Saturday, April 4, 2009

Color, Texture, and Fragrance


When trying to limit plants for a small garden, one can come up with a far ranging list of specific criteria. My personal choices came down to whether or not I could eat them, then to color, fragrance, and texture. Like a good floral arrangement, a garden benefits from a variety of texture. Sword shaped leaves, round leaves, heart shaped leaves all add to the texture of a garden and are important to juxtapose for contrast; just as important as planting trees, shrubs and flowers for different height. Can you imagine a garden with plants of only one height?

Since my primary reason for the garden was to create an urban potager, all my trees, with the exception of a Japanese maple, are fruit trees. Then came the color selections of coral, apricot or peach, and purple or lavenders. I love these colors together in a bouquet and they work well in the yard. Some of the fruit blossoms are pink, but they are my only concession to that color. They actually keep me from pulling tulips that have reverted to pink, since they both have a short season and manage to blossom together.

Fragrance is the last criteria I use to help limit plant selections for my small garden. If I can't eat a plant, and it is strictly ornamental or does not serve the purpose of enticing bees into the yard, I would always select a fragrant species. All my roses are very fragrant, as is the Wisteria, and lilac. Since San Francisco does not have enough of a cold snap to produce lilacs reliably, I was lucky to find a cultivar developed at Descanso Gardens in Southern California that flowers well in Northern California too. I look forward to its brief flowering each year.

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