The Problem with Primaries

You might think that designing a garden with just primary colors would be a good, safe choice.  It turns out that it isn't safe, it is just dull.  I painted an abstract design to demonstrate the limitations of using only primary colors (red, blue, yellow), and how to modify them to create a dynamic color scheme.

Here is a section of my painting with just yellow and blue.  There is nothing that links the colors together, save the bit of green where the paints mixed a bit.  There is no relationship.

This next picture shows the whole painting.  Even though the colors still have no relationship to each other, there is a strong light/dark design.

This use of Notan makes the design better than the first image because it is interesting.  The light value (yellow) is well balanced with the dark value (blue).  There is flow, too.

This design can be made even more interesting by modifying one of the colors.  In this case, I added some blue and red to the yellow to create a yellow ochre.  The yellow sections now have both a primary yellow and a yellow ochre.

The primary blue was modified by adding some yellow and red.




Because a garden has lots of green, the problem with primaries is lessened.  The green removes the monotony of the primary color scheme because it links the primaries.

The yellow ochre in the last picture bridges the primary yellow and the primary blue.  It helps your eye make sense of the picture because it creates a relationship between the primary hues.

The primary blue was also changed.  Whenever you are dealing with color, decide what the dominant color is going to be.  I chose yellow.  I subordinated the blue to the yellow by giving it some "yellow" qualities.  The blue now has a faint green quality to it (without actually being green).

  

Chrysanthemums

Every fall chrysanthemums arrive at the local garden center and take over.  I don't care for most of them.  The colors tend to be garish.  If they are not placed properly in a garden they distract the eye because that is all the eye goes to.  They remain stiff until they turn brown and die.  I have no problem with bringing them inside to introduce seasonal color, or to having them on a patio or porch.

It is a shame that most people associate chrysanthemums with the artificial-looking plants sold widely throughout the fall.  I do not know enough about Asian horticultural practices, but I do know that many types of chrysanthemums were used.  Flowers often had long, elegant petals. 

My garden has one long-lived, inelegant chrysanthemum that I value throughout the growing season.  It was placed years ago in the front of one of my borders.  Throughout the spring and summer it has a solid, satisfying shape.  Even though it is relatively small, it anchors the garden.  If I were to anthropomorphize it, I would call it "steadfast".  

Now that it is blooming, one of its other stellar qualities emerges - it looks good in the fall sun.  Many plants look best in the summer sun, when the angle of the rays is steeper at noon than in the fall.  The shallow angle of the fall sun promotes glare.  It is quite difficult to see plants on a sunny day - the sunlight bouncing off most leaves is almost blinding.  The chrysanthemum is easily visible in the fall sun because the flower and leaf have a matte texture.  Many summer-loving plants have shiny leaves and flowers.  I strongly recommend this plant for the front of a sunny border. 

Fall Colors

Fall is a good time to learn about color, and nature is a good teacher.  Flower and foliage hues generally become muted.  These calmer colors work well together; put a bright, summery color into a fall landscape and the effect is shockingly discordant.

Something else is going on as well.  There is a common thread that pulls these colosr together.

 
This collection of hydrangeas, russian sage and boltonia are all linked by gray.  The leaves and stems of the russian sage and boltonia are gray-green.  The blooms of the hydrangea are fading to gray-green and gray-violet.  Contrast these flowers with the same hydrangeas mid-summer;  there the flowers are clear blue and violet-magenta. 

A rule I learned in a color class is to find the dominant color, then make sure that there are aspects of that color in every other hue in the composition.

In a garden, find the dominant hue or "feel" of a color.  During springtime, pastels dominate.  In summer, bright, clear colors rule.  Fall is the time for muted, grayed colors.  Winter is influenced by whites and blues.

There are exceptions.  Deciduous trees, especially maples, glow with reds, yellows, and oranges.  The leaves soon fade to muted browns, ochres, and umbers.

You can use this information to put together an outfit, decorate a room, paint a picture, and of course, design a garden.

