Balancing Coherence and Complexity

If you want to create better designs with people’s preference in mind, my Botanic Bootcamp The Preference Matrix for Naturalistic Design offers a deep dive into the four key factors coherence, complexity, legibility, and mystery and how they shape our emotional connection to landscapes.

With over 20 practical strategies, you’ll learn to how to better design spaces that are ecologically sustainable, visually engaging, and intuitive to navigate.

Crafting incredible plant combinations is something that every horticulturist desires.  We want our plantings to be engaging and beautiful. But, with so many plants, many gardeners wonder where to start?

We can frame our plant combinations in the mindset of balancing coherence and complexity from Rachel and Stephen Kaplan’s Preference Matrix.  Having both factors in plant pairings can create dynamic combinations that humans prefer when looking at landscapes.

From research, the Kaplans noticed that participants had certain preferences when looking at images of landscapes.  And, when they considered the similar patterns between those images they developed a matrix to explain those preferences.  The matrix has four components based on the combinations of the immediate or inferred human desire to understand and explore.

• Coherence is where humans group things together in our visual field (immediate understanding).

• Complexity is the perception of richness in a scene. Our eyes move around with different stimuli (immediate exploration).

• Legibility is the ability to read the landscape and recognize how to traverse the space (inferred understanding).

• Mystery is where information about the scene is hidden from us and the promise of more exists (inferred exploration).

BALANCING COHERENCE AND COMPLEXITY

When we are thinking about creating powerful plant combinations, coherence and complexity from this model can be great allies.  In garden design we often refer to coherence as repetition, harmony, and rhythm, and complexity is thought of as complementary colors, contrasts, or different shapes or forms.  

Many of my favorite combinations that I have seen over the years exploring the wild and gardens has been a balance between coherence and complexity, where the mind is able to group plants together based on color, texture, or form, and yet there’s a contrasting element to spice things up.  

Let's look at some real-world examples that demonstrate these principles in action. Each shows different ways to achieve coherence while maintaining engaging complexity. You can use these images to practice thinking about coherence and complexity below.

• Before you read the caption pause and ask what makes the plants an effective combination.

• Don’t worry too much on the specific plants and whether you can grow them or if they are native or not. Think how can you use the elements in your own design.

• Also, remember landscape preferences are based on averages. I can’t promise you’ll love every image below, but I guarantee you’ll find inspiration by looking at them.

Hellstrip in Nacogdoches, TX. Coherence: warm colors. Complexity: flower shape.

Lurie Garden, IL. Coherence: the gray color in Eryngium (rattlesnake master) and the buildings behind. Complexity: different shapes from round flowers to flat structures behind.

Great Dixter, United Kingdom. Coherence: repeating white and maroon/pink colors. Complexity: the different textures and forms.

Great Dixter, United Kingdom. Coherence: repeating colors of yellow and purple. Complexity: having different plant texture and forms.

Chanticleer, PA. Coherence: repeating green. Complexity: Contrasting textures.

Chanticleer, PA. Coherence: repeating greens and blondes. Complexity: different plant shapes and architectures.

Rotterdam, Netherlands. Coherence: flower shape and cool color scheme. Complexity: different plant habits.

Oudolf Field, United Kingdom. Coherence: the purple color in all three plants. Complexity: different plant forms and floral architecture.

Oudolf Field, United Kingdom. Coherence: repeating the purple color. Complexity: solid flower spikes and wispy grass texture.

Montrose, NC. Coherence: repeating purple. Complexity: color in flowers and foliage for different textures.

Chanticleer, PA. Coherence: cool color scheme. Complexity: different flower shapes and plant architecture.

Hillside, United Kingdom. Coherence: repeating yellow and warm colors and repetition of the spikes. Complexity: the different plant forms and flower architectures.

PRACTICE CREATING COMBINATIONS

If you’re looking to make better plant combinations, thinking of how to balance coherence and complexity is a great place to start. Here are a few strategies you can use.

1. Observe plants in the wild. You may notice combinations around you that are really captivating. Mirror them in your garden.

2. Consider scale. Across a large site, coherence might be more important to help the plantings feel unified, but closer up there may be opportunities to play off more contrast.

3. An easy framework. As you saw above a quick way to have an engaging combination is repeat a color in 2 or 3 plants and then vary the form, texture, or architecture. Just remember that on some plants, color may not last long, and you need that complexity to keep it engaging.

4. Keep things simple. Too many different plants can quickly become quite chaotic. Don’t overdo it with too many plants.

5. Screenshot ideas on your phone. I find myself capturing images that I see online. I file them into albums for ideas later and review them when making plant choices or buying seed and plants for the year.

6. Test combinations at the small scale. Plants in pots are movable and offer you the chance to move things around before fully committing in the garden. You can find fun pairings this way.

7. Create floral arrangements. Arrangements offer the chance to see what two plants would look like in close proximity. If nothing else, float flowers and leaves in a bowl of water or gather clippings and lay them out on the ground. Bringing plants together sparks ideas.

8. Get comfortable with experimenting and failure. I planted Oenothera lindheimeri ‘Sparkle White’ (gaura) and Penstemon laxiflorus (nodding penstemon) together and thought they would work. It looked like the garden vomited pink cotton candy. It was too much. I removed the gaura so that the penstemon could really shine.

9. Borrow ideas. I can’t tell you the number of horticulturists I’ve heard say they love to steal ideas from others. Read books, visit gardens, and study the work of others.

As you train your eye, you’ll start noticing coherence and complexity more in the wild and in gardens. Your garden is ultimately a reflection of your creativity and vision. Let coherence and complexity (and legibility and mystery) be tools in your design toolkit that help you create plantings that are both visually harmonious and full of discovery.

After all, the best gardens don't just follow principles. They tell stories. The question is what story will your garden tell?

---

KEEP GROWING

Late April at Ephemera Farm

The spring plantings here at Ephemera Farm are the best they’ve ever looked. The perennials have matured, and the matrix species have knitted together. Even though the Baptisia alba took a hit from the freeze we had, their lack of floral dominance has allowed other species to shine.

I call this first area I’ve developed the light beds for the way that the sunlight interacts with it throughout the day. There’s so many opportunities to see magic from the dew glistening from sunrise to the warmth of the last rays as the sun sets below the tree line.

There are three beds near the house totaling approximately 1,300 square feet with two mulched pathways leading through them away from the house. Where two beds are now turf grass and an old satellite pole occupied the spot when we moved in. I treated the beds as independent at first and a holding ground for species that I had been carrying around in pots for a while. But, they felt too disjunct. Therefore, I killed the grass pathways in between, made them more narrow, and mulched them with hardwood bark to make them feel more cohesive.

And, I unified them with color. I was inspired by the native wildflower color palette I’ve seen on our roadsides, and used species that feature pink, purple, blue, red, and white, and variations on those hues. I decided for these beds to primarily keep the yellows and oranges out. I would say that 90% of the species in the beds are natives.

I’ve used mulch to make things tidier. I realized that mulch is a bit like Powerpoint or a hammer, a tool that if overused can make things look terrible, but when used with good technique could be an ally. A thin layer and the matrix species like Carex and Sporobolus knitting together has helped keep the weed pressure at bay.

Enjoy these photos from the light beds in late April.

I love pausing at these photos and thinking about where does the eye go? This photo was taken on April 23, and the Penstemon digitalis (foxglove beardtongue) had just started blooming.

