A Dreamy Setting
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday August 4, 2007
When looking for the perfect bedmate, consider colour, size, maturity and form.
AND SO TO bed. When beds come to mind, position is my first thought. Size and shape are important but where you put things is paramount. There's no point losing a good performer to mediocre bedmates. And before you start wondering what kind of woman I am, it should be pointed out that I'm talking about garden beds and not the type with crisp white sheets and fluffy pillows.So if you have a new, empty bed or an existing bed that is not doing it for you, now is the time to do something about it.Your choice and positioning of plants can either make a statement or have them simply lost in the bed. So before spending money at the nursery, decide on the look you want. You can achieve a bold effect in modern urban gardens using sculptural architectural plants. Small courtyards may not need many different plants to look stylish, while a cottage-style bed may require several accent plants to pull the design together.Before buying the plants, however, think about where they should be positioned and how they can be arranged. Then research the mature width and height of the plants you've selected so you can work out how many you need. Make a rough sketch of the space and position your chosen plants in the sketch. Think of the garden bed as a canvas where you can create your desired look.Your garden has many different micro-climates, so take the position of the garden bed into account. Some areas may have full shade, some partial shade and others may receive full sun. These micro-climates can be fully utilised by planting the correct plants for the particular conditions.Successful garden beds have a sense of harmony and provide sufficient internal contrast to make them interesting. There should be enough structure in the bed to place plants in context while simultaneously framing them and accentuating their colours and shapes.Start with some evergreen architectural plants as accent plants. These play their part by providing permanent structure. An accent may be created by the swaying movement of tall grasses, the stiff, lance-shaped leaves of succulents such as agaves or yuccas, an architecturally shaped cycad or bromeliad, the leaves of an evergreen shrub or a dwarf conical conifer.Accent plants may be repeated in a garden bed to unify it by tying disparate elements together. Repeat plantings produce a clean, uncluttered appearance in small gardens. Every inch of space counts in small or courtyard gardens, so every plant should fulfil its purpose well.Clipped hedging plants have their place as accent plants. In addition to hedging, you can use small hedge plants as clipped rounds in garden beds, to border beds and as focal points or to help accent focal points.Once you have chosen the accent plants, place annuals or perennials around them. A thematic planting scheme is the most contemporary way of using annuals and perennials. As with accent plants, you can repeatedly use a key plant or plants to create a main theme.Annuals and perennials look attractive when planted in groups, or "drifts". The size of the drift will depend on the size of your garden beds and the width of the perennial. Always work out the overall width of a mature annual or perennial before deciding how many you need for the drift. Don't plant drifts in even, square blocks if you want a casual effect and don't make all the drifts the same size and shape. Think about height as well, because drifts of different heights planted next to each other look more interesting than drifts of the same height.Consider leaf and flower shapes for visual impact. Placing different flower shapes next to each other emphasises their diverse textures and forms. A plant with large trumpet-shaped flowers, for example, will stand out when placed next to a group with smaller flowers of a different shape. In this way one group is complementing the other rather than detracting from it.Keep in mind the impact of colour. Strong flower colours such as yellow, red and orange stand out, advance towards you and can enclose a space. On the other hand blues, purples and greys tend to recede. White flowers are ideal for small spaces, as they are not dominating.If you are worried about the best way to use colour, try a few simple tricks. Opposites on the colour wheel always work well, as do neighbours on the colour wheel. Or try tints and shades of the one colour, which go well in small gardens where many different colours can be overpowering. If you don't want to rely on flowers for colour, choose plants with colourful foliage.It's time to ... * Relax with a good book. Whether you are a gardener or just love reading about gardens, you will find A Country Garden (Rosenberg Publishing, $29.95) by Fiona Ogilvie interesting. The book describes Ogilvie's creation of a dry-climate garden in the NSW Central Highlands.* Prune roses in cold climates.* Feed spring-flowering annuals with a soluble complete fertiliser.* Fertilise hydrangeas and mulch them with lucerne or sugar cane mulch.* Fertilise bulbs such as jonquils (pictured) and daffodils that have finished flowering. Remove finished flowers but let the foliage die down naturally instead of cutting it back.
© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald