Beauty in the Garden

Achieving beauty in the garden is often an elusive task.  You can follow the standard rules for achieving it by incorporating thoughtful use of line, pattern, balance, movement and repetition.  But the garden is an organic entity, influenced by weather, pests, disease,  patience, and soil conditions.

And what, exactly, is not beautiful?  Is it something that is ugly?  I think not.  Something that is monstrously ugly, such as a steel mill, is so overwhelmingly powerful and dominant in its landscape that I consider it an amped-up beautiful thing.

To me, lack of beauty is created when there is chaos, confusion, disorder and lack of interest.  That is why a weedy garden is often considered ugly - your eye and brain cannot tell what is going on, gets frustrated, and quits the scene.  Likewise, a design that is symmetrically balanced is often so boring that you want to weep.

My approach to achieving beauty in the garden is to have it be organized and balanced.  The balance includes making lights and darks equally important, and keeping the eye moving.

Despite the fact that I have thought long and hard about how to achieve beauty in the garden, I am not always successful.  I do not have a crew of people weeding and pruning for me.  I cannot make up for the bad winter we just had (my hydrangeas may not bloom, and my peonies were disappointing.)  It takes time, sometimes years, for a plant to hit its stride, as my European ginger did this year.  Patience and acceptance are a gardener's best friend.

And sometimes, plants surprise you.  I have a patch of Agastache 'blue fortune' (anise hyssop), that is blooming beautifully right now.  Growing right next to it is a lovely yellow lily.  I inadvertently achieved color balance because the large area of lavendar works well with its complement, the yellow of the lily.

 

Another happy surprise is this daylily, which I think I bought in Geauga County, Ohio at an Amish run daylily nursery.

I think it is lovely.