But, six days later on April 29, Penstemon digitalis was in full bloom creating a frothy effect in the planting.

A little further into the beds gives a different perspective. The matured Magnolia laevifolia on the right helps to hide the air conditioner.

The light beds, looking toward the house. I use fallen branches found on the property to line the bed edges.

I primarily grow Rudbeckia maxima (giant coneflower) in the back of this bed for the glaucous foliage.

Looking west the beds continue to effervesce with Penstemon digitalis.

I love how the purple Streptanthus maculatus (clasping jewelflower) rises out of the bed in the background.

Emergents like Arnoglossum plantagineum (prairie Indian plantain) and Penstemon murrayanus (scarlet beardtongue) add another dimension to the planting by occupying the upper layer.

Penstemon murrayanus is one of my favorite spring wildflowers. I don’t know of another plant that embues the green, blue, purple, and red side of the color wheel so well.

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds love Penstemon murrayanus as much as I do!

Phlox pilosa ‘Bonnie’s Pink’ (downy phlox) is a great seasonal filler for spring. It is an aggressive spreader, which means that it can quickly fill a spot where it is planted. And, the swallowtails seem to love it more than my wild Phlox pilosa selections.

We found some purple-foliage Tradescantia gigantea (giant spiderwort) in Central Texas a few years ago, and it has grown well in east Texas, usually fading out as summer approaches.

The flowers of Tradescantia gigantea (giant spiderwort) are wide open in the morning and on cloudy days. The darker foliage pops against the green.

Not everything is beloved for the blooms. Here Rhus aromatica (fragrant sumac) provides a verdant splash with a matrix of Carex texensis underneath.

I love the subtle color echoes of the rusted stems of Pycnanthemum tenuifolium (narrow-leaf mountain mint) and Arnoglossum plantagineum.

Penstemon laxiflorus (nodding penstemon) is a reliable source for spring color. I have to give them a haircut before they flower to keep them from lodging. It’s hard to do with flower buds already on the plant, but a late March chop results in later blooms and more compact plants.

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds also love Penstemon digitalis. I enjoy watching them flit around the blooms.

One final sunrise shot as we head into May.

The Colorful Twigs of Winter

In the winter I feel my perception of the garden is elevated.  Like when I can’t see because it is dark and all my other senses are heightened.  I notice things that I might otherwise overlook. The catkin swelling on an Alnus. The first sliver of color showing in a Magnolia bud. The swirl of foliage appearing from Pedicularis. These little things are celebrated in the dearth.

The garden is a bit more barren this year after the cold snap we had a few weeks ago. Gone are many of the flowering annuals that overwinter—snaps, pot marigolds, stock, and honeywort. Even pansies and violas took a hit. It’s a bit depressing in thinking about that time wasted planting them. Even some of my shrubs suffered. We are without flowers this year on Edgeworthia chrysantha (paperbush).

I learned long ago that color on growth organs like leaves can be more reliable than flowers. The same applies to the woody tissue, too. Colorful plant stems have long been an aesthetic I’ve gravitated toward in the winter time.  As a kid I marveled at the red maple regrowth along fencerows where they were cut every year to prevent them from reaching the power lines above. Their fresh shoots were rich with hue in winter and looked like they could be coloring pencils if cut and sharpened. And, I long wondered why they were so vivid until I discovered the color is solar protection and helps the plant deal with excess light when the sun is low in the sky.   

Cornus amomum ‘Cayenne’

Vaccinium ashei ‘Powder Blue’

Salix ‘Flame’

I do have a few favorites. I love the red-twig dogwoods. Oh, how I have longed to be able to grow Cornus sanguinea that I see en masse in plantings in England where one has to do a double take to make sure the planting isn’t on fire.  But, I have so far killed at least two of them here in Texas.  Mom and Dad still have a ‘Winter Beauty’ (aka ‘Winter Flame’) outside my window back home in Tennessee that grows quite well (header image). 

I have made do with Cornus amomum ‘Cayenne’.  My friend Jason Reeves of UT Gardens in Jackson, TN recommended this silky dogwood to me. He shared how this selection was found by Dr. Michael Dirr in a swamp in Virginia. In its first year here, this eastern US native is thriving.  The winter color is a little lacking compared to Cornus sanguinea, but beggars can’t be choosers. From where I sit writing, the red pops against the dark mass of what’s left of Helianthus angustifolius. Both like the wet spot.

I also discovered that the new stem growth on Vaccinium in winter can be very attractive.  After plants drop their crimson foliage, we are left with stems that turn a muted red. ‘Powder Blue’ is one of my favorites that has winter color in the stems and glaucous leaves that turn a brilliant red in autumn. 

And, of course, I have loved Salix ‘Flame’ since I set eyes on it many winters ago at the JC Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh, NC. It hasn’t quite decided if it likes it here yet, but I think I can coax the few I have into establishing well so their stems become a source of warmth in the landscape. 

Most of these plants benefit with a yearly or every other year cut back as the color is most intense on new growth (except the blueberry since cutting that back would remove the flower buds for spring and the delicious blue orbs that follow).  I use what stems I can in holiday and winter arrangements, and then cut the rest of the plant down right before buds start to break. 

And, it won’t be long now. Red maple tips are already swelling. Soon the landscape will wake, and I’ll have plenty of sights to see. But, for now the bright twigs of winter will help me see through the dark.

An Evening Stroll at Great Dixter

“A sensible notebook is essential.  I keep two of them going concurrently.  One is for ongoing notes with names of plants seen or acquired. ... The other notebook is for when I’m away from home for two or more days.  It spends most of its time at my bedside and is a diary of events which I write up in bed, early the following morning, while all is still fresh in my mind.  In future years, it is an invaluable source of reference. ... Make yourself more observant.  You miss so much that you shouldn’t.  So much around you is interesting and deserves a mental image.  Note it down there and then, and make a good description that will mean something to you when you next look it up.”

From “New Years Resolutions” in Cuttings: A Year in the Garden with Christopher Lloyd by Christopher Lloyd

---

There was the view of the rolling hillsides that I remember from my last visit some 12 years ago to Great Dixter. “This has to be one of the best parking lot views of any botanic garden in the world,” I said to Karen as we climbed out of the car.  I made sure I had my camera ready and pocket Field Notes that I carry with me when visiting gardens for taking notes. Christopher Lloyd had written that advice years ago in his book Cuttings, and these pocket notebooks have served me well to remember what I saw.

The sun was sinking in the afternoon sky riddled with clouds as we walked toward the great hall. I saw a lady in the white barn, and I said, “We are looking for Fergus.”

“Oh are you?” she stated back as if it was a question she had been asked a thousand times.

“Yes, I’ve never met him, but we’ve been in touch, and he said to meet him this evening at 5:30.”

“Well, he’s one of the kindest people you’ll ever meet.  They are wrapping up the symposium now.  He should be near the house.”

We walked toward the great hall and paused in front of its rustic majesty.   I closed my eyes to bolster my ears, and the hunt for voices in the garden began.  “This way,” I said to Karen as I heard some noise around back.  Behind the house we started encountering some attendees from the symposium that Fergus has been hosting, and I started asking the question, “Have you seen Fergus?” 

“Not recently,” one person answered.

“Hmm, I just saw him, but I’m not sure,” piped another one. We saw more people in the distance and went to ask them.

“Perhaps he’s in the house,” this group answered.

“Could you please show us?” I asked. “We’re not from around here.”

“Oh, I could have never guessed that,” one of them joked back.

She took us through the house. We emerged through the front door, and in an inverted host-and-visitor greeting found Fergus standing outside with the biggest smile and a hearty welcome.

With pleasantries aside, we introduced ourselves.  We talked about our trip highlights so far, saying we were balancing gardens for myself with Downton Abbey’s Highclere Castle and bookstores for Karen. Fergus asked Karen if she liked plants, to which she replied she did and liked to draw them.

Two symposium attendees sauntered up, and I recognized an accent I really hadn’t heard in a few days. They were from the states, one from Ohio and one from just outside Philly.  They had come to learn more about the horticulture techniques used at Great Dixter.  I was amazed that people travelled that far to come to this symposium. They were discussing the day’s content. Meadows and encouraging biodiversity had been the topics for the day, and both ladies were amazed at how a small planting with the right species could welcome all kinds of the creatures to their gardens.

“Let’s find somewhere to chat. Come in the great hall,” Fergus said as he took us back in the house. Not rushing this time, we were able to appreciate the ancient architecture, the massive wooden beams, and the off-white walls.

He offered us tea and biscuits in true English fashion, and we gladly accepted as he gave us a quick tour of the house that Christopher Lloyd had lived in.  “Let me take you upstairs,” Fergus said. We entered a door off the back side of the room.

As we climbed the stairs, I said, “I told Karen this house dates back to the 1400’s.” “Yes,” Fergus stated.  “About 1450 to be more exact.” We entered to find a large collection of library books.

“There is much history in this room.  It’s special.  I thought you would would like this, Karen, since you like Downton.”

Karen smiled and nodded in appreciation. We headed back downstairs and out of the house.

“Wow, that planting looks great,” I said in reference to the silvery theme they had in the solar garden in front of the house, an area that changes out a few times a year with different annual displays. The grays of Plectranthus and Helichrysum glistened amongst Canna and other annuals.

“Yea, we just planted it two weeks ago.” He showed me a photo on his phone of the display only a month ago that was ripe with reds and oranges. “We left a bit of the annuals in for seed here at the left. The planting before had turned brown as it ended its seasonal display.”

“How do you keep things from falling over with freshly planted material?” I asked as I find new plants can be floppy.

“We make sure that they are heavily watered before planting,” Fergus replied.

We walked north of the house toward a patio where a container display of mostly conifers sat in the corner, resting on a patio of stones cobbled in the pattern of two dogs. I knew from reading books that these dogs were Christopher’s two dachshunds, Canna and Dahlia.

We then turned and walked down beside the house where a Magnolia grandiflora shaded plants in pots.  Fergus said that these plants and containers were for the attendees of the symposium for the morning.  The student interns would make the arrangements and then the attendees would appraise them from what they had learned in the symposium.

Around the back of the house on the terrace, Fergus sat for a moment with the topiary lawn in the background, the manicured shrubs and billowy Cotinus erupting from a sea of grass. A cat hopped up on the ledge. “Why, hello there. What’s the cat’s name?” I said.

“Neil,” Fergus said as he smiled. “This cat is from Afghanistan”, Fergus revealed as he petted him.  At first I thought it’s origin odd and far off, but then I realized we were only a channel away from being on the European continent with a direct beeline to Afghanistan. Neil would join us for the rest of our tour, following in Fergus’s footsteps. I didn’t realize until after we left that Neil is famous. He has a book written all about him.

I took the pause in our exploring to ask Fergus how he taught his audience, whether they be symposium attendees or interns.

“It depends on the person you are educating.” He paused as he petted Neil. “I bring them along on a journey. I weigh their capabilities and gauge what they are able to do. You have to tailor your lessons to the person, to their abilities.”

He paused again as Neil nuzzled up to Karen. “Let’s go to the exotic garden.” I began to realize this was a pattern, Fergus using the imperative to encourage our exploring and always suggesting what was to come next.

As we approached a hole in the yews, he quipped, “Go in there,” and we did.  We found ourselves immersed in the foliage of a secret garden hidden by a hedge. It was not a claustrophobic feeling but instead an embrace by the plants around us.  It felt like a jungle.

“Yes, that’s what it’s supposed to feel like,” Fergus replied to my comment.

“Wow, in only a few square feet there’s a Ginkgo, a Taxodium ascendens, and a weeping Cedrus,” I said astonished.

Then, Fergus said the words that any young plantsperson loves to hear from an elder.  “You know your plants.”

I grinned a bit, and then said, “But, I don’t know that.”

“That’s Iochroma australis (Eriolarynx australis).” Of course, the flowers resembled Iochroma cyanea that I knew from southern gardeners.

“Let me go turn the water on while you explore.”  We wedged our way under the foliage of bananas, past Persicaria and Boehmeria, and rounded the dissected foliage of Rhus not able to see around the next curve.

Suddenly, Fergus reappeared dragging a yellow hose. As we exited for him to turn on the water, the bright-eyed Inula magnifica greeted us on the other side of the exotic garden against a background of Gunnera tinctoria.  Karen went for a photo, and I commented on how she loves the aster family.

I noticed that a single leaf of the Gunnera had dry down damage, but didn’t say anything. “It’s so dry.” It was like Fergus read my mind. This was his first lamentation of many about the dryness.

“Is it always like this?” I inquired.

“No, this is abnormal,” he responded.

As we walked back toward the house, I piped up, “The exotic garden was great. I remember reading about it from Christopher’s book and how it used to be a rose garden? Oh! I should ask did you call him Christo?” I asked stressing the i into an e. “Am I saying that right?”

“Chris-TOH,” Fergus corrected me. “Yes, the exotic garden has changed since Christo’s time but the meadows are the same. I’ve tried to make the exotic garden more wild.”

Back near the house, we saw Erigeron karvinskianus, Centranthus ruber, and succulent plantings growing in stone circles near a 100 year old mulberry. “Edwin Lutyens designed these steps and circles, am I correct?” I asked as I butchered the name.

“Yes,” Fergus said, pronouncing Lutyens as Lutchens.

“Forgive me; I’ve learned by reading,” I replied. Fergus smiled.

“Let’s look at the long border” Fergus said as we walked under the mulberry’s crown.

The long border was spectacular, better than I remembered. Overall, the planting was heavier on the yellows at this time of the year, mostly because of the gold foliage of several species and the butter-yellow panicles of Verbascum olympicum rising above the splattering of colors below.

We walked and Karen began snapping photos of plants to draw.  I asked about a dahlia that Karen eyed asking what was the cultivar.  It didn’t matter since we can’t really grow them well, but I though it nice to know the name. Fergus bent down to find the label, and he read off 'Kenora Wow’.

I noticed as Fergus pulled the foliage back that near the base of a plant was sheep wool.  “What’s that for?”

“Slugs,” Fergus responded. It was interesting to see such an ingenious solution to keep the pest at bay.

We walked the long border’s length, pausing to take photos with the fragrance of Phlox paniculata wafting in the air. Fergus lamented again it was dry.  I said, “Yes, but so is Texas, and this looks nothing like Texas.  But, it’s cooler here.”

Fergus, chuckled, “Yes, it is cooler here.” I couldn’t see the stress on the plants, but Fergus could. He talked about if rain didn’t come that plants would soon start to crisp.

Reaching its end Fergus invited, ‘Let’s sit here and talk.” He revealed to us that this was one of Christo’s favorite places to sit at the end of the day, and he and Christo would often sit and chat about the garden.

We talked about many things, how Fergus went to college at Wye where Christo and Nigel Dunnett went. “The real learning happens on the ground,” Fergus shared about the benefits of hands-on learning. He revealed that he had been here for 30 years, and was married in 1994.

“What is your favorite food?” Fergus asked us. We said that we really liked pub places in Texas, and there was an Asian fusion place where you can get tacos and fried rice in town.

“Tacos… tacos and Mexican seem to be the number one thing people miss from the states. I ask people this question who have been here a while, and that’s the one thing that seems to always come up.” Karen and I realized that we really hadn’t seen that cuisine here.

I asked him what was Christo like?

“Eccentric,” was the first word that Fergus used. “If you worked hard, he would give you anything you wanted. Christo valued work ethic and would work hard, partly because he was so focused.  But, he was kind,”

I said, “You’ve probably been around the world. Where’s your favorite place you’ve been to?” he replied, “New Zealand was special,” which was followed by Japan.

I asked about the people visiting from the states, amazed that they travelled so far.  “Oh, yes.  We get visitors from all over for our weeklong symposium. We host four a year.”

He got up and said, “Let’s go up here,” while snapping a photo of the border for an Instagram post.

As we walked through the border up toward the orchard stock beds, he said, “We’ve been doing a biodiversity assessment here.”

I said, “Yes, Thomas Rainer shared that with me, some story about a spider.”

“Yes, the endangered Meioneta mollis was found here.” Gardens often get a bad rap for being deserts of biodiversity, but the surveys that Fergus is having conducted really give him concrete evidence to show that Great Dixter is a special place for many organisms.

“Have a look in there while I go check on water.”  

We walked a few steps down a narrow passage to find the most spectacular pairing of plants while Fergus disappeared through a hole in the hedge. Verbascum, Lythrum, Inula, Oenothera, Erigeron, Dipsacus, and more were backlit by a lowering sun.  It was one of the best contrasting color combinations I had ever seen. I had heard before from others that if you want reliable color drama to pair yellows and purples together, but this mixture blew it out of the water.

Behind us, more Verbascum olympicum rose with Cynara cardunculus and a lovely yellow Alcea. With just the two of us Karen asked, “Why didn’t you talk this place up more?! This is one of the best gardens I’ve ever been, too.” Ah, yet another person enraptured by the spell of Great Dixter. I suppose I left out that we were visiting Christopher Lloyd’s home, a man who many consider to be the greatest garden writer of the 20th century. Sadly, he passed away in 2006, but it was quite evident that Fergus was doing a smashing job of keeping his spirit alive at Great Dixter.

Just when the sun disappeared behind a cloud and the light became right, we heard a familiar voice. “That’s nice isn’t it.” Fergus came back to say he was checking on sprinklers, and I said no worries. 

“So, with this planting and the color combination, do you do designs the previous year?” I asked

“No, it sometimes just comes together from what we grow,” Fergus replied.

“So, what do you call this garden?” I inquired.

“This is the orchard stock beds.” Fergus stated.

“Really?” I exclaimed. I had never seen propagation beds look so good. 

“Yes, we will dig most of this out to propagate for the nursery,” he replied. Ingenious, if you ask me.

“Let’s go up here.”  We walked through the hole where Fergus had disappeared and found yet another beautiful planted area.  Erigeron dotted the dark foliage of a low hedge of Symphyotrichum lateriflorus ‘Horizontalis’. In the background fading giant fennel and flowering hollyhocks rose for height.

I had never seen Ferula communis in seed, and was amazed.  “Wow that’s so big!” I said in reference to the giant fennel. Then, I noticed the color echo. “Ok, did you plan that?” I asked pointing to the fennel stem and the hollyhock having the same pink color. Fergus smiled, “I have to be honest and say no.”

We made our way up to the high garden where the vegetable garden and compost area were.

“I always love to see vegetable gardens as that’s where I got my start,” I commented.

He said, “Have you ever seen that?” pointing to the compost pile. Pumpkins draped themselves down either side of the behemoth mound. 

“We planted about 10 different varieties on top.” I reached down and grabbed a handful of the black gold. Strands of grasses were still visible.

He dug around in the pile for a bit, the pitchfork hitting dry layers. “We cut the grasses in the meadows and then everything from the garden goes in these piles.” I thought of all the things I’ve seen so far here, I think I’m most envious of this compost pile.

We retraced our steps back toward the house and arrived where we had first begun. Neil made a point to assess the display containers in front of the house that are regularly changed out to keep up appearances.

Fergus then took us to the barn garden.  Edwin Lutchens had designed this area to be flat but there was now a sunken pond in the middle.  We walked around admiring the plants, and the diversity in this small space seemed the richest we had seen thus far. Everywhere we looked were plants thriving. There was a lovely pink Abelia with more Phlox paniculata that perfumed the air, a haze of Salvia sclarea against the electric Euphorbia donii ‘Amjilasa’, an espaliered fig on the wall whose girth was too wide to photograph up close, flaming Cuphea cyanea in the pots, the puffball of Santolina neapolitana, and the neon pink Salvia microphylla ‘Cerro Potosi’ with Verbascum chaixii ‘Album’.

And, Karen was quite keen on the hydrangeas. I noticed ‘Ayesha’, one of my favorite varieties for its cupped sepals.

As we exited the barn garden, I asked him about a comment from Thomas Rainer about woodland management. “Thomas said you had some type of system to manage your woodlands.”

“Yes, here, I’ll draw it for you.” Fergus took my Field Notes and began to sketch it out. “It’s a coppice with standards system. You have the oaks as your standards for building and are grown for 50–100 years. You coppice the ash and hornbeam for firewood; let’s say 20–40 years for them. Last you have your chestnut for poles, 15 years of growth.

He turned the page and said, “Let’s say this is your woods.” Then, he divided it up into segments drawing oaks, then ash and hornbeam on the left and chestnut on the right. “So, you cut progressively overtime so that you have this dynamic forest with changing light levels over a 25 year period. It’s an ancient way of managing woodlands through coppicing.”

I was amazed. Even the woodlands that surrounded Great Dixter were managed with care and thought, just like the gardens.

“Well, I must go.  I have another day of symposium tomorrow to prepare for.” He and I both agreed about garden talks that the slides were easy and fun.  The plant list was the hard part, getting the names right and proofing them. We thanked him for his generosity and time, we said our goodbyes, and we left, the same way we came, down the long path through the meadows toward the parking lot.

The sheep were gone but the sky riddled with clouds remained, as do our memories of this special evening strolling through the gardens of Great Dixter with Fergus. I can’t wait to visit this place again and spend some time with our new friends Fergus and Neil.

Claude Monet, Plantsman and Painter

I didn't know much about Monet before I went to France.  I knew he was a painter, that he had a garden, and that he had a bridge in his garden where he had painted water lilies. 

But, after visiting his garden in Giverny, I feel so connected with him and his work. I learned that he was a horticulturist. In Monet’s Passion, Elizabeth Murray shared that Monet wrote that his garden was his “greatest form of art” and “I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.” He sounds like my kind of guy! I also came to really know impressionism, this style of painting where instead of focusing on details you capture a snapshot view of a landscape at a time.

