A Second Look--June 6, 2012

Last weekend, Ward and I toured gardens at six private residences in a nearby city. The gardens were in  mature neighborhoods with lots of trees and they were on both small and large lots. Some had been designed by professional designers with award winning results. Others were done entirely by the homeowners over the years. However, they all had several things in common.

1. All used a variety of colors and textures with the greenery being the most important element. The flowers were just accents to this backdrop.
2. All used a variety of heights in each bed with the taller ones to the back and the shorter ones to the front.
3. Most filled the space they had. There was very little empty space in the beds.
4. We saw the same plants over and over again--hosta, hydrangea, astilbe, azaleas, hellebore, ginger, and ornamental grasses to name a few.

Even though we don't have the money or time to create the gardens we saw, I found that we are already using some of these basic principals and plants. Also, we got ideas to incorporate into our yard.

Here's this week's Second Look--a compare and contrast between the gardens from our tour and our yard.

Their bed of  hosta, azalea, astilbe, and rhododendron.

Our bed of astilbe, spirea, and spruce.

We have many day lilies.

They used many day lilies (as seen on the left of this picture).

They use Japanese painted fern and hosta together.

I use Japanese painted fern and hosta together.

They used nettle with ginger.

I use nettle with lady's mantle.

They used hedges of hypericum.

I want hedges of hypericum.

They used whimsical garden art.

I'm not sure if I want whimsical garden art.

BTW--Formatting with Blogger is driving me crazy. Things are not exactly spaced as I want in this post, but I had to quit before I screamed. Did I mention that formatting with Blogger is often frustrating?