The Transplanted Gardener: Little landscape lessons
This part of Virginia Israelit’s garden is comprised of grassy stepping stones and surrounded by yellow-flowering iris, white wisteria, and rhododendrons.
Photos courtesy of Craig Summers Black
Even if you're not new to the Monitor, it's possible you may have missed Creative Combos, a photo-driven feature I've been writing with the aid of ace garden photog. David McDonald.
We take a little vignette – a composition of plantings – and show how and why they make for effective landscaping.
Here's what these columns look like:
• Pieces of Silver: How pale colors ease transitions in garden beds and borders.
• A Palette of Garden Grasses: These ornamentals add grace, form, and movement.
• Not Your Grandmother’s Hens and Chicks: Drifts of succulents can be stunning.
• A Dreamy Blue Contrast: Sometimes subtlety is its own reward. (See side photo.)
• Of Golden Bookends: On the cutting edge with colored foliage.
• See-Through Plants and Sheer Artistry: Defying the conventional wisdom.
• Stopping the Eye at an Intersection: Man, nature and anthropomorphism.
• Ride the Red Wave: Creating a scene by contrasting color and texture.
• French-Style Floral Flair: Close your eyes and think of … Gallic inspiration.
• Giving Grass Shape: An invitation to climb higher. (See top photo.)
Errata: Iowa, my adopted home, has four seasons – Snow, Ice, Mud, and Dust. And all these elements get in your house somehow or another. Well, there are five seasons if Dog Hair is a season.