Designing Gardens With Color And Texture

Designing Gardens With Color And Texture

One fun way to create gardens of any size, is to create one which has as much color and texture as you can possibly think of. Now, for some people, this type of garden seems a little too random or eclectic for their tastes. And it can be overdone as well. But creating a texture garden in small garden spaces particularly, such as a small corner of your yard or in a nice sized container, can give you a wonderfully unique and interesting garden design.

Choosing plants which have a variety of color and texture to them is fairly easy, but you will need to make sure they’ll be compatible for the garden space you plan to place them in. If you’re planting the flowers and plants into a container particularly, you’ll want to make sure they can all survive with the same soil, water, and sunlight requirements.

Those are usually the only restrictions though. You’ll probably want to limit the number of plants you buy for the first garden designed this way, just in case you don’t like the arrangement or you find that the plants don’t do as well together as you had expected.

When choosing your plants, you’ll want to choose those which will grow to full heights which are different than each other. One plant for instance, can be a trailing plant which will spill over the sides of your container or garden bed barrier. Another might grow to two or three feet tall, while another may only reach twelve to eighteen inches in full height. Then you might have another which grows four to six inches high too.

Selecting flowers and plants which vary in size once they’re full mature will add to the interesting contrasts in colors and textures you choose. This will make your flower garden even more appealing than the differences in colors will.

The next step of course, is to choose plants which have different textures to them. You might choose a desert plant such as the sand verbena for instance, which has hairy pale green leaves on it. Then couple that with a more succulent plant such as an aloe, and mix in some pansies or vincas to add a glossy green to your garden as well. And don’t forget to try some coleus or other plants which have beautiful, deep, variagated colored leaves and stems.

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Garden Tip...

Always water your plants in winter time with lukewarm water, if you would have a profusion of flowers, and thrifty-growing plants. The water should be of the same temperature as the room or place where the plants are. There is no theory about it, it is a practical fact.
~ James Sheehan
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Besides color and texture differences in the plant leaves and stems themselves, you’ll also want to try and select plants which have a variety of flower bud colors too, because this simply adds to the overall interest you’re creating with your texture garden.

Now, a texture garden does not have to have flowering plants in it. If you’d like, you can simply choose all plants based on the color and texture of their stems and leaves instead. Alternatively of course, you can select plants which are similar in texture, but vary widely with the types of blooms they create. These are usually considered color gardens though, instead of texture gardens.
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Garden Tip...

In summer, watering in the cool of the evening will be followed by the best results, for it will give the plants time to take up and assimilate the moisture necessary to their life, and being completely charged with water, they will be prepared for the hot sun and drying winds of the following day.
~ James Sheehan
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