Filling the Gaps in the Garden

Finally, think color There are a few areas of my own garden that are colorful enough that no one ever notices that there are no flowers in it. Foliage in itself can be incredibly colorful, even if you stick to cold hardy perennials. Many, many plants have silver foliage, or gold, and there are also plenty of purple plants out there. Some leaves are variegated and show streaks, stripes or dots of pink and white, orange and gold - sometimes all at once! A few plants have leaves that are golden brown (which makes it quite hard to figure out if they are actually alive). And of course, foliage comes in too many shades of green to try to count.

As you see, you can create a lot of visual (not to mention tactile) interest by simply choosing your filler material wisely. And it is wise to do so - because that way the garden will look good even in those months when not much seems to be in flower.

Putting it all together
You could almost take a sort of Chinese menu approach to garden design - choose one plant from column A to plant with one from Column B - until you have a nice symphony of color, form and texture. Contrast bold with fine, light with dark, rounded with spiky and you will have filled in a lot of garden beautifully.

And don't forget - many of these filler plants also just happen to have beautiful flowers that will light up the garden for a few weeks in summer. So choose the flowering plants and shrubs with some eye to how those colors will interact.

When all your filler is in place it's time to add the finishing touches. Your pet perennials, favorite flowers - the beautiful blossoms that are now ready to be set in place, as carefully as a jeweler would set stones. Or the way a florist would finish off an arrangement.

Except that, as we know all too well, a garden is never finished. What you have done is simply to set the stage and then set this season's performance in motion.

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