Happy Valentine’s Day! The only love and garden related lines I remember come from a book called “The Gardener of Versailles“. Alain Baraton writes that “a garden capable of attracting lovers is a success.”
Speaking of love, Steve Whysall wrote in his Vancouver Sun article last Saturday (February 11, 2017, page G3) that knowing what you love or don’t love in your garden is always knowledge worth having. Yes? Definitely! I totally agree.
So I thought about it and I made a list of things I love and don’t love. I suggest you make your own list. Feel free to comment on this post.
- like Steve Whysall, I am also a fan of repetition. One low mounding plant meandering along a pathway works better for me than fifteen different plants.
- Simplicity. This comes from my love of Japanese gardens where there is lots left up to your imagination. I love a stone pathway set in moss with a specimen Japanese maple tree and a few azaleas. What I don’t like is a garden so full of color, my eyes don’t know where to look. There are way too many perennials and annuals. I find simplicity attractive.
- In general, I prefer low mounding plants like grasses and sedges. Tall perennials annoy me because I feel like they’re usurping too much space and demanding attention. One exception would be Liatris spicata.
- I love warm yellows. Doronicum and Ligularia are two examples. I find yellow flowers warm and happy. I will be forever grateful to my city gardener boss Tracey Mallinson for introducing me to Doronicums at Como Lake.
- I don’t like sharp spikes. For example, plants like roses, Berberis and Pyracantha. I feel like these plants belong in places where you want to keep out bad people.
- I don’t like non-living additions like gnomes, trellises and sheep. For example, I know one small garden with fuzzy sheep parked in salal (Gaultheria shallon). With rain and the passage of time, the sheep look like they could use some help. Sometimes I get freaked out during the course of my maintenance work when I run into donkey and dog statues. I feel like all of it detracts from a garden. I wish it didn’t exist.
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