Shade Perennials

I was inspired by a recent trip to the Cleveland Botanical Garden Center to tackle the shade section of my long border.  Following one of my own rules, I finally moved three early blooming astilbe to the middle of the border, and relocated a pink turtlehead chelone lyonii 'Hot Lips' to the front.  I bought another turtlehead and put it next to the transplanted one.

 The plant with the yellow flowers in the middle of the above picture is a yellow waxbells Kirengeshoma palmata.  This plant was also in Cleveland.  It will get big - up to about three feet.  I hope that I like it when this section has matured.

I also put in two windflower plants Anemone 'September Charm'.  Their blooms appeared right away on wiry stems.  The other day I was walking past my neighbor's house and noticed that they had the same windflower.  Theirs, however, was huge - about four feet by four feet. I'm not sure what I will do if mine get that big.

 

The plant on the right is liriope.  It has started to bloom.  I volunteered at Elm Bank, a Massachusetts Horticultural site, this past weekend, spent time weeding liriope, and learned a few tricks on dealing with its aggressive growth habit.  First, it's better to divide in the spring.  If you are going to divide in the fall, get a garden knife and cut away at the root ball.  Good luck trying to divide it with a spade.  When I do divide, I am going to put some of the plants in my front beds.  Lots of gardens in Washington, DC use liriope as a ground cover for their shrubs, and it looks very elegant.   

Keep the Eye Moving

I was  going to call this post "Moving Day", but decided that title conveyed the wrong message.  I did move a lot of plants last week.  While I was moving them, I realized what was really important about the changes I was making.

The section of border I worked on is dominated by pastels.  I did have three white summer phlox in the back left, though.  The phlox have been imperfect - too much mildew, but a very nice fragrance.  One issue that crystallized as I worked was that the viewer's eye went immediately to the blooming phlox and stayed there.

 
(This picture was taken last year - the asters in the front center died and were replaced with veronica.)

I wrote earlier this summer that I moved three veronica to the center front, and put cranesbill geranium and pincushion flower scabiosa c. 'Pink Mist' behind them.  I took the unusual step of putting a tall plant in front of  shorter ones because the veronica re-blooms profusely after it is deadheaded.  I discovered this summer that there is an excellent second bloom, but that the time gap between flowerings was too long for a plant in the front of the border.

 

I wish that I had taken a picture when the veronica was out of bloom and the phlox was blooming - that would have driven my point home better.

Even though the veronica has bloomed beautifully for weeks, I decided that it was time for a major overhaul.

I bought two ornamental kale plants (annuals), a white butterfly flower, gaura linaheimeri, and three garden asters 'Blue Henry I'.  I took out all of the phlox and much of the lady's mantle (chartreuse flower, spreads aggressively.)  I moved some of these to a nursery border in my back yard.

The lady's mantle were put in the back, against the fence.  Two delphinium were put in front of these in the center.  The gaura was placed in the middle.  The veronica were moved to the middle left, the asters were moved to the middle right.  The pincushion flowers were planted in the center front, flanked by the ornamental kale.  Finally, the geranium cranesbill were put behind the pincushhion flower.

 

By placing the gaura in the center I hope to avoid the unbalanced effect of having a non-pastel colored flower off to the side.  I will see how it works as the season winds down. 

Shade Perennials

The shady section of my long border is ignored most of the year.  A recent trip to the magnificent Cleveland Botanical Gardens convinced me to give this section a little more love.

I am as guilty as most people of thinking that shade plants only bloom in the spring and early summer.  Think astilbe, bleeding heart, fuschia.  Late bloomers include hosta and liriope, which I tend to think of as groundcovers instead of flowering plants.  My shade border also includes a tree peony, regular peonies, and siberian iris.

A walk through the woodland section of the Cleveland Botanical Garden opened up my eyes to plant pairings and choices that I would not have thought of on my own.

One such pairing is turtlehead (chelone) with lobelia cardinalis.  

 I think of lobelia cardinalis as strictly a sun lover, albeit one that likes moist soil.  It turns out that this plant can be quite happy in the shade as well.  In addition to being a beautiful red flower with a long bloom time that attracts hummingbirds, it also helps the soil retain moisture.  That would not work well with asclepias tuberosa, which loves drought conditions, but does work well in a shade garden, especially when there has been little rain.  

