The variegated foliage of Caryopteris 'Snow Fairy' and many other green and creme or green and yellow leaves dominate nursery offerings in recent years, while Sambucus Black Lace shrub (right) is one of many maroon-leaved plants to be introduced to gardeners in the nursery trade.
Landscaping and gardening is often considered one of the visual arts, like painting and architecture. But, somehow, lost in lumping them into that category is that garden art is also about living things. And living things need attention to their needs. So placing a tree in the yard simply because it is pretty, has artistic lines in that spot or is the latest style is not enough. It requires that we explore its needs for optimal growth and health.
Some plants, like annuals that are planted in the spring and are gone after autumn frosts, are not as critical as more permanent plants. You make a mistake with an annual and you have a second chance to get it right next year. With perennials, be they herbaceous or woody, ignoring their needs leads to a steady decline and premature death over time.
Believe it or not, landscaping goes through styles or fashion, like most everything else in our lives. I remember over 40 years ago that no landscape was complete without evergreen yews. Or that every shade garden had to have Hosta. Now we use them sparingly, especially when there are deer in the neighborhood.
Many decades ago the horticultural industry introduced ornamental ‘Bradford’ callery pear trees and they appeared in every community in the Northeast. It was all the rage. High fashion in the horticultural world. Now we realize that it has weak wood, breaks in every storm and more recently, we found out that it cross pollinates with other ornamental pears and produces fruit and seeds that are invading our natural areas. This style has to phase out, especially since there are so many other tree choices.
More recently, Helleborus, Heuchera, plants with variegated or maroon foliage, ornamental grasses and native plants are “must-haves.” While there is nothing wrong with any of them, as we know at this point in time, they are subject to review over time. I subscribe to the principle of “right plant for the right place.” Built into this principle is an awareness of the plant’s health needs and compatibility with nature.
So what are these health and growth needs? The root system must be healthy in order to support a healthy plant above ground. I often say that when you buy a plant, you are buying the roots. The top will regrow and get better with time, if you start out with healthy, well-developed roots. But what is it that I see in every garden center in the spring? People buying plants because they happen to have nice and evenly spaced flowers.
Rarely do I hear them ask if this plant can grow well in their home garden. What kind of sun, moisture or air current can it tolerate? What is its tolerance to cold, heat and humidity, disease and harmful insects? Or how much maintenance does it need? The most I remember people asking about is whether the deer will eat it. That’s important for many gardeners, after they’ve experienced serious decimation of an azalea, yew or hosta.
It’s also important to remember that as a living plant it will grow to a mature size. How often I’ve seen people squeeze in a shrub meant for a 25-square-foot space into a tiny, narrow space and then try to prune it mercilessly in years to come. Finding out the plant’s expected mature size is a standard question for any landscape design. Realize that, if it is disease prone, that the magic bullet of sprays will probably not solve that problem. After all, gardeners often rationalize…but it has pretty flowers! I’ve done it myself, only to learn that I had to destroy the entire plant because it was so overrun with disease. But it did have pretty flowers until then.
Being environmentally responsible doesn’t only mean recycling your newspapers and cans. It can and does apply to the garden as well. There is so much information in books, on websites, in magazines about various kinds of plants, that we really don’t have an excuse any more to wing it. Going to the garden center, not knowing what we want and caving in to whatever is on sale is always a bad practice.
It might mean making a preliminary trip with a notebook to jot down what they have and going back to your home computer, to the library or using your iPad to find out more about it—especially if it is a plant you expect to grow for several years. Style plays a role in designing outdoor spaces, but it is only one of many considerations to find the right plant for the right place.
