Anticipation Grows with the Culmination of Fall

Even though skiing is my passion, fall is my dearest season of all. Fall’s cool mornings instill within me a sense of peace and renewal. Fall also brings a much needed respite from the busy season of summer before launching into the active season of winter. To me, fall is a calm breath of restful anticipation.

New Possibilities Arrive with each Growing Season

Spring marks the start of nature’s growing season. The coming of spring brings such enjoyment. It is the season to stand witness to plants popping up from under the cool earth in anticipation of showing off their creative magic. The magical displays of plants naturally progress as the seasons progress. It is such a pleasure for me to see them as they change through the seasons, transforming each garden from one year to the next.

Every year I learn something new about how I can enhance my gardens, continually learning from nature on how to improve and grow my landscape designs. Along the way, I have developed simple garden design concepts through experimentation with my own garden. Like, plants that can be cut back mid season to either make room for new arrivals or to begin their vigorous regrowth. It is fun to experiment with my own plants, to learn just how far I can push them and alter them to keep the entire garden beautiful and interesting throughout the growing season.

Simple Design Concepts for the Growing Season

Here are a few practices I do unconsciously as a landscape designer that can be translated into simple, concrete concepts:

1. Succession plant: Place plants together that will complement each other as one wanes and the next waxes. As spring blooms of peonies and poppies diminish, mid-summer lilies and daisies take over the scene.

2. Complementary plants: Place plants together that have complementing textures and colors.

3. Contrast forms: Combine plants that cover the ground with plants that will be shown off or off-set by the solid ground cover background.

4. Create a background: Use plants as a background to create pattern, contrast, or to showcase special plant elements.

5. Paint your landscape: ‘Paint’ with your plants. Think of your garden as a blank canvas where you are creating a composition, or several compositions that change with the seasons. If your visually able, imagine your garden space as plants grow, bloom, and fade. Or if you would like help with your vision, give me a call. We’ll have some fun together “painting.”

I love the seasons and the changes they bring. For now that it is fall, I am content and peaceful as I kick back and relax a bit, play a bit, reflect a bit. As I do, I start thinking about changes I would like to make to my own garden; wondering how the garden landscape will progress through the next growing season; and talking with snow sport enthusiasts about what type of snow fall is predicted for this winter. I guess anticipation never slows when you love what you do.