Foliage Plants at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

Creating false perspective is another useful trick. By placing large plants in the foreground and small ones of the same shape in the distance, they all appear to be the same size although they recede into the distance. It is possible to do the same with foliage by planting thin, airy foliage close by and denser foliage further away. Lawn-mower stripes in a lawn can be used to give direction to a view or to pull your eye in a particular direction, lengthening or shortening the perspective.

FOLIAGE PLANTS are an important part of any planting, but particularly so container plantings, which tend to have short periods of interest created by seasonal plants. Foliage, however, provides a permanent background structure against which flowers can come and go. Gray-leaved plants such as Helichrysum petiolare and Senecio bicolor, syn. cineraria bicolor, play a useful part in different color schemes. When reds and blues are combined with white, gray will "cool" the impact of the strong hues. Its neutral tones make the visual leap to pure white less dazzling. A subdued background of gray foliage will bring out the best in pastel pinks, mauves and misty blues, and will delicately harmonize container color schemes.

Sprinklers may be less effective on ornamental plants than on vegetables, especially in summer The foliage of some ornamentals will deflect much of the spray, and heavy blooms and foliage can be weighed down and damaged by the water Sprinklers are best used on ornamentals not in bloom.