Shrub Roses – Beautiful garden around the house
November 30, 2010 by NhiBravo
No mixed border would be complete without roses for color, scent, and beautiful flowers. With few exceptions, modern shrub roses will bloom from early summer to fall (diligent deadheading will encourage them toward the end of the season), thus earning their place in the border more readily than an old rose that looks glorious for [...]
Variegated and Silver Plant – Beautiful garden around the house
November 25, 2010 by NhiBravo
Silver and gray are hard-working colors in the border. They can extend a limited palette or temper extremes of color to make them easier on the eye. Gray foliage aslo complements a muted scheme. Shrubs with silver or gray leaves – lavender, santolina, Artemisia, and phlomis – are also suitable for dry, sunny sites as [...]
Shrubs for Small Beds – Beautiful garden around the house
November 16, 2010 by NhiBravo
Shrubs form a wonderful framework for a border but a small bed can become swamped by vigorous shrubs. Fortunately there are plenty of shrubs that are naturally compact or slow growing; others can be kept in check – and often enhanced – by pruning. Keep box small by frequent clipping; it is an ideal candidate [...]
Evergreens – Beautiful garden around the house
November 15, 2010 by NhiBravo
For year-round color and structure, evergreens are hard to beat. Typically dark green specimens such as yew, holly, and Western red cedar look wonderful with yellow-green species such as Cryptomeria japonica “Elagans Aurea” or blue-green spruce, or underplanted with lower-growing variegated shrubs such as euonymus. Evergreens look their best mixed with other plants. Combining them [...]
Small trees and shrubs – Beautiful garden around the house
November 14, 2010 by NhiBravo
A tree is possibly a garden’s greatest asset. As well as being visually dramatic, a mature tree will attract a variety of wildlife info your garden. Trees and shrubs need to be in place before you start to fill the border with smaller plants. Your first consideration should be height. A tree that is too [...]
Shapely Shrubs – Beautiful garden around the house
November 13, 2010 by NhiBravo
The framework of a mixed border is formed by small trees and shrubs. As well as creating permanent structure, they can also contribute a great deal of color and a wealth of interesting shapes. AN ASSORTMENT OF SHRUBS Clever planting makes use of flowering shrubs such as the colorful blue ceanothus (left) and [...]
Border Highlights – Beautiful garden around the house
November 12, 2010 by NhiBravo
Interrupting a planting with a highlight or specimen plant is a clever gardener’s strategy to focus the attention. Imagine an architectural plant such as a yucca, with its wrinkled trunk, spiky foliage, and panicles of bell-shaped flowers, rising from a bed of unassuming and delicate hardy geraniums and drifts of catmint. Similarly spiky specimens include [...]
Balancing the Border – Beautiful garden around the house
In planning a border, you must consider how each plant can contribute to the overall effect. Think carefully about how plants will fit into your scheme. Concentrate on creating contrasts in shape and form, in color or texture – spiky purple liatris next to a cloud of hazy white gypsophila; yellow achillea tempered by the [...]
Close to the Edge – Beautiful garden around the house
November 10, 2010 by NhiBravo
Having carefully planned your drifts of color and complementary plantings, you can introduce edging plants for a pretty finish. Soft billowy plants such as catmint, lady’s mantle, little violas, dianthus, and corydalis will blur the precision of adjacent paths and conceal razor-sharp lawn edges. The best edging plants are mat forming and evergreen, for a [...]
Clematis – Beautiful garden around the house
November 9, 2010 by NhiBravo
Vigorous Clematis Montana scrambles through a laburnum tree to form a pretty canopy over a garden bench in spring. Clematis “Pink Fantasy” Clematis Florida “Sieboldii” Clematis “Madame Julia Correvon” Clematis “Fuji-musume” From the delicate nodding bells of Clematis alpine to the extravagant double flowers of some of the larger hybrids, the range of clematis is [...]
