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Now, a large area of fine texture is needed to set off smaller areas of more
vigorous pattern and texture. A lawn has become the commonest of all
groundcover treatments in the average garden but, where soil and climate
permit, it is sometimes very effective to use sheets of low-growing heather,
which fulfills the same basic design requirement - that of producing a large
area of fine texture. Similarly, other plant materials are often better than mown
grass - on a steep bank or in dense shade for instance.
How should one group the broad-leaved'evergreens? lf you are choosing a
rhododendron, chances are 10 to 1 you will first think of the colour of the flower.
You will say: I want a good pink rhododendron. But what you should say is: I
want a rhododendron with broad handsome foliage to blend with other broadleaved
evergreens of smaller foliage. lt's very human to think about plants in
terms of their bloom. But is is foliage size, shape, pattern and colour that make
broadleaved evergreens effective the year round. And you can probably still have
lhe flower colour you want! lf you want a beautiful garden a// the time, you
cannot lay all the emphasis on the colour scheme ol the flowers, for the shrub
will be in bloom, at most, from 3 weeks to a month. What about its appearance
during the other 11 months?
A large-leaved shrub creates a coarse-textured effect, one with small leaves a
fine-textured effect. The most desirable way to combine these foliages in the
garden is to use them in carefully related sequences of foliage sizes. You should
have the same difference between the first foliage size and the second as
between the second and the third, and so on down the line - much like walking
down a flight of stairs, comfortably, without tripping. Foliage sizes must be
grouped so that the stepping in foliage is comfortable to the eye.
Let me give you an example: lf you want to begin with a conifer then, keeping
the scale of your garden picture in mind, decide how coarse or bold textured it
should be and place it as an accent or a specimen. Then build around it a
sequence of foliages, using the coarsest or largest evergreen leaf next to the
conifer. You begin by using a small quantity of coarsest texture, for example the
one rhododendron with leaves of the largest size that you plan to use. Then with
each decrease in foliage size your proportionately increase the quantity of
foliage of smaller size.
Deciduous foliage, which drops each winter, is necessary to the garden picture;
it provides added interest with its colour changes, and a spectacular display of
bloom at some time during the growing season makes some of the deciduous
shrubs indispensable. The garden in which they are used exclusively will have a
light and airy structure, but such a garden will be weak, since it does not have
the strength and permanence which evergreens impart. Deciduous trees and
shrubs are important structural material but must play 2nd fiddle to the broadleaved
evergreens in all but the coldest climates. Deciduous shrubs are
especially useful as a direct background lor herbaceous plants, and deciduous
trees make an important accent rising up through a bank of broad-leaved
evergreen foliage.