Contrasting Flower Shapes at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

When composing your planting scheme, choose plants with contrasting flower shapes. Masses of tiny blooms, such as sweet alyssum and trailing lobelia, create a hazy effect softening the edges and hiding the container. They contrast well with the larger plants that form the main focus of the container.

THE USE of different shapes and patterns is perhaps the single most important element in designing a garden. In a really good garden, the shape and pattern of every component, from the broad outline of a path or lawn to the details such as the contrasting shapes of miniature shrubs in a particular stone trough, will have been thoroughly thought out. Shapes introduce movement, balance and punctuation to a garden design. Movement can come from the repeated use of upright shapes like arches, which takes the eye away into the distance. The effect will work either in a formal symmetrical context or in a more informal zigzag fashion. Balance will help the garden to look restful to the eye: a dramatic upright shape can be countered by an adjoining low mound, and the two can be held together by some horizontal shapes.

Finally, there are the horizontal shapes. They keep the eye peacefully arrested, moving neither up nor down. There are endless variations within and between these categories, but when planning a layout they are very useful devices. As well as looking at the overall shape of a plant, do not forget to focus in on the form of its flowers. Choose flower shapes that complement one another in some way, either a combination of pleasing contrasts or harmonious similarities. Remember, too, the shapes of individual leaves, and even the branch patterns of trees and shrubs.