May and June
Creating a Waterless Landscape
At some date, color in the landscape came to describe planting annuals to create bright spots of colorful blooming plants that perform for their season and then promptly die. This urge to plant colorful flowers dates back centuries, dots continents and spans cultures. And I’m over it.
Once I saw the Queen Mother’s giant, fabulous empty pot at the edge of her arboretum at Glamis Castle in Scotland. It was then that I knew, (with the surge of an epiphanal zeitgeist) that pots don’t need colorful annuals. What they do need is to be so wonderful they can remain empty. Happily, I’ve not planted an annual since and a decade has passed.
Is color lacking in my landscape? No. Every two weeks something new comes into color: shrubs, vines, bulbs, trees, perennials, biennials or groundcovers. Aside from empty pots, none of this is waterless. It’s a challenge, (color without water) but I’m ready to tackle the problem. Paint and stain are the weapons of choice—a Dirty
Harry moment but with a spray gun. Once you see color in the landscape classically applied you’ll want it for yourself. My first experience of a classically colored garden was in England. A charming small garden had furnishings, focal points, and arbors all the same color and a shade of ‘haint’ because you could say, “it haint green, it haint blue and it haint gray.” It was all of the above but sometimes more of one than the others depending on time of day or sun or clouds. What’s more, the color invaded my senses and gave an incredible amount of what feng shui experts call chi, or energy.
Then I fell in love with a garden in a magazine. Faded olive green was chosen for its furnishings, focal points and wooden structures. Pictures of this magazine garden caused me to sigh and relax.
Several years ago good fortune brought me, at an incredibly low price, two hand-forged late- Victorian Egyptian gates. The rusty magnificence was perfect for hydrangeas spilling through. A photograph of this scene, months later, told me what I wouldn’t admit. The rust color simply disappeared into the landscape. Fortunately a tiny amount of paint color was still on the gates, robins egg blue. Could it be? Was this the same color I’d admired in many different gardens? Yes. So, with uncharacteristic timidity I decided to paint the iron gates robins egg blue and stain the patio arbor a faded olive green. Before the project was complete it expanded to include painting all the iron furnishings and staining all the wooden furnishings.
Choosing to stain an arbor and teak furnishings is not a decision for the faint hearted. For years, I had thought of staining my outdoor wood furnishings but was too scared. But now that I’ve done it I wonder at the years wasted by not having all of the wood stained. Stain is easily color matched and easier to maintain on wood than paint. Gazing from windows onto robins egg blue or faded olive green, colors that, at the same time are totally different in sunshine than in shade, is a delight that doesn’t fade with time
but rather increases.
The first three rules of garden design are to keep it simple, copy and use repetition. Choosing a color theme satisfies this trinity with ease. I also like the fact that having a color theme for hardscape items reduces the amount of overall choices to be made in a landscape. If I find an old iron chair at an antique fair, I know that whatever color it arrives in will soon be changed to robins egg blue. No thought involved, thinking has already been processed with clarity and the only choice to be made is when to schedule painting into my calendar.
Not using colorful annuals has had two major, unexpected benefits with the saving of time and money. Money is saved on plantsfertilizer- soil and time is saved in making the purchases and maintaining them. Color unifies a landscape and should ultimately unify your landscape with the interiors of your home. It’s a centuries old idea that combines house and garden. If you find it difficult to choose landscape colors, look inside your home for clues: wallpaper, artwork, a couch, or perhaps your wardrobe. There is always a starting point for choosing color in your landscape.
The current and ancient gardens of Italy should be more famous than the clothing designs coming from there in our present age. Their gardens, notorious for simplicity, elegance, and little use of water, have color on their hardscapes and furnishings. It’s not a stretch to imagine that Italians are the ones who taught the Queen Mother about the desirability of empty pots.
Their culture is much older and they consistently use empty pots. Empty pots in Italy make me smile. They have been gardening with little water for centuries longer than the USA has been a country. Yes, they have something ancient, yet new, to teach. Classically applied color and empty pots will make a landscape beautiful regardless of water restrictions or a complete water ban.
Tara Dillard hosted her own TV show on CBS and has been designing gardens for 20 years. She’s author of The Garden View, Beautiful By Design and other garden books. Tara is a motivational garden lecturer nationally and locally at corporate and garden venues.
Visit Tara at www.taradillard.com