I happen to have a turtlehead hidden in the back of my shade border.  Soon I will move it to the middle of the border, and relocate the astilbe that is currently there to the mid-back of the border.

Another surprise was the number of hydrangeas that thrive in the shade.  I think of these plants as sun lovers (that like a drink of water in the late afternoon.)  Lacecap and black stem hydrangea were two species that I noted. 

Harvesting Plums

People cannot believe that my husband and I have plum and peach trees.  The idea of growing your own fruit, in a Massachusetts suburb, seems impossibly exotic.  It is as if fruit were some kind of alien life form that only grows in California. 

Not true, as my friends, neighbors and family can attest.  Each August we harvest plums.  After the plums are the peaches.  Our pear trees died.  I read recently that they don't like wet roots; there is an underground stream in our neighborhood that may have caused their demise.

You do not need much room to grow fruit trees either.  We have less than a quarter acre of land, most of it occupied by a house and driveway.  All you need are two of each kind of fruit; they do not even have to be the same variety.  (You don't need two of a kind if a neighbor - say within a quarter of a mile, has the same type of trees.)

Two years ago we had a spectacular crop of plums.  We have two types, and they produce fruit that can be picked and eaten about two weeks apart.  Since there was so much fruit, I encouraged neighbors to help themselves.  Children seemed to love the fruit most of all.  There was even a local nun who came several times to take bags of plums back to the retired nuns at the local convent.  We were well prayed for that summer.

Last year, the harvest was not very good.  I bought the book The Holistic Orchard; Tree Fruits and Berries the Biological Way, by Michael Phillips, for my husband.  As with many gifts, I was the one who used it.  Luckily, my husband listened to the suggestions I got from the book (there are many; the book is very detailed).  One was to mulch the trees with ramial  wood chips (thin twigs from deciduous trees.)  Orchards, in their natural state, exist at the edge of deciduous forests, where there is lots of debris (i.e. twigs), from the established trees.  This wood has a high nitrogen content.  Thicker branches have a high carbon content (which is why they burn well, but is not a good mulch.)

The ramial wood mulch promotes a beneficial fungal environment for the tree, especially the roots.  The roots are able to work with the fungi to tap into many more nutrients in the soil than possible without the rich fungal environment.  I recommend this book for anyone who is interested in understanding how and why to produce healthy, productive fruit trees.

Here is a picture of a plum right before I picked it.  The fruit ripens quickly.  If not picked, it either drops and rots, or the animals eat it.

The peach trees are full of fruit.  They will be ready to be picked in a week or two.

Hummingbird Heaven

I despaired that I would not see any hummingbirds this year.  All of the right plants are in my garden - buddleia (butterfly bush), lobelia cardinalis, garden phlox, and echinacea purpurea.  No matter, no hummingbirds.

Perhaps my cat, Jack Bauer, had scared them away.  We haven't had any goldfinches in a few years, after all.

Then, the other day, while I was picking green beans, I thought I saw a lone hummingbird startle and fly away.  Today, while waiting for a carpenter to fix part of my rood deck, I saw them - a pair of hummingbirds checking out the phlox, the buddleia, and, of course, the lobelia cardinalis.

  

As I wrote about last week, my lawn looks dreadful, I have garden patches that are way past their prime, and the most robust plants I have are weeds.  No matter, the hummingbirds are back, and I hope that they stay a while.

Not the best picture - it is hard to photograph hummingbirds.  I have been seeing one or two of them for the last several days.  The white-flowered plant is a ptatycodon (balloon flower).

Vegetables to the Rescue

My well thought-out flower garden, especially the part I see from my bedroom window, is a sad sight.  I had pinned my hopes on veronica speedwell 'eveline', a deep pink veronica, carrying on all summer long.  It will bloom again, in a week or two.  Now there are few blooms and little color.

