![]() But its significant departure from what is sometimes expected in a botanic garden made it striking and very appealing. Some might find this a somber floral display. In this example, the flower spikes of Persian fritillaries, Fritillaria persica, made a fitting companion for these “black” and white tulips just outside the rose garden at MBG in 2004. Carefully chosen bulbs can have a lavish impact in your garden. This should not deter you from using them to best advantage. Check blooming times for the plants or cultivars you are considering.īulbs don’t bloom for prolonged periods many are in flower for as brief a period as one to two weeks. Careful plant selection is important here if you want both to flower at the same time. ![]() The blue against the red is very dramatic. ![]() In this image, taken at MBG, Spanish bluebells, Hyacinthoides hispanica, were planted in front of a grouping of bright red azaleas to provide an eye-popping effect. ![]() One excellent rule of thumb: always consider the background plants when you are selecting and placing bulbs. In summer they can provide color where spring flowering plants have exhausted their floral display. In the spring they can illuminate portions of the garden in which perennials are just emerging. Even better, bulbs are an extra dimension that can be added to any part of the garden that you do not constantly cultivate. Best of all, gray-green foliage and the lavender-blue blooms blend beautifully with whatever color of rose you are growing.īulbs are an invaluable addition to the garden in any season. The catmint blooms for long periods, and reblooms in late summer if deadheaded after the first flush is spent. This image might help you realize why she favored the combination. But in many cases they stand isolated and alone in garden beds, with no other plants beneath or near them.Īn old English gardening book about Gertrude Jekyll told of her love for combining rose plantings with clumps of Faassen’s catmint, Nepeta faassenii. Roses are an exuberant addition to any garden- providing masses of striking blooms throughout the growing season. Mixed plantings help you avoid one of the more frustrating aspects of gardening… and free you to cultivate creativity when searching for a replacement. With a mixed planting, you are freed to consider alternatives. You are obligated to try and find another matching plant that will instantly fill the void. Take, for example, a hedge in which one plant in the middle dies. Mixed plantings offer you one additional advantage: if one of the plants dies, you can plant another matching one or you can plant something else! Planting a row, or a grouping, of the same plant obligates you to replace a dead plant with the same plant. And this approach can easily be accomplished with compact and dwarf cultivars in smaller gardens. A mixed planting is decidedly more interesting to look at… and a lot less trouble to maintain. These perennials in the shade of a large tree illustrate a very good design principle for groupings of plants: a grouping of plants made with many different plants is more visually interesting than a grouping made with many of the same plant.ĭifferent foliage colors and textures and the varying forms individual plants assume are each a richly varied element in a visual feast. Ideas take time to evolve and mature, and it is by sitting or walking silently that they can come flooding in.” Rosemary Verey In them the seed of inspiration may be sown, and without inspiration a garden may be pretty but lack beauty, interesting but not memorable, and disturbing rather than restful. But never think that moments spent walking round your garden are wasted time. Nothing costs us so dear as a waste of time, said Diogenes. The best way to start is by learning to look, and in looking to see and to see critically. “Good planting skills are not abstract concepts to be learnt solely from books, catalogues and other people.
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