This map should provide you with an overall impression of Monet’s garden. To the right is the water garden, and in the middle is the Clos Normand. The hoops within this garden frame the Grand Allée and frame a primary axis that runs from the house into the water garden. The light blue are the streets, not waterways.

The trip was part of a study abroad expedition that I helped lead in 2016 with our students. We arrived at his garden in Giverny on a cloudy day that teased rain. Our guide Leif enriched the experience during our tour. He shared with us that Monet was one of the artists that started the impressionism movement; even the phrase impressionism comes from Monet's painting Impression, Sunrise.  This method became popular because of two inventions—photography and paint in tubes.  The former inspired people to no longer desire to capture every detail in a painting since they had the technology to do that in an instant; the latter allowed people to leave their workshops and painting studios, head to the countryside, and paint plein air instead of what they saw on a table.

The Water Garden

We first saw the water garden, a later addition for Monet that he acquired after he bought the house and garden property. He designed the two-acre water garden to be a mirror that would reflect flowers, clouds, trees, or whatever nature could offer. And, to fill the garden with water, he had to actually convince the locals to divert water from a stream that fed into the nearby River Epte. Monet also offered to pave the barren road that ran between his house and water garden for the community with gravel to reduce the amount of dust on the plants.

Eventually, his garden grew to the point he hired gardeners to care for the place. The waterlily gardener had special tasks. When Monet was painting waterlilies, this individual had to come out early in the morning and remove the pond of any debris and any past prime flowers.

Monet’s two-acre waterlily garden was lush and green but too early for many waterlilies to be blooming. Note how the water reflects trees, sky, and color on the shore.

Here is a glance the other direction at the bridge that he painted.

And, here is a photo for comparison I took a few days later from Musee d'Orsay in Paris of Le Bassin Aux Nymphéas, harmonie rose (water lily basin, pink harmony). I was so touched by impressionism that I used part of a free day to go see more of Monet’s paintings.

Lupinus and Digitalis frame this view of the smaller bridge at the other end of the water garden.

A glance up one of the streams that feeds the water garden. Laburnum and Rhododendron punctuate the edges with color.

Clos Normand and Grand Allée

From the water garden we then crossed over to the main garden called the Clos Normand. This part of the garden was designed with beds of plants that radiated out from the house. At first, Monet cared for and tended to his garden throughout the day. Even his children had to haul buckets from the well to water the garden. But, eventually Monet’s popularity as an artist would allow him to hire a five-person gardening staff.

This space was an experimental canvas where he was able to play with the way light interacted with the different plants. Monet went out to paint at different times to capture the ambiance he saw.  He painted at breakfast, ate lunch, then went back out to paint in the afternoon.  Monet had to paint quickly because he wanted to capture a point in time.  Thus, his canvases should be viewed at a distance because it's broad brush strokes, just like how we should see a garden instead of focusing on every individual plant.

The Grand Allée in its spring attire looking toward Monet’s house.

A close up of one side of the allée planted heavily with a white form of Hesperis matronalis.

Next to the Grand Allée was the start of this series of straight paths that were planted with herbaceous plants. Larger roses or trees were a little further off the pathway.

This pathway was planted with blue Iris and set to line up perfectly with the window in the background, no doubt to create an interesting vista from within the house as well.

This path was a little further away from the Grand Allée and featured more color and larger trees framing it on either side.

From this cross image of the Clos Normand you really can’t make out the pathways. Instead it is a myriad of colors. Note the absence of much texture. Monet is said to have focused on color instead of having much winter interest.

In parts of the Clos Normand garden, espaliers framed the plantings. I loved this green approach to edging.

Beyond the espaliered fence was a lawn where they had allowed the bulb foliage to remain and die naturally to maximize flowers for next year.

Near Monet’s house, chickens were even given a place to roam.

COLOR COMBINATIONS

The garden was rife with color pairings. His garden was different from the typical French style of manicured shrubs and tapestry plantings because it was so saturated with color. And, even 100 years later his passion as a colorist lives on in this place with the combinations created by the gardeners today.

A warm color scheme of azaleas and various other herbaceous plants livens up the waterlily garden.

Here Hesperis and Digitalis play off a purple pairing.

In parts of the Clos Normand garden, the gardeners created these color gradients. This one shifts from yellow in the foreground through white, red, orange, and pink as you look closer and closer toward the house.

From a slightly different angle, you can see the blocks of colors.

Who says you can’t pair orange and pink… and a multitude of other colors!

And, I just had to share one of my favorite plants, Nectaroscordum siculum. Their rosy petals erupt and combine well with so many different flowers.

I love the chandelier architecture of this Nectaroscordum siculum flower and so wish we could grow it in Texas.

Up near the house, I admired this Erysimum flower choice to match the color of the paint.

GIVERNY

After visiting the garden, we walked the quaint streets of Giverny to make our way to Hotel Baudy for lunch. This establishment became famous for the mingling of artists that visited to learn from Monet as the the town became know for its hub of impressionism.

We had a delicious lunch at Hotel Baudy, a meeting place for artists back in Monet’s day.

And, of course, I just HAD to try their creme brulee.

After lunch we walked the streets admiring the lovely town that Monet used to call home. Here a small courtyard in Giverny is flanked by Iris and Vitis.

Even the signs coordinate with the flower color on this Salvia.

Throughout Giverny I noticed the subtle pairings of colors, like this Salvia officinalis ‘Tricolor’ with the mauve petals of a clambering Clematis.

And, at the impressionism museum, color combinations continued like this planting that screams gold and orange.

While we didn’t have time to go through the Museum of Impressionisms, we did walk the grounds a bit. I liked the poppies here, perhaps an allude to Monet’s The Poppy Field?

A modern take on one of Monet’s paintings as we crossed the road to head back. Monet was able to enrich our world with art because plants enriched his.

We left Giverny and Monet’s garden filled with the beauty we had seen. I wish we could have stayed longer, but the schedule held more riches for the day in the promise of seeing Le Jardin Plume.

It still amazes me that Monet attributed his origins of great art to flowers. May we all strive to find such inspiration in the plants around us just like Monet did.

Easter Weekend at Biltmore

Last year for Easter, I shared about a wonderful trip that I took to the North Carolina mountains back in 2011 over this holiday.  The highlight I shared was visiting the virgin forest Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest on Easter morning.  But, the weekend had other forays, too.

That year, Easter fell on April 24, the second latest date that Easter can be (April 25 is the latest). Colleagues had told me that the fourth weekend in April was one best times to visit Biltmore because the last of the tulips overlapped with the first of the azaleas.

If you aren’t familiar with the Biltmore estate in Asheville, North Carolina, it is an incredible place to behold. It was once home to George Vanderbilt, and the house is the largest private home in America with over 170,000 square feet! Frederick Law Olmsted designed the grounds and gardens for Vanderbilt as one of his last large projects, and Olmsted even encouraged him to grow trees. From that prompt Vanderbilt started one of the first forestry programs in the United States. While the house holds the history of the family, the gardens holds a plethora of plant delights.

In planning the weekend, I decided that visiting Biltmore early Saturday morning would fit best into the schedule because the crowds would be small.  Then, I could do wilderness jaunts the rest of the weekend. I hope you enjoy this eye candy as I relive a weekend at the Biltmore estate through this photolog.

I chuckle reflecting back on my handful of visits to Biltmore because I haven’t made it through the house yet.  For me, the gardens are what continually capture my attention.  