The lawn is even sadder - full of dead and dried out spots.  My less than perfect lawn prep of 25 years ago always haunts me in mid-summer.  The lawn is uneven.  When mowed, the high parts are shaved rather than cut - leading to burned-out patches.

I always find redemption in my husband's vegetable garden.  Despite frequent, heavy rains that knocked the young fruit off the tomato plants early in the season, it looks like we will have a good crop.  My husband followed a neighbor's lead, and added several loads of compost, free at our town dump, to the vegetable patch.  Even though the tomatoes have not ripened, there are lots of them, and they look healthy.

We have been harvesting green beans, zucchini, and cucumbers. Butternut squash, a surprise plant, will be ready to be picked soon.

The squash blossoms are lovely to look at.  Some day I will try cooking them.  The zucchini will be ready in a day or two.

Worth the Bother

The middle of summer is a good time to talk about plants that are worth the bother, and those that aren't.  The red lily leaf beetle, a non-native, infests true lilies (not day lilies) in the US Northeast to such a degree that experts recommend not putting them in your garden.  The beetle eats all of the leaves, thus robbing the plant of its food source - chlorophyll.   Perhaps twenty years ago, before the arrival of the beetle, I planted several varieties of lilies.  Unfortunately, I do not remember their names.  Some of them have done well, although not as well as they used to.  My husband sprays them with pesticide in the spring. I believe that parasitic wasps, one of their only predators, have been imported from Europe, and may be controlling them naturally.

As you can see, the lilies that have survived are lovely.  They are one of my favorite plants.

A plant that I will probably get rid of in parts of my garden is phlox paniculata, or garden phlox.  The plant has a lot going for it - beautiful white, pink or magenta flowers in mid to late summer with a lovely fragrance.  What it has against it is mildew.  I have some phlox growing now that are mildew free and blooming profusely.  Others, despite careful pruning early in the summer, are full of mildew and have not started blooming yet.  I may change my mind if I get a good bloom, though.

One last note for this week.  I just dropped my oldest daughter off in Fargo, North Dakota for graduate school.  I noticed that there were no azaleas or rhododendrons - clearly the winters are too long and harsh for them to survive.  White hydrangeas were plentiful, thought, and a deep red shrub that I did not recognize.  I would have expected more prairie grasses, but saw few gardens with them.  

Wallpaper

I haven't posted in a few weeks because of the incredible heat in Boston, which made it impossible to work on my computer (3rd floor study), and because of a trip to Washington, DC to help my daughter pack up her apartment.  I am also not ready to give an overview of the season.

I titled this post "Wallpaper" because that is what one section of my border looked like - safe, coordinated, boring.

The plants in front are a violet-pink veronica (one of my favorite plants - well-behaved, easy to weed around, long-blooming, and good color choices).  The chartreuse flowers behind the veronica is Lady's mantle.  Even though shorter than the veronica, it is in the back because it is not well-behaved; it spreads.   

I added begonias with white flowers and burgundy foliage in front of the veronica.  I chopped back the Lady's mantle a bit (more will be done later).  Finally, I added two delphinium 'Black Knight" Pacific Giant.

Even though the begonias have not done much yet, they add enough of a contrast to this section of the border so that it no longer looks like wallpaper.  I hope that they grow a bit more prominent.

  
Lavender to the right and phlox to the left are getting ready to bloom.  I will give an update after my next trip - this one to Fargo, North Dakota, to help my daughter move there for graduate school.

More Color

Color hue is important in designing a garden.  So is the intensity of the hue.  Early this spring I placed three yarrow plants (achillea yarrow), in a section of border that is dominated by pastel shades.  I thought their yellow  flowers and silvery foliage, would look nice against the phlox and its white flowers.  The yarrow bloomed beautifully, and was very bright yellow - too bright for the spot.

The intense yellow dominated the space; my eye kept jumping to the yarrow, and was not moving around the border. 

I moved the yarrow to a section of border that has vibrant colors. 

 

The yarrow looks much better in its new spot, next to the brilliant orange flowers of  asclepias tuberosa (butterfly weed).

Next time, an evaluation of the season.

Color, Round 1

There are volumes written, and yet to be written, about color in the garden.  I will write about what I think is the most useful.

