Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Choosing Plants

I'm up to my eyeballs in plant lists and pictures at the moment, but it occurred to me we can apply the four "body" distinctions to our plant lists. I want to run it by you and see if it works.

In the context of the garden, this refers to our hardscaping: pavers, pathways, structures, etc. As far as plant selection is concerned, however, these should be trees and shrubs or whatever you choose to use for a backdrop. These are the elements which remain after all the other plants have died back or gone dormant. You could restrict your plant list to just these sorts of plants--and have a great looking year round garden.

This is a metaphor for movement and flow. Plants which change with the seasons may be a good choice here, or plants which provide movement (like grasses) or plants which attract moving things, like bees and butterflies.

The showy stuff. Perennials and annuals.

These would be those plants which serve your needs--if not already included in the above; vegetables and herbs, for example, or plants included for their ability to attract desirable insects.

This is just off the top of my head. If another way to think about it occurs to you, please share!


zooza said...

I think that work really well. I would may be little ground creeping things or hedges that define borders, etc, in the bones section because they could be seen as internal 'walls' - but I think you probably already covered that it your description.

zooza said...

p.s. I'm hard at work on my homework. You should see the number of little focal point diagrams with "a, b, c, d, etc" I have made on scraps of paper... no decision yet, though.

drwende said...

Like it a lot!

This means my garden will be all heart, but why not?

lorijo said...

I think that this is good. In my case, heart is also garden art. Yes, it could also be bones, but garden art to me is more about feelings than thoughts.

I wish I was to the "adding" part of my garden plans. I am still in the "removing" part. 4 huge wheelbarrows full of limbs and shrubs so far......

Alana in Canada said...

Indeed, why not, Wende? All heart. In your innermost outsuide sanctum. I like it.

And thanks Zooa--I'll make that suggestion explicit--as my writing critics used to say.

Oh, Lorijo--good for you! Four wheelbarrows--that's great. I hope it isn't all storm debris.

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