Tag: Combinations
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Spring Blues as in Yummy Colors
The garden changes daily now. Heat, rain,wind, and longer days continue the parade of plants emerging, opening, and flowering. The blue pansy paired with the muscari have been delighting me for weeks. But now, the rose foliage behind and sedum adjacent create a lush abundance to greet me. Here’s the larger composition.…
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Jewels of the the Journey
Did the Thalia narcissus blooming with the pink hellebore enchant me more than the European ginger with the emerging fern? Or the amazing smell of the lilac scenting the garden fully 2 -3 weeks earlier than usual?Or the textures of allium, cerastium, granite, and geranium foliage? Or the wonder of the sun lighting the varied array of…
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finding the soul of the place
“Spirit of site”, a loose translation of what the ancients called the ‘genius locii’ , leads the designer to find and reveal ‘the soul’ at a piece of earth commonly called some body’s property. I think tapping into the spiritual energy of a place essential for the design process to create a beautiful, functional, and earth-friendly landscape that…
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Bluebirds’ Annual Visit
Mid-February a traveling flock of Bluebirds visits the Rhus typhina grove edging the wetland behind my house. (Aside: is a massed drift of a native shrub called a ‘grove’? To this morning’s tired brain -Winter Olympics held me beyond my bedtime last night- the term ‘grove’ works better than ‘massed planting’. The Rhus looks like a grove of…
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Revisiting ‘Snow Flowers’
Sometime ago I encountered an enchanting description of a small Japanese village’s winter festival that celebrated the way plants catch snow. The novel’s author called the snow that was captured in nooks and crannies, branches and seedheads, branches and buds, ‘Snow Flowers’. Ever since I look at fresh snow differently.
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Snow Reveals a Japanese Maple Graced by Winter
This maple wears snow beautifully, don’t you agree? The image gives us the opportunity to see form differently and find a plant without leaves gorgeous. In an earlier post (Mid-November Tapestry) I showed it in late fall–the plant’s leafless branching structure revealing the spotted leaf lungwort still in leaf beneath it. In summer,the Acer p. ‘viridis’s dissected foliage…
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Mid-November Tapestry
Mid-November and much in the perennial garden has been cut back or left lingering for the shapes created by the first snows. A casual stroll finds many lovely aspects in the garden in a season many consider without charm. Taken a few days ago, the photograph reveals a combination revealed through an intricate pattern of branches. A similar photo could have been taken…
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When Fall Comes to New England
Inspiration comes too. Fortunately my life finds me immersed in New England’s autumn colors. Each morning the deepening color of the forest outside my window greets my first waking sight. Daily treks down multicolored leafy roads quiet my mind and call me to attention. This year I beheld the glory of “peak color” in Rangeley, Maine. (That’s right, Rangeley– it’s located…
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Using the Colorwheel to Create Beautiful Plant Combinations
When most gardeners think about plant combinations, they rarely refer to a color wheel. And they should. It’s a tool that can be vastly helpful. Maybe you saw one in kindergarten and remember the primary colors of red, blue, yellow. Secondary colors–the ones between. Those terms are useful but not important for the designer. A…
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Inspiring Late Summer Images from Tower Hill Botanical Garden
Let these images taken the third week of August inspire your late summer garden. Visit Tower Hill Botanical Garden in Boylston, MA. www.towerhillbg.org