First, a few definitions.  Hue, is what a color is at its most basic:  red is a hue; pink is a tint of the hue red (a hue which has had white added to it.)  Burgundy is a shade of the hue red (a hue which has had black added to it.)

Below is a 12 hue color wheel - the one that I find the most helpful in my garden design.

Notice the way the colors are arranged.  Each color is opposite - or 180 degrees away from - its complement, or color which does not contain any of its opposite.  For instance, yellow is opposite violet.  There is no yellow in violet - violet is a combination of red and blue.

Complements are important in all color design, for they give the design balance, which the eye is always looking for.  An unsettling situation occurs when hues are used that are almost complements, for example, yellow-orange and violet.  This combination can (doesn't always) create simultaneous contrast.  In this case, the eye keeps hunting for balance which is almost there, but not quite.  Simultaneous contrast can most easily be seen in Op Art, where the image created can appear to be moving.  This phenomenon does not usually happen in the garden because there is so much green around.  The way to defuse simultaneous contrast is to add another color.

You can also use colors that are neither complements nor near complements.  Such a scheme might include red, yellow, and blue.  This combination would be boring if you were just to use these three hues, as you might in a graphic design.  This combination is less boring in a garden because of the presence of so much green.  The green actually helps tie the colors together because green contains yellow and blue, and is the complement of red.

Next time, I will write about intensity of color.

The Cone of Vision

The cone of vision is a concept I learned about in an illustration class.  Understanding it helps the artist create realistic scenes because it captures approximately what your eye can see without moving your head.  (Imagine drawing  a fifteen degree line from your eye to both the right and left of your eye - that is about what your cone of vision will be.) You can use it to design gardens that are unified and pleasing.

If you have a garden that is open to the street and not obscured by trees, buildings, and hills,and if the garden is first seen from far away, the cone of vision is large.  That is, more can be seen even though the angle does not change. A garden seen from far away should have a unified theme, feeling, or color scheme.  This garden will probably also be seen at an intermediate and close distance.  Use variety in color, foliage, and bloom time to make the garden interesting from these distances as well.

People who plan municipal gardens along streets use the cone of vision to design gardens that will make a big impact when people drive by in cars.  Most people are going to get a very quick view of the garden, and usually from specific angles.  A garden might first be viewed as a curve is rounded - perhaps shrubs will be placed so as not to be parallel to the street - but at an angle to it - giving the best view. The municipal gardener does not need to invest in a big assortment of plants - just the opposite.  Too much variety will confuse the viewer's eye and create an unpleasant experience.

Small gardens, such as those found in urban townhomes have a limited cone of vision.  Here, variety is important.  Too much of the same plant is boring and depressing.  Different  foliage types, plant shapes (tall, rounded, pendulous,,,), foliage color, and bloom time should be used.  Just make sure that you help the eye move through and around the garden.

A third type is where the garden is seen  up-close and  intermediate distances.  I have included pictures  from one of my borders to help illustrate how I have used cone of vision.

The first picture shows part of the garden as you approach it.  A rhododendron obscures the rest of the border.

 
This view includes some pretty irises - but you have to keep moving to see more.  This area is a tease. It should encourage people to look for more garden.

This next picture shows what you see as you proceed around the bend.

There is more to see, and it is quite pleasing.

As you continue to walk, you can look at one section of the garden from fairly close.

This part of the border has a pleasant color scheme and good foliage variety.  Notice the dwarf Alberta spruce to the left of the picture. It is an important design element, as can be seen in the next and final photo.

That same Alberta spruce can be seen in the distance now.  It helps break up the border into "rooms".  The first "room", all the way to the left, will soon have lots of hot colors - bright oranges, yellows, and yellow oranges.  The second "room", the one that you see in the above two photos, has a calmer, pastel palate.  The third "room", created by the placement of another Alberta spruce, is one with shade loving plants.  All three "rooms" have a different feel.  It would have looked funny to have "hot" colors next to pastels next to muted shade lovers.  Separating the areas with shrubs lets you look at the entire border and find it satisfying, rather than jarring.

