Have you ever wondered what makes the difference between a garden that really pops and one that is hum drum? One that looks professionally designed vs decidedly amateur? Today we are going to take a look at how to take a landscape from boring to the talk of the neighborhood. So if you are interested in designing a garden for curb appeal, read on.
Let’s start with a familiar analogy. If you have been involved in the gardening community for any length of time, you have likely heard the mantra thriller, filler, spiller as being the secret recipe for planting containers that look amazing. Without all 3 of these elements, containers often look like they are lacking. The same is true of your garden beds. There are certain elements you need to have present to really make your landscape pop.
It doesn’t matter whether you are looking for formal or cottage garden. The same basics apply, and the same elements need to be present. The sky is the limit when it comes to execution and your creativity in applying these principals.
So, what are these elements?
Similar to the recipe for containers, you want to have focal plants and filler plants. It’s important to have plants of different shapes, textures, colors, and sizes. Too many focal plants and not enough filler and your garden fails to be cohesive, and might feel cluttered. Too few and it becomes boring. Many times the same plants may fill different roles in different gardens, so you really have to think about what your goals are, and how much space you have to work with.
For example, in a very formal garden, your focal plants might be topiaries. In a cottage garden, they might be larger flowering shrubs. In a small yard without space for large shrubs, really flashy, large flowered perennials might be your focal plants. It might be a vine trailing up a fancy trellis. Choose things that add height and interest. Plants that will draw your eye. Then start designing with your focal plants first. Place them in strategic locations.
Next you want to fill in around the focal plants with your ‘fillers and spillers’.
Often these workhorses get overlooked and get little to no credit for being what makes a landscape look like a million dollars. They are also the most likely element to be missing. These are the plants that in and of their own right aren’t really that exciting or interesting. However, they bring the color and texture a garden needs to look complete. These plants can be shrubs, perennials, or groundcovers. Annuals, particularly reseeding ones, can even have an essential place. Don’t skimp on your fillers!
The goal with these plants is to fill in around your focal plants with different heights, textures, and colors to bring interest to your garden throughout the season.
For example, Nepeta is one of our favorite landscape plants. It produces a fine, mounded texture, and provides months of bright blueish-purple blooms. Verbena bonariensis provides a very spiky upright texture. Russian sage provides an airy upright texture with the added bonus of dusty gray-green colored foliage. Annuals like California poppies can provide an explosion of color in early spring filling in around slow to sprout perennials, then fading away as the perennials take their place.
Asters can provide a fluffy mound and color in the fall when most plants are no longer blooming. Cheddar pinks can provide a swath of color in the spring, and an unassuming carpet of green later in the season. Planted en masse Gaillardia can provide a blanked of coarse textured color for much of the season. Iris can provide spiky upright texture. You probably get the idea. Look at plants as a whole rather than just for their flowers, and ask what the entire plant can or can’t add to your garden.
It is important also to not overlook plants grown mainly for their foliage.
They have an equally important place in your garden. These plants can provide interest and texture that are different than what flowering plants add. Sage provides coarse textured dusty green foliage. Black leaved Physocarpus varieties, and variegated plants like red twig dogwoods add a depth of color all season long.
And while we are discussing plants grown for their foliage, we should mention that ideally you want a mixture of deciduous plants and evergreens, just like you want a mixture of perennials and shrubs. Your shrubs and evergreens help to provide interest in the winter months, particularly if you pick deciduous plants with winter interest features. The perennials and deciduous plants help to provide color and interest in the summer months. A landscape of all evergreen plants is terribly boring in July just like a landscape of all perennials is in December.
There is no right or wrong percentage for each of these types of plants in your garden. It depends on the effect you are going for. A more formal garden will have more evergreens, a cottage garden would lean more heavily on deciduous and flowering plants.
Lastly, we want to note that many times the depth and interest of varying plant heights is lacking.
A lot of times people either plant all shrubs that are all the same height or stair step their gardens. Tall plants in back, medium plants, then short plants in front. While, yes, it would be pretty silly to plant the tall plants in the front, if you follow it to the letter and your whole entire garden follows this format, it’s boring.
In either scenario mentioned above, your garden will lack depth and interest and mystery. Instead follow this principal loosely. Create random islands and peninsulas of taller plants that reach out towards the front of your beds. Or toss in something a triangular trellis with a vine on it in a random place. Doing this provides a lot of visual interest that strictly tiered (or not tiered at all) beds provide.
We hope this gives you some ideas to help make your garden the envy of the neighborhood!
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