AS WE BEGIN the month of September on Monday,we are but a few weeks from autumn and then the winter season.
These are the seasons of “Big Projects” around your yard, so let me prepare you for any upcoming construction on how one develops an inspired piece of landscaping.
It is really quite simple. Anyone can do it.
All you need are four essential elements: Form, structure, diversity and texture.
• First comes form, which is an external appearance of a clearly defined area as distinguished from color or material, the shape of a thing. The form really directs the eye and gives a subconscious message about the place.
Work on the form first when you want to perform a landscape task, making sure it has a particular condition, character or shape. It needs to convey a real harmonious flow and fit the area.
• Second comes structure, which is defined as a complex system considered from the point of view of the whole, rather than any single part. In your landscape structure, you want the perfect relationship of component parts all working together in order to form art.
By paying attention in the beginning to the structure, features balance out in the project, but that is because each is held together by the form.
• Third is my favorite, diversity. This is distinguished by a variety of objects known for their unique qualities that are easily noticed. I derive much pleasure from the thought process and the collection of diversity.
Use nice driftwood, noted for its lovely bleached, weathered look, jutting out here and there through the rocks.
Rocks, lots and lots of different rocks, such as beach pebbles, river rocks, mountain cliffs, glacial boulders, jagged eroded screes and each with its own color.
Plants are really a blast.
A weeping prostrate Sequoia adds really unique shape, the glossy and green rhododendrons, red pygmy barberry for splash of color and size, lovely sedum spread here and there with blood grass thrown in for good measure.
Yellow-tinged plants, green and blue, along with miniature contorted and alpine all come together in an explosion of visual diversity.
Then push the envelope with various elements, such as old rusty chains, old stumps, oyster shells, muscles shells, crabs and other sea creature remains all contribute to a very lush diverse scene.
• Then finally, texture and lots of it. Texture is the quality of surface of the object selected. This makes selection exciting as well as challenging.
A stump with its lovely form gives us a texture along with a rough charred interior. A pond has the smooth and fluid texture inherent in large bodies of water, while a river flowing over the waterfalls gives great texture of rapids or torrents as well as movement. Driftwood is smooth against jagged rocks and rusty chain, while slender grasses sway in the breeze. Plant species are picked because their leaves are plated or lobed, needled or serrated, pendulous or upright.
Texture can cause one to lose themselves in the display, examining every item in the diverse structure held together by the form.
If you are going to do a big project in the next several months, use these four theorems always in your yard — they are the secret to my success.
Staying well all is also a success, so stay well all!
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Andrew May is a freelance writer and ornamental horticulturist who dreams of having Clallam and Jefferson counties nationally recognized as “Flower Peninsula USA.” Send him questions c/o Peninsula Daily News, P.O. Box 1330, Port Angeles, WA 98362, or email news@peninsuladailynews.com (subject line: Andrew May).
