One Plant or Many: Creating Harmony in the                                                        Garden
                                     (16 May 2014) 

I don’t know about you, but this is one aspect I have struggled with in my garden over the years; with evolving tastes and relative experience over time, one’s plant repertoire can seemingly burgeon out of control, making it difficult to stick with a theme. Subsequently, there is the potential to end up with a chaotic space which is anything but serene. The following are a few pointers to be mindful of when selecting plants for your garden:

• Select plants which are harmonious and mutually compatible. This can be achieved through matching aspects such as form, foliage shape, tones & colours, and of course, growing requirements. Adopting these principles enables the mixing of different species and plant types including exotic and native. It also enables you to intersperse multiple single specimens throughout your garden.

• Select form and foliage over flowers; foliage offers year-long interest and structure to your garden space. Consider flowers as an added bonus. 

• ·Creating ‘space’ in a garden is an important consideration when selecting plant varieties. By doing so you can make a larger area appear more intimate and a smaller one more spacious. This can be achieved using a mix of showy ‘look at me’ plants, along with quiet unassuming ones that the eye does not focus on (otherwise known as our quiet achievers). 

Ultimately though, gardening is a personal endeavour - who’s to say what, where, when and how we should go about it? Like much of what we do in our lives, gardening is a process, a pastime we learn and grow from; so really, if you crave a garden with all of one or none of the same, do so with gusto and without regrets.