Plant Artistry - Creative Fun in the Garden


flowering plants and simply handed them to her gardener to plant. They were in bloom the day that she had occasion to fly over her property in a small plane - which is why she noticed that the gardener had used them to spell out her name. The effect, needless to say, was invisible from the ground but undoubtedly brought a tug of a smile to the gardener who thought his trick was a secret from his employer.

There is no reason, however, why we couldn't do something similar on a small scale. I have been threatening for years to do something like this with the lawn - get out the fertilizer spreader and use it to write our street number on the steeply sloped front lawn. The fertilized grass would grow greener and more lush than the surrounding, malnourished stuff - and people would quit complaining that they cannot see our address. Of course I have also threatened to use that same method to create an intricate maze in the lawn - a sort of Zen area where we could lose ourselves in the contemplation of trying to work our way to the center - but without the claustrophobia of a maze of hedges.

For a child's garden, for instance, why not but a multitude of spring flowering bulbs in two colors - one as a background for the second color which you use to write his or her name in flowers. Kids gardens are a perfect place for painting with plants - they are still unsophisticated enough to get real joy from simple drawings such as a smiley face or the outline of a butterfly. Let them lay down the bulbs in a large trench to paint whatever picture they fancy. It's one great way to encourage an interest in gardening, as you can be sure they will check often, waiting anxiously for their picture to emerge.

SCULPTING WITH PLANTS

Not everyone uses plants as though they were paint on a canvas. This is good because most plants are very dimensional, having form and texture as well as color. So in a sense every flower and plant is a sculpture in its own right. But we can use our imagination to take this a bit further and use plants in combination to create living sculptures.

My own first experience sculpting with "plants" involved tissue paper roses and chicken wire - a float for

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