I admit it: I love Martha Stewart. She drives me crazy, but her involved-yet-ever-so-elegant craft projects? Her table centerpieces? And her recipes which cause me to swoon (when reading) and curse (when preparing – I mean, who wants to spend six hours on a cupcake recipe?). She’s the queen of aspirational living.

So when Martha started showing off her latest obsession, faux bois (“false wood”, or wood-looking items made of concrete), I was hooked. I love wood grain! (I’m a landscaper, it’s in the rules.) I’m thrilled to see it as a pattern for home décor, but even more excited to examine how it can be used in landscaping. (Faux bois above by Donald Tucker)

We’ve all seen normal stamped concrete patios. But what about a faux bois concrete patio (from The Lil House That Could)?

These rustic bird baths (from Carlos Cortes and Rituals Décor) have ridges and rough surfaces that birds can grip with their feet, making them useful to wildlife as well as decorative:

And there are faux bois planters (from Deb Silver):

I should probably make a distinction here between things that have a wood grain pattern and faux bois as an art. You can certainly describe the patio at top as being faux bois, but it was created using concrete stamps that resemble wood boards. You can also create a wood-grain finish by board-forming your concrete, like this (from Concrete Network):

But faux bois as an art form is more akin to sculpture, taking days of non-stop work to get just the right appearance and finish (all work below by Donald Tucker).

It’s not all that common, because few artisans know how to do the techniques, and it’s so labor-intensive that you’d need to reach a very appreciative market in order to make it a worthwhile endeavor. Yet these sculptures can last for generations – artist Donald Tucker estimates fifty thousand years if properly created.

If you’d like to try doing it yourself, I found this tutorial online by Ken Druse. Or