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.