Gardens by Kelly Productions

I talk a lot about vignettes, justifiably so considering the rhapsodic nature of my garden.  Like a rhapsody, my garden is a composition of irregular forms with generous freedom of expression.  It employs the full measure of my creativity, at least I hope.  If a garden space doesn’t employ or at least challenge the full measure of our creative devices, what really have we created?  Another median planting with daylilies and barberries, no doubt!

So in this spirit of vignettes united by equal measures of dimension and freedom, let me share with you a few combos that caught my eye this weekend.

Combo #1:  Tightly knit, this merry duo repeats itself throughout my front garden.  Yellowdicks (Helenium amarum), which I’m obviously enchanted with, happily shine in concert with my favorite soapwort (Saponaria lempergii ‘Max Frei’).  Some soapworts have an unsavory reputation for being rock garden thugs.  Not so here.  Mindful and ground-hugging, ‘Max Frei’ brightens up any floor spot in the garden, a colorful filler while nearby and taller neighbors prep for the next round.  This particular vignette has shone strongly for nearly three weeks.  The soapworts just started to go down hill this week.

Combo #2:  I liked this so much I made it the front page photo on the website!  What a startling palette of texture, color, and personality, right?  You’ll recognize the beautybush from earlier posts.  Prairie sage (Artemisia ludoviciana) adds silver to the menu, juxtaposing the glowy chartreuse foliage of the beautybush.  These two alone could seal the deal for me, an unexpectedly compatible interface of opposing forces.  Yet the drama comes from the emergent blossoms on my bush clematis (Clematis heracleifolia) whose dark, pseudo-jade foliage and cobalt blue flowers tactfully grace the vignette with star power.  It all comes together to spell bold like no other vignette in my garden does, a momentary semblance of my personality cropping up in the forms of plants.  As I reflect though on the island bed in toto, similar strokes of boldness grow throughout.  In effect, one vignette forces a reconsideration of the piece at-large, something garden designers would say alludes to thematic development of the garden space.  The power of one, maybe.

Combo #3:  I use #3 to illustrate how the same idea (like in #1) can happen with different plants.  One of the best evening primroses for the home garden, Oenothera macrocarpa ssp. fremontii blooms endlessly from June through early fall.  Many forms sport shimmering foliage in silver tones, the perfect accent as illustrated in previous vignettes.  Here, though, this endless summer bloomer has waded into a sea of cutleaf beardstongue (Penstemon richardsonii var. richardsonii), a perfectly hardy endemic of the Pacific Northwest mountain ranges.  I love sprawling plants.  Their roving tendencies and friendly door-knocking invite serendipity to the garden, precisely the case here.  That improvisational element accelerates a native, natural feeling that’s present in my front garden.  It goes on unplanned throughout the season, versing its freedom.

What vignettes do you have in your garden?  What do they look like and what plants shine?  It’s easy to get lost in the big picture sometimes (I can relate since I consider myself a “big picture” kind of planner).  But the value lies in the details, those little vignettes that add up to the garden at-large.

I’ve been gone from my garden for nearly a week. But oh what can change in the garden in the span of a week! Since I left, we’ve had over five inches of rain and it shows–a large, unplanned pond floods beds south of the house.

But strife from rain aside, the gardens look fabulous, particularly the rock garden. I pulled up the driveway, flung open my car door, and bounded in two leaps into the garden, exploring and sniffing out the latest bloomers and faders and the taking pleasure in the momentary newness that comes from reuniting with a longtime friend.

That momentary newness, in my garden at least, grows from vignettes or the little windows of plant marrying together to form raucous moments of color and texture.  These vignettes weave and sew themselves together into a tapestry reflective of my personality (zealous and a little crazy); a mirror that brings gladsome joy to my arrival.  Never without the camera, I snapped a few worth sharing.

 
This moment of color was the first to snag my attention as I sped up the driveway to my parking spot under the tree.  Wine-dipped poppy mallows (Callirhoe involucrata) have sprung into bloom in the last seven days and will lilely continue blooming through frost.  I consider them the anchor here.  But about five weeks ago I interplanted them with yellowdicks (Helenium amarum), yellow daisy-like annuals that I hope reseed from one end of the garden to the other.  Who can’t fall in love with a perky yellow daisy springing up here and there?  Blue flax (Linum perenne) flops gracefully into the mix. 

Adjectives that come to mind: Charming, elegant, serendipitous, and joyful

Expanding the field of view, I panned my camera to the left to include the rock outcropping and a quintessential preview of my upcoming Ozarks trip.  The eastern beebalm (Monarda bradburiana), which too few people grow and will thus star in an upcoming plant profile on this blog, has neared its peak performance.  It’s subtly spotted, pink blossoms engulf a dwarf mound of red-tinted foliage.  Fabulous!  At its feet, amid boulders grows a pink Opuntia (probably O. polyacantha though it was given to me as a pink O. humifusa).  2009 marks its inaugural bloom in my garden.  The rich green foliage in the background belongs to the overgrown Solidago drummondii, the wrinkleleaf goldenrod.  It needs cut back and reinvigorated for a showstopping September performance.