegetation.

Due to the lack of rain, the water level of the lake is down 16"!! I have never seen this many rocks exposed at the end of the Point. But just look at the fabulous composition!

Here are some grasses on the slope of the shore.

The view down the shoreline.

It's amazing what nature can teach you about landscape design. But when I wasn't shooting pictures like crazy, it was lovely relaxing in the summer breeze just gazing out over the lake…...

Combining Plant Textures in the Garden

When people think of designing their garden, they usually think of size and colour first: how big is the plant going to become? What colour will it be in summer? in autumn?
Then they attempt to place the different plants into beds using the design concepts of proportion, order and repetition.
It's easy to forget about or ignore texture but this element is also very important.

Texture refers to the surface quality of a plant. Plant textures range from fine to medium to coarse. Most plants have a medium texture so it's a great idea to combine medium with fine and coarse. This adds interest as well as achieves an atmosphere of calm relaxation or of drama.

Feather Reed grass 'Karl Foerster" has 2 types of texture: the sharp, vertical stalk and the fluffy soft plumes.

An article from Landscape Ontario http://landscapeontario.com/ says that "…the easiest way to assess the amount of contrast in the texture of the garden is to imagine a black and white photo of the area. The removal of colour helps to focus attention on the size and shape of the foliage and woody components beyond the appeal of their overall form and colour."

I tried this and it works!! Compare above and below. Look how the sharp needles of the mugo pine contrast with the thick, rounded leaves of the Sedum and the long, thin foliage of the Miscanthus grass and the Pennisetum.

Below is a good example of varying textures: the droopy Miscanthus foliage, the curvy crunchy leaves of Kale, the delicate small leaves of periwinkle and lamium. Sedum 'Autumn Joy' peeks out from the back.

Here's another shot of the same area, when the Sedum flowers have turned pink and the Pennisitum has feathery plumes.

This is a close-up of Sedum 'Autumn Joy'….

…and Sedum with grasses and Mugo Pine.

Above is a good example of combined textures: a sleek purple Siberian Iris on a long thin stalk is directly in front of a sharp needled Weeping Norway Spruce. And beside it is a coarse-leaved blue Hosta.

The Queen of textures is probably a cactus!!

When I was on this garden tour, the home owner had combined large heart-shaped Hosta leaves with smaller triangular ones. A tiny tiny spiky Hosta, the miniature 'Pandora's Box' is the focal point. The blue geranium alongside provides another type of texture as well as colour.

Many textures are to be found in the photo above: coarse (Hosta) fine (Euonymus) and very fine (evergreen).

Viburnum 'Mariesii', with its drooping horizontal branches and flowers runs right into fine, grass-like daylily leaves.

 Coarse plus 2 types of fine texture: thick leaved blue Hosta with a geranium and Painted Japanese Fern.

Indoor plant Caladium does just fine in containers in northern climates. Its colourful leaves are its own source of texture.

Feathery white Astilbe 'Deutchland' flowers beside smooth, velvety begonia blossoms.

Add a bit of hardscaping (cement pot and statue) to frothy ferns, Japanese Golden grass and soft leaf Helichrysum and you create a dramatic but harmonious area in the garden.