The first time I tried to design a perennial bed (about 33 years ago), I did lots of research on how to do it. And, I got some graph paper and measured and did research on what plants to put in, and how to improve the soil and all that stuff. My soil improvement was good - that area still has good soil and my choice of plants as I remember wasn't too bad. But, I made the bed a rectangle. Rule one of good garden design (in my book): try to imitate what nature does, and nature does not have a lot of 90 degree angles in its design. I suspect that I did the rectangle thing partly because I had graph paper in front of me; it was so easy to divide it up that way. And, maybe it was also because I was replacing an old tool shed that had been on that spot when we bought the house. So, somehow, that area was rectangular in my mind.
Fortunately, a couple of springs later, I had my baby and did not have time to pay attention to those perennials for a while. By the time I had the leisure to spend on the flowers, the perennial weeds had taken over and I eventually had to have the whole bed dug up and I replaced it with an elongated oval design - much more aesthetically pleasing.
The next time I really got into perennial bed design was about 15 years later. I had in the meantime read about the garden hose approach to layout: you put a hose or hoses down and arrange the outline of the bed that way. It works well, because you tend to get gentle curves in your outlines. In my case, I was laying out a bed for the front yard, and by looking out the front upper windows of the house, I could see the form the bed would be very well. Maybe that's why, to this day, you get the best view of that front bed by standing at one of those windows!
Two springs ago, a major feature of our front yard , a very old and impossibly large burning bush (Euonymus alatus), failed to leaf out and we realized it was dead. Once past the chore of removing all the dead branches, and hacking out as much as possible of the huge trunk, I began to see the possibilities for a whole new bed. It has taken a while, but I am now pretty happy with the results. We planted 3 globe blue spruce and 3 "rosey glow" barberries along the south side of the op
ened up area. Dusty millers and silver brocade artemesia line the south edges. I now have a small and slow-growing tricolour beech towards the north side and a dappled willow which I should prune this weekend. Last summer, my gardening friend Jean gave me a couple of balloon flowers (platydocon) she had dug up and I put the blue one near one of the blue spruce. The effect of the blue flowers, with the blue spruce, the silver edging, and the burgundy barberry, plus the burgundy beech and the white frosted willow in the background was spectacular. I was awestruck with my wonderful design - but really, it pretty much just happened. At least I can recognize a good thing even when I do it by accident, so this spring we transplanted the blue and white balloon flowers that I had out the back into that front bed.By the way, if this sounds like a lot of plant material to replace a single burning bush - you would not believe how big that thing was!
A final note: my gardening friend Bev, who is much, much better at design than I am, dropped by yesterday to pick up a couple of plants I was giving her, and commented favourably on this new area. I was very pleased.
I remember the use of graph paper in bed design fondly.
ReplyDeleteI also remember the practical hands-on approach to deciding where a trellis should go: 'Stand with your arms in the air in that pile of dirt and do squats until I decide how high it should be.'
... Reports of child labour being abolished have obviously been grossly exaggerated.
I had actually forgotten about that episode with the trellis placement.
ReplyDeleteNote to self: do a post on introducing one's child to gardening.