The Seed 17: Garden Melodies

What is it that makes some gardens so inviting while other gardens seem like the same old landscaping? Health is a very important factor in making a space seem beautiful, but even some healthy gardens don’t draw in or excite the eye. It is also important for a space to feel balanced. Some folks would understand balance to mean symmetry, but even symmetrically planted spaces can feel out of balance if the yard surrounding the garden isn’t taken into account. New and unusual plantings are yet another way to stimulate a gardener’s eye, but again without the proper context, health, or balance unusual plants may just look out of place. Once a gardener learns to compost, the health of their gardens can be almost assured. Finding balance in your landscape can be a bit more challenging until you learn to view your garden in three dimensions.

Balance is found by making your new plantings come into context with everything that shares the space of the new plantings. To find balance I always look to the tallest elements in a landscape first. The tallest elements are usually trees and / or buildings. A planting that is properly in balance will allow the eye to stair step down from the highest point in the landscape. Often times this will mean having large under story shrubs near trees or buildings, and then shorter shrubs or perennials surrounding the tall shrubs.

Part of what can be discovered in the process of balancing the taller and shorter elements in a garden is a sense of rhythm. This sense of rhythm will play out in terms of height as well as length. Think of your garden for a moment as though it were one of your favorite songs. In most of the songs we like there is a continuous flow of notes arranged into chords and these chords into melodies. If each plant is a note in a song, and each grouping of plants is a chord, then we can see how we can create different chords by grouping different plants. Once a few chord groupings of plants are made it is only a matter of arranging these groupings in a somewhat repetitious matter so as to create a melody.

Some of my favorite music has a sort of raw, un-produced sound. I liken this sound to a natural environment where there is repetition, but never exact repetition so the eye is always surprised in its journeys. Changing the plant groupings somewhat throughout your garden will probably only add to the natural, un-produced feel of your landscape. That visual connection with the natural world could be enough to turn your boring yard into a landscape sanctuary, where just like when we listen to a great song, we can set down our stress and be transported to a world that makes sense.

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