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.