Next time, how to use color to create balance in a border.

Notan Revisited

I recently saw Matisse's painting The Green Pumpkin at the RISD Museum in Providence, Rhode Island.  I cannot show a picture of the painting; you can google it and see a picture (don't just google "green pumpkin", though.)  The painting is designed with definite bands of color that extend from one edge horizontally to the opposing edge.  Then there is the green pumpkin, close to the middle of the painting, flanked by blocks of the same green.  (Although there is no continuous band of green, the eye interprets the green objects as being in a green band.)  I realized that Matisse had used Notan in the design of this painting even though he did not use extremes of darks and lights.  By using Notan, he helped the viewer discover what was important in the painting, and keep the viewer's eye moving throughout the painting, and not flying off of it.

Color can be used the same way in a garden design as Matisse used it in The Green Pumpkin.   Plants are placed to help keep the viewer's eye moving throughout.

In the bed that I photographed from a roof deck, I have used plants with reddish-purplish foliage placed in the front left armeria maritima rubrifolia (red leafed sea thrift), middle center lysimachia ('firecracker' loosestrife), back right heuchera 'molly bush' (coral bells), and another heuchera to the front right.  My goal is to help people look at this garden so that their eye does not get stuck on one area, and does not wander off to some area outside the garden.  The red foliage plants help lead the eye around and through the garden.  All of the plants are seen because I have helped people make sense of the space.

Next time, I will write about cone of vision.

Generosity in the garden

My Uncle Norm died this past February.  In his 92 years  he learned a lot about generosity, and taught even more.  This trait was always on display in gardens.

There are hundreds of pictures he took of his nieces, nephews, great-nieces and nephews, friends, patients, neighbors, and an occasional stranger, in front of some gorgeous flower or garden.  Being one of the younger children ina family of eight, I was not photographed often.  There wasn't the time or energy.  It wasn't a big deal.  But it was a big deal when there you were, your young face smiling, photographed in front of some gorgeous delphinium.  

Uncle Norm used to show a series of photos that told a lot about him.  The first set of pictures were of his friends from the Cleveland Museum of Art, or the Print Club of Cleveland, in one of his gardens.  The second set was of a woman who was the daughter of one of his longtime patients.  The third and final set was shown to questions of "who are they?"  Uncle Norm replied, with modulated delight "Oh, they were at the Taco Bell across the street and they were admiring my garden."

As I got older, it became a joke that Uncle Norm was really taking pictures of his flowers and wanted people in them for novelty.  Now that I am older, I think that he really loved people, and he loved plants, and he wanted to see them together.

Whenever someone I love comes to visit, I like to take their picture in front of whatever is flowering in my yard.  I try to take pictures of people I don't love, too, just so my small act of generosity will make me a better person.

Next time - more Notan 

Notan

Notan is a Japanese design concept that deals with lights and darks in a composition.  A good balance of these leads to a pleasing composition.  The trick is how to achieve it.

I learned about Notan last year when I started creating pen and ink illustrations for a webcomic/graphic novel that I am working on.  It occurred to me that I could use the concept in my garden.

Areas of lights and darks should be almost equal.  Also, lights should flow into other lights, and darks should flow into other darks.  Think of a stream with boulders in it.  The water flows around the boulders.  Both boulders and water make a patttern of light and dark.

Notan can help make a garden design work well, especially in the early spring, when a lot of perennials have not popped ujp through the soil yet.  I am lazy in the fall.  I intned to plant spring flowering bulbs, but something more important - like watching a football game or going apple picking - always comes up.  My gardens always have bare patches in the spring.  These will disappear in a few weeks, because the perennials will emerge.  Still, I want the garden to look good 12 months of the year.

This corner bed has a big bare patch in the spring, because one of my favorite plants, the brilliant orange asclepias tuberosa (butterfly weed) doesn't pop through the soil until late April. 

This diagram is a bird-s eye view of the bed.    It suggests a possible solution (there are many, depending on my energy level).  I can make the plants that flank the wedge-shaped empty spot line up more severely so that it is very obvious that the empty, or dark area, is indeed a wedge shape.

