Garden Accents
Tiny Flowers
Whether they're flowing like water between the larger plants at the front of the border, or sneaking up on you in small chunks of color in sedate woodland settings, tiny flowers are essential for creating a sense of scale in the landscape.
They often spread to form low ground covers, like flowering thyme, vinca, forget-me-not, bugleweed, or moss phlox.
They surprise by sprouting their tiny clumps in unlikely places, between boulders or pavers, or around garden sculptures or small ponds, like violets and lily-of-the-valley.
They enchant you with their fragrance before you even have a chance to notice them, like alyssum and fire pinks.
They are often the first flowers of spring, tiny bright spots of color in a still dormant landscape, like winter aconites, crocuses, hepaticas, and primroses.
They grow in cheerful clumps, too cute to behold, like English daisies, verbenas, and catmints.
They surprise with bold colored flower carpets, like plumbago, spotted dead-nettle, and lilyturf.
If you only pick one, you must have alyssum. Its well-behaved growth habit, reliable bloom, and enticing fragrance made it a staple of the summer garden.
Texture
Garden design relies on color harmony, scale, fragrance and texture.
Professional landscapers never overlook the last element, which is often the special ingredient which makes famous gardens enchanting.
Texture comes from many sources.
First, plants with lacy and spiky foliage, like ferns, astilbe, cosmos, delphiniums, ice plant: those are the usual go to choices for garden texture.
Next, large plants with spiky or unusual leaves, often placed like sculptures with plenty of space around them, to make a statement. Good examples would be tall colorful pampas grasses, yuccas, or dark elephant ears.
Low growing carpets - manicured lawns, succulents in rock garden plantings or walkable ground covers like thyme or chamomile, sprinkled between flagstones, to create background texture.
Their smooth features provide the negative space needed to bring dramatic specimens into focus.
Rounded boxwood topiaries or soft moss growing on round river stones add whimsical charm and surprise to the landscape.
Last but not least, plants with fuzzy leaves or seed heads, like clematis, asters, lamb's ears or chenille grasses, work double duty to bring color and texture to the garden.
Color Blocking
Mass plantings of the same color create the same effect in landscape design as they do in fashion: they make a dramatic statement and are sure to be noticed.
Primary colors are the usual choice, but unsaturated shades of blue and purple feel refreshing in the mid-summer garden, while white is always the best choice for shade.