One of my favorite views at Biltmore is near the house looking out to the distant mountains across a vast forest. This visit the vista was a bit obscured by clouds, but the gray skies helped reduce the harsh shadows for better photography.

Up closer to the house, I admired the large Wisteria on the arbor.  Yes, I know the Asian species are quite invasive, and I always recommend planting Wisteria fructescens or Wisteria macrostachya.  But, still, it was spectacular seeing this behemoth of a planting.  

As I made my way toward the walled garden and tulip display, I passed by a beautiful mass of Hyacinthoides hispanica under this Fagus in the shrub garden.

I reached the walled garden and was mesmerized by the tulip displays.  Warm pastels were surrounded by dark purples, and in the center a ring of white and black tulips provided contrast. With all the oval flowers it was like an Easter egg hunt on steroids!

The arbor in the above image had these windows that created vistas for looking out into the garden.

A shot from the west side of the arbor. In the distance you can see the wall that gives the walled garden its name. The perennial borders that surround the color beds were also coming to life.  Each time I visit here I always enjoy seeing the combinations the gardeners have made. 

In the perennial borders, I quite liked this contrasting color combination of yellow with purple, tending toward the side of blue, flowers

A clump of Hyacinthoides hispanica emerges from a layer of Stachys byzantina.

White was a popular color used on the edges of the walled garden. Here a single flower of Lamprocapnos (Dicentra) spectabilis ‘Alba’ rests on foliage.

It was such good design to elicit harmony and repetition by pairing these similar-looking yet opposing inflorescence growth habits of this Wisteria and Baptisia.

Paeonia lactiflora 'Krinkled White' living up to its namesake with the white handkerchief petals.

On my way out of the walled garden, I passed this incredible Halesia. I so admire silverbells for their brilliant white flowers that sway in the breeze.

Leaving the walled garden and conservatory area, I entered the azalea garden. It was erupting with color during my visit.

While I like the evergreen azaleas, I really love the native ones.  There’s just something about their flowers that makes me weak in the knees. These plants are magnets for early season butterflies like swallowtails. My jaw dropped seeing these massive Rhododendron austrinum plants.

A closeup of the flowers of Rhododendron austrinum

Rhododendron canescens was a favorite of mine from back in west Tennessee, and I was impressed seeing such large shrubs here at Biltmore. They smell great, too!

Rhododendron canescens is often confused with Rhododendron periclymenoides, but Rhododendron canescens has gland-tipped hairs on the corolla tube; Rhododendron periclymenoides does not.

This visit was my first encounter with Rhododendron alabamense. This species can be identified by its white petals, yellow blotch, and lemon fragrance.

Another species I was delighted to find was Rhododendron vaseyi, a rare and at risk native azalea that occurs in 11 counties in North Carolina. I had seen it on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and here I happened upon it in the garden.

There were other azaleas I didn’t know, likely hybrids or good wild selections. I LOVE this color form. Please send me a message if you know the cultivar!

Further back from the azaleas I found a wilder area of the garden where Asarum canadense was able to form large colonies.

Osmundastrum cinnamomeum fiddleheads unfurl amongst a matrix of green, Packera, and Hyacinthoides.

A closeup of the pubescent fiddleheads of Osmundastrum cinnamomeum.

One last look at the beauty of the Biltmore gardens. Yes, mid-April is an incredible time to visit for inspiration and to witness the marvels of spring.

Gibbs Gardens

“Jared, we have to go see this garden in Georgia.” On the phone was Mom, and she was telling me about where she read in an early 2012 Southern Living that Gibbs Gardens was about to open its doors to the public for the first time ever. I had never heard of the garden, but she shared about how the article said 5 million daffodils had been planted. I was on board.

So, we planned to meet up the first weekend in March that year for the opening weekend. That Friday night was a bit crazy as vehement storms passed through with rain and hail. At one point, it was so rough we were even discussing going to the hallway or stairs in the hotel. But, the storms passed, and we woke the next morning to find the sun shining.

I told my parents we had to get to Gibbs Gardens early because since this weekend was the first time the garden was open, I knew it would be packed. I had travelled to many gardens before and sometimes been turned away when parking lots were full. So, I knew being just an hour north of Atlanta, there would be crowds. But, when we arrived, we were one of three cars in the parking lot. Haha! We had the whole place to ourselves! I should note in later years when I’ve gone, the parking lot is now packed and people are running to get the good photograph spots without any people in them. So, we certainly lucked out this weekend.

Walking through the garden, the reputation of a world-class garden certainly lived up. There were daffodils everywhere. Millions of them. The website states that over the years with division the garden likely has over 20 million Narcissus on site, which is just a mind boggling number of blooms. I’ll let the photos tell more of the story below.

I would never wish low attendance numbers on a garden, but it sure was nice to be some of the first people there that morning enjoying the garden by ourselves.

One design feature used at Gibbs Gardens was curvilinear lines. They swayed and curled through the landscape, often following the topography of the hills.

I always love to see Narcissus planted on hills because passers-by can better see into their faces.

Just like the Greek myth, these Narcissus admire their own beauty in the pond reflection.

The plantings at Gibbs Gardens were grandiose where ribbons of cultivars were planted on the hillsides and there were flowers as far as the eye could see. Notice the hillside in the distance and check out the next photo.

Here is that hillside upon closer inspection. We were so happy to see that the storms didn’t pound the flowers down too bad.

While cultivars weren’t labelled, occasionally I would see one I knew like these ‘Ice Follies’.

Narcissus plantings also provide a nice backdrop for family portraits of Mom and Dad. :-)

It was nice to see how other plants were integrated in with the Narcissus plantings. Here Edgeworthia, Chamaecyparis, and a hiding coral bark Acer palmatum ‘Sango Kaku’ are surrounded by daffodils.

I adore Edgeworthia chrysantha for its winter perfume and clusters of fuzzy yellow flowers. As a member of the Thymelaeaceae, they have this cool feature where some branches will have three shoots instead of the typical one or two of most species.

Narcissus can be planted beneath deciduous trees to provide color in early spring and brighten these dappled spots before the trees leaf out.

I enjoyed the subtle color echo here between the orange cups of the Narcissus and the golden marcescent foliage of the Fagus grandifolia.

Gibbs Gardens also featured a tranquil Japanese-styled garden.

A broader shot of the Japanese garden reveals plants integrated with rocks, water, and statuary.

This planting is so simple yet effective—the bold foliage of three Rohdea japonica in a fibrous mat of Ophiopogon japonicus ‘Nana’.

Acorus gramineus ‘Ogon’ snakes through this planting and echos the golden Chamaecyparis along the pond edge.

At the top of the property is the Manor House Gardens, which are planted with winter color like Viola.

An arbor near the house was planted with Viola, Acorus, and Euphorbia to provide late-winter interest.

Gibbs Gardens was the first time I had ever seen parsley used as a groundcover underneath tulips. I thought it a clever idea to hide their sometimes lanky bases.

I saw another one of my favorite winter flowering shrubs at Gibbs Gardens, Corylopsis pauciflora. The numerous small flowers on this dense shrub form a buttery haze.

A close up of the pink buds and emerging yellow flowers of Corylopsis pauciflora, or buttercup winter hazel.

Even in their fall, Camellia flowers are beautiful. This one planted near the Manor House I suspect to be ‘La Peppermint’.

Walking down from the house to leave we saw more mass plantings of Acorus. I liked the subtle color echo here between Edgeworthia and Acorus gramineus ‘Minimus Aureus’.

Again, more use of curvilinear lines in the landscape with Acorus gramineus ‘Ogon’.

And, I even admired here where the moss and Acorus shared a similar hue.

One last shot of the incredible plantings of Narcissus at Gibbs Gardens. It was a great weekend with my parents, and I’ll never forget of seeing millions of daffodils in flower.

Fall Foliage in East Texas

While much of the rest of the country has already experienced autumn, fall color usually peaks in the last few weeks of November here in east Texas. We haven’t even had a hard frost yet, though the forecast suggests that is coming Tuesday morning. With the arrival of cooler temperatures and shorter days, plants turn brilliant colors of red, orange, yellow, purple and a myriad of variations between. Our autumn show was pretty strung out over the past few weeks, and below are some of my favorite plants for fall color. You’ll see that many of them are Rhus and Acer with a few other colorful characters that follow. Maybe if you are looking for adding more fall color to your garden, you’ll get some inspiration from the images.

Our native Rhus or sumac species are wonderful plants for fall color. I’ve learned from having Rhus glabra seedings pop up here at the house color is variable; some have barely any color at all. There is a clump of Rhus glabra just up the road in Nat that that always has this nice wine color in the fall.

Most Rhus glabra will turn a more vibrant red at the end of the season.

Another sumac that has spectacular fall color is Rhus copallinum or winged sumac, named for the foliage projections on either side of the leaf’s rachis.

And, these newly planted Rhus aromatica plants at my house are putting on their coat of many colors. This species makes a wonderful low groundcover, though other selections of the species can get taller.

Maples are another genus where one can find a diversity of species offering fall color. Wild Acer rubrum can be hit or miss. This fencerow find glowed bright enough to warrant a stop for some photographs. Don’t you just love those licorice red petioles?

Karen is starry-eyed over this beautiful red maple!

A maple that I’ve learned about since moving to Texas is Acer leucoderme, the chalk maple. It is praised for having some of the best fall color of a maple in the east Texas region.

A close up of the leaves of Acer leucoderme. They tend to be a bit smaller than the typical red maple and sugar maple leaves, but they still have incredible fall foliage.

I have fallen in love with the brilliant yellows of Acer floridanum, our southern sugar maple. We have a forest right across the road where the understory is peppered with these trees that glow in the darkened shade of pines and oaks.

I see many Acer floridanum hugging the forest edge of roadsides.

A decent Acer floridanum leaf on blacktop for some relief.

I’ve long thought that one of the under appreciated traits of Vaccinium is the fall foliage. Even here in Texas, blueberry cultivars like ‘Gulf Coast’ can turn a brilliant red.

Taxodium distichum turn a beautiful bronzy orange at the end of the season. We have one at our house, and I was pleasantly surprised to see the fallen leaves contrasting with these Carex glaucodea.

I have enjoyed seeing our Magnolia macrophylla var. ashei glow in the mornings against the rising sun. Even from a distance outside our bedroom window, you can’t miss its giant leaves changing color. But, the best part is…

… the silvery undersides of the leaves! Such a spectacular silver, it’s almost ghostly.

Parrotia persica also beams in the fall. I delight each autumn that these behind the agriculture building at SFA color up.

Interestingly, this stand tends to be more yellow as I’ve seen other Parrotia that have more reds and purples in the leaves. Could be genetics or the environment.

Another woody that has good fall color is Hibiscus hamabo. It’s buttery yellow flowers in the summer are followed by golden yellow leaves in mid-autumn.

And, you would never guess Asparagus officinalis could color up such a brilliant yellow. Here we see it in the Sprout garden mixed in with other perennials.

And, I saved one of my favorites for last. The other day right down the road from my house, I discovered a black-leaved Liquidambar styraciflua. I know that sweet gums get a bad rap for their troublesome fruit, but check out these amazing leaves that follow!

WHOA! I’ve seen dark-colored leaf forms before, but to have a jet black Liquidambar styraciflua so close warrants propagation attempts.

Wow, wow, wow!

And, since you’ve made it this far, I’ll share a little fall foliage knowledge with you. Notice how the one tip is still green. Anthocyanins, which give trees their red and purple colors in autumn, form new in the fall as the leaves prepare to senesce and fall off the tree. These compounds act as sunscreen, help stabilize the metabolic processes, and also discourage herbivory from insects. This one tip was hidden under the leaf until I pulled it to the top. It’s a good illustration that some leaves have to experience sunlight to cause that color shift.

Muhly by Morning, Muhly by Day

Autumn is a time of swift change in the garden as plants scurry to have their last hoorah before frost, and it is beautiful watching them play with varying environmental factors.  While much of these shifts occur over days or weeks, sometimes only a few hours can make the difference. 

A few years ago I witnessed such change at Chanticleer with Muhlenbergia capillaris on a crisp autumn morning in October. I was back again in the Philadelphia area speaking to a crowd of 600 at the Perennial Plant Conference. Seeing the garden again was a nice comparison because I had just been there that summer for my guest gardening experience (Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3). I was most excited to see the elevated walkway and how it had developed through the season. This part of the garden was where I headed first.

The elevated walkway has a westward facing slope where even if the sun has been up for an hour or two, parts of it can still be shrouded in shadow.  When I approached the overlook, the muhly left me breathless. 

Wow.

The panicles having soaked up the dew from the night now refracted light leaving little pink to be seen.  It was like a fog and reminded me of the milky clouds in the valleys that I've seen so many times driving the Blue Ridge Parkway further south.  And, having other plants like Eryngium yuccifolium and Kniphofia ‘Wet Dream’ emerging through the haze of plumes like otherworldly skyscrapers piercing stratus was a brilliant juxtaposition of plant heights and textures. 

This photograph I took that morning is one of my favorites of all time. It is three main characters with a few supporting cast, and it shows how such simple textures can create a spectacular view in a garden.

I've admired Muhlenbergia capillaris for many years, but this planting was the icing on the cake. I have no memory of seeing muhly grass when I was there earlier that summer. It is no surprise, though. Most of the growing season the plant is lost in the haze of chlorophyll.  But, when it comes into flower, its mist of cotton candy pink becomes a beacon in the landscape and leads every eye towards it. It goes from nobody to a celebrity overnight, and now, everyone wants it.

But, just like fog, the effect burned off later in the day.  I returned close to lunch to find the whole look had changed, and now I saw a totally different planting.  The rose-colored muhly I've known for so long was back after the dew vanished.  The sun was harsher now, and the towering plants blended into the landscape.  

Such experiences remind me that we need to visit our gardens at all times of day during this darkening season. We never know what nature hath wrought for us nor how long these special moments will last.

The same shot but only a few hours later.

---

Many of you emailed from my previous posts on Chanticleer about how you enjoyed the photos. Here are some more images from that trip for your viewing pleasure. 

The teacup garden in its autumn exuberance.

Dew glistens on the ovate leaves of Euphorbia cotinifolia

Such a great cool color theme woven with Symphyotrichum, Plectranthus, Stachys, and Nicotiana.

Another part of the garden was warmed by the rising sun basking on red foliage and flowers. What a wonderful effect to echo the colors of summer Ensete in the fall foliage of an Acer palmatum.

The flowery lawn was at its height of color for the year.

Light shimmers through the emergent Verbena bonariensis in the flowery lawn.

Muhly grass acts a foil for Kniphofia ‘Wet Dream’…

…and as a web for the occasional Ascelpias seed.

Echinacea seedheads punctuate the gravel garden.

Liatris elegans erupts out of the gravel garden at Chanticleer.

Another view of muhly, this time on the rock ledge down from the gravel garden. Joe Henderson said he used more here to connect this planting with the elevated walkway and make the garden feel more cohesive.

Even in their fade, the Colchicum in the bulb meadow look good.

Another shot of the fallen Colchicum.

The Sporobolus meadow in its fall color

The old iteration of the cut flower garden looked spectacular during my visit.

Aster tataricus glows against the autumn sun.

My Planting for a Monarch

I’m getting antsy.  Spring is on its way.  The weather lately has been in the 60’s and 70’s, Narcissus and Muscari are in bloom, and dormant perennials are popping out of the ground.  Sure, we’ll have a few more frosts (maybe a freeze?), but being just a few weeks away from the first official day of spring, this gardening season is about to get goin’ and growin’.

One goal I have this year is to finalize the design of a few beds near our garage.  They’ve been mostly a holding cell for potted plants that right after we bought the house I plopped into the ground to save from incessant August watering.  

In my mental iterations of design, I’m not only considering beauty, harmony, and seasonality for these plantings but also management, survival strategies, and the benefits to insects and wildlife.  The critters seem to get the short end of the straw when planting versus the elements of design, but that seems to be changing with the increase of the public’s awareness of ecology and our role to make the world a better (or, if we don’t act a worse...) place.  

Many people believe that to have a garden good for wildlife your yard has to more closely resemble an unmown field, but what if I told you research shows that making a few small changes to the way you plant could help increase an insect’s survival and even perhaps their numbers?  

That’s what the recent paper “Configuration and Location of Small Urban Gardens Affect Colonization by Monarch Butterflies” by Adam Baker and Daniel Potter in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution indicates.  It’s a technical title, but the basic hypothesis they tested was does the way we plant Asclepias (milkweed) species impact how Monarchs can find the plants and subsequently lay eggs on them?  

And, yippie! The whole paper is available online for people to read. I really enjoyed diving into this paper.  The research was broken down into three parts—investigating Monarch waystation gardens, synthesizing planting configurations, and looking at surrounding vegetation.  And, I have used their figures only to help you understand their work. All credit for the following figures goes to these researchers.

MONARCH WAYSTATIONS

For the Monarch waystation gardens, they visited 22 gardens that contained three species of Asclepias (A. incarnata, A. syriaca, and A. tuberosa).  They asked two great questions about each garden—were the plants blocked or mixed, and can Monarchs see the plants on a north-south approach.  

The former question is interesting from a naturalistic planting perspective because blocking versus mixing are two different approaches for laying out plants.  Oudolf and Kingsbury go in greater detail about both approaches in their book Planting: A New Perspective.  In my mind, if you had asked me before this study which would be better for insect populations, I would have said mixed.  A diverse habitat has been shown to support more species (more on this theory in a minute).  But, the research showed that these blocked or as they called them structured plantings had more Monarchs and eggs on them than the mixed plantings.  

In these waystations, they also evaluated whether plants could be accessed along a north-south gradient. Monarchs fly north from overwintering in Mexico, and then they fly south at the end of the growing season.  And, while the paper does say that they can fly any direction in a garden, planting Asclepias so they are visible in this north-south migration path seems to increase the number of Monarchs encountered and eggs laid on plants.  

This figure from from Baker and Potter’s (2019) paper shows that gardens that had structured (aka blocked) Ascelpias had more Monarchs than non-structured (aka mixed) plantings! Additionally, gardens that featured Asclepias that could be viewed on a north-south trajectory had more Monarchs as well. Note: ramet is a fancy word used to describe the number of shoots from a clonal colony. So, if an Asclepias plant has 10 shoots, those are 10 ramets.

PLANTING CONFIGURATIONS

A second step they took in their research was to create three different planting modules for evaluating Monarch counts—Asclepias on the perimeter, Asclepias in the middle, and Asclepias in a mixed planting.  All three gardens contained the same number of plants and fillers like nectar-rich Tithonia rotundifolia and Zinnia elegans and the tall ornamental grass Calamagrostis × acutiflora. 

Here’s a figure I pulled from Baker and Potter’s (2019) work that helps to illustrate their planting configurations.

Again, if you asked me before reading this, I would have guessed that the mixed planting would be the best.  But, their two years of data collection showed that the perimeter plantings had roughly DOUBLE TO QUADRUPLE the number of eggs and larvae as the other two plantings.  Wow.  I was blown away.  They cite a whole plethora of reasons and that having non-host plants (like the Zinnia, Calamagrostis, and Tithonia) might interfere with egg laying by Monarchs onto the host-plant Asclepias—blocking, shading, mixing volatiles, and landing on the wrong plant too many times. And, it appears that if enough of these compound together, the number of eggs and larvae on plants are drastically reduced.

And, here’s Baker and Potter’s (2019) data of Monarch eggs and larvae counts from those planting configurations. Absolutely amazing. Asclepias that were on the perimeter had double to quadruple the number of Monarch youngsters.

I mentioned earlier that increasing diversity (like we see in mixed plantings) can potentially help to support more insects.  What if the mixed configuration had more predatory insects?  They thought of that by trapping predatory insects and noted they didn’t really see a difference between the perimeter and mixed configurations.  Thus, there weren’t insects reducing the numbers of Monarchs in the mixed configuration relative to the perimeter planting.  

Basically, they created an unimpeded monoculture for the Monarchs.  We talk about how monocultures are bad because a group of plants en masse can have more pests than being mixed in a polyculture, but this research flipped that thinking on its head.  That if you want to plant something for a desirable “pest”, then block it and put it where they can see it.  

They do make a note in the discussion about the perimeter plantings. Because the between plant distances were greater in the perimeter planting and because Monarchs do prefer to lay eggs on isolated plants, this effect may have had an influence.

ASCLEPIAS HIDE AND SEEK

The last experiment they did was to investigate effects of surrounding vegetation over two weeks.  They planted Asclepias incarnata by itself and then hidden by Panicum virgatum ‘Shenandoah’.  The two plants didn’t touch (mind your bubble, switchgrass!), but the Pancium were close enough to hide the plants.  They observed that unimpeded Asclepias plants had on average a little over three eggs per plant while those screened by the Panicum had nearly zero eggs.  

---

So, the things I took away from this paper about planting for Monarchs:

• Plant Asclepias in blocks with adequate spacing between plants.

• Plant Asclepias so that Monarchs have north-south access to the plants.  

• Plant Asclepias on the edges of your garden.

• Plant Asclepias so that surrounding vegetation doesn’t hinder access to the plants.  

And, that’s how I’m going to do it.  I have some locally sourced Asclepias seed, and once I get the plants going, I’m going to plant them in a couple of blocks on the outside of my beds with a few mixed in here and there for harmony.  

Now, the question is does this approach also work for other insects?  Of course, it would take more research to answer that question.  Some insects don’t migrate; therefore, the north-south access might be less important for them.  But, I do think that locating host-plant species near the edge, in blocks, and making sure they are accessible could be extrapolated to planting for other species of insects.  

A final note.  I don’t usually set down and digest a scientific article like this, but I was so impressed by the research and the content that I had to share it.  If you like this reflection writing, let me know, and I’ll consider doing more in the future.