Everyone loves coming home to a beautiful yard. Imagine pulling into your driveway and looking across a garden-like landscape of flowers, shrubs, trees, and grass in natural harmony. There would be lush spaces, open views, and splashes of color. The areas of green, healthy grass would call to you to take off your shoes and be barefoot while the flowers would burst with color fit for a bouquet.
Your neighbors would envy you as you stood out front surveying your landscape, but they would only know the half of it. In a few minutes, you would be out back barefoot with your dog, relaxing in total garden elegance.
Sound too good to be true? It’s not. While the salesmen would say, “All of this could be yours for a low, low price…” The master gardener would say, “You, too, could enjoy garden elegance with the often overlooked right plant, right place technique…”
For anyone who has killed a plant and wondered what he or she did wrong, right plant right place might be the answer. The first consideration is the environment. Soil is important, but since we mostly have sand here, the real issue is sunlight and moisture. The plant you choose for a location must be suited for the amount of sunlight that area gets all year. Remember that winter and summer sun areas vary. Plants on the northern side of house might thrive in winter and burn up in summer.
The second consideration is plant maturity size. Plants should be placed in a location that accommodates their mature size. Quite often, plants are squeezed into the landscape and have to compete for nutrients. Sometimes less is more.
A final consideration, and one of the most important for overall appearance, is the combination of plants used in a location. There’s a fine line between creating elegance and creating a fruit salad. The former is better! Shrubs, flowers and trees must complement each other in leaf texture and color.
True garden elegance is achieved through the harmonious balance of plants, trees and flowers in the landscape. It all begins with the right plant in the right place.
