STRUCTURE, INTEREST & TEXTURE
Garden structure
To create a sense of permanence and give the eye somewhere to rest, make sure your garden contains some structural elements. You can use ornaments like obelisks, arches or even statement pots, but plants with a striking silhouette (trees, topiary, upright grasses or low, mounding shrubs) will also work well.
Seasonal interest
While gardens will nearly always look their best in spring and summer, a well-designed planting scheme should offer interest and beauty throughout the year. Make sure there are some evergreen shrubs or brightly coloured bare stems for winter, some early-flowering bulbs or perennials for spring, and some ornamental grasses or fiery-coloured foliage for autumn. That way, you'll have a continuously changing display to look forward to as the seasons progress.
Plant texture
Using plants with a variety of different leaf shapes and textures is a great way to add visual interest and complexity to your border - which is why hostas and ferns work so well together. Flowers also can be used to contrast and compliment, so try placing the upright flower spikes of an Agastache next to the flattened plate-like heads of an Echinacea and they'll instantly catch the eye. Whether it's soft and furry, tall and spiky or rough and gnarled, texture delights the senses - and therefore is an essential ingredient in border design.
PROVIDING STRUCTURE IN THE GARDEN
PLANTS FOR TEXTURE
CROCUS TIP
Successional planting to prolong the display
If you want to add lots of low-cost, gap-filling flowers while the borders are taking shape, then grow some annuals from seed. Sow them in batches at fortnightly intervals, so as the first flush of flowers is starting to fade, the second, third and even fourth batch will step in to take their place. Keep in mind too that many of the hardy annuals can be sown in autumn or spring. The benefit of sowing one batch in autumn and one in spring is that the autumn sown seeds will start to flower much earlier than those sown in spring - and that means you can enjoy an extra-long display. One of the benefits of sowing annuals is that many of them will self-seed, so if the conditions are right, they'll keep coming back year after year.