I took this picture today - mid-May, to show how the garden is growing.  One of the asclepias tuberosa plants needs to be moved to the left so that the three plants line up into a triangle shape.  (There is some risk involved, as asclepias tuberosa do not like to be moved.)    I can then add a few annuals, perhaps heliotrope (deep purple flowers, perfect for a sunny spot), on either side of the most forward asclepias tuberosa.

Next post I will write about generosity in the garden.

Back in Business

Winter is finally over, and the Honest Gardener is back in business!

Before I work in my garden, I put on my gardening shoes - which have been sitting in the garage for 6 months.  Before I stick my feet into my shoes, I check for critters, especially spiders and/or their eggs.  I have encountered them in shoes in the past.

Once my shoes are on, and I have my gloves on, I get to work.  Today, I am going to discuss my long border that runs along Oakland St.  There is a corner bed that is dominated by a cut leaf maple tree.  I would not plant a maple tree in a flower bed again, because the roots are shallow.  Planting anything around the tree is really difficult (there are a few plants that have thrived around this tree - that will have to wait for a future post.)

In this particular bed I have two ornamental grasses.  I wanted to move one of them, because although  they are attractive, they take up a lot of valuable real estate.  After a few minutes of digging at one of the grasses, I gave up.  My original plan was to plant three Veronica (speedwell) where the grass had been.  When that didn't work out, I went to Plan B.

In the front of this bed I have three geum plants (not sure of the variety).  Geum has very pretty bright red-orange flowers, perfect for a sunny spot.  The problem is that after they have bloomed, they are less than blah.  I don't like "blah" in the front of my garden.

 The geum are in the front - the veronica are in pots to the left.  I moved the geum towards the back, in between and just in front of the ornamental grasses.  Once the geum are done blooming, the grasses should have grown quite a bit and will obscure the geum plants.  I planted the veronica where the geum were.  According to the label, they get up to 15" high - a little high for the front of a bed - I will see how I like it as the season progresses.

The next area I worked on was a section of border that is located in a sunny section.  It is flanked on one side by a dwarf alberta spruce (at the rate it is growing, it could end up at 30 feet), and an ornamental grass that gets really big.  I made a lot of changes to this section last summer.  I moved the lady's mantle to the back.  I moved some cranesbill geranium to the middle-right of the section.  The lady's mantle was moved because it is an early bloomer - it has striking chartreuse flowers.  After flowering, it is quite messy, and tends to spread.  I moved the pink cranesbill geranium to this section because the area had too much white in it.  The cranesbill geranium is gorgeous while it blooms, and it will bloom a second time if you shear it back after its first bloom.  It does tend to get messy, so, for me, it will not go in the front of the border.

I had some pink veronica (sorry, I forget the genus), which I moved to the center of the section.  It had been off to the right, near the gigantic ornamental grass.  The grass completely covered up the veronica, so it had to be moved.

In the back  I have three white phlox (again, I forget the genus).  The problem with phlox is that they get mildew right around when it is time for them to bloom.  Every year I cut off several of the stalks to promote air circulation, but I still get mildew.  I love the flowers, though.  My solution was to put three yarrow Achillea 'Moonshine' in front of them.  Yarrow is a fairly reliable plant with nice color (it comes in pinks and different shades of yellow - 'moonrise' is a bright , but not sulphurous yellow.)  It looks fine after it has bloomed, and the flowers dry nicely.

This section of the border has clear, but not overly birght, colors.  All of the colors have the same feel - lending the section a pleasing unity.  

Everything has been planted.  I am a stickler for maintaining my design - which is a straight row of plants in the front of the border, and groups of plants placed in alternating equilateral (roughly) triangles - apex up, then apex down, in the middle and back of the border.

When I had moved the pink veronica a few weeks ago, I had arranged the plants in a triangle; today, I put them in a straight line.

This picture shows how this section looks today.  I will chronicle how well it does this summer. 

Next post I will write about the concept of Notan - the arrangement of lights and darks in a design.