Main-feature Plants at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

Medium-sized, main-feature plants can be grown with stronger-growing trailing plants to keep the display well in scale. Trailing plants will help to soften harsh outlines, but remember to leave sufficiently exposed any container with a pleasing shape, especially if it has prominent decoration. To COUNTERACT the long narrow shape of a window-box, you should make every attempt to avoid planting in straight rows. More informality can be given to the display by varying the heights of the main plants and by softening the effect with filler plants. One way to make an attractive planting is to group main-feature plants first and then put fillers in between.

Whichever plants we choose to grow, they must be displayed well if they are to look their best. The easiest way to group is to make a series of small feature "pictures" and create clusters of plants, sometimes only two or three, each adding to the others' beauty and effectiveness. PLANT ASSOCIATION is not just a question of putting together plants that flower at the same time. Instead, look for plants that complement each other in terms of habit and size, texture and color.

THERE ARE various types of water plant: water lilies, deep-water aquatics, floating aquatics, submerged plants, marginal plants and bog plants. Water lilies, deep-water aquatics and, to a lesser extent, floating aquatics all provide cover for fish and insects, and also shield the water from sunlight, so helping to keep algae under control. Submerged plants and floating aquatics also play an important role because they feed off the nutrients in the water that algae need in order to live, and in this way they help to reduce their proliferation. Once you have your quota of functional plants, use marginal and bog plants as decoration. Choose those that suit the design of your pool. An informal pool should include a variety of plants that have been positioned at random. They should complement the surrounding area to make the feature look as natural as possible. Since the bog area helps merge the pool into the landscape, the bog plants should match groups of nearby plants. For formal pools it is best to select three or five specimen plants and place them in some kind of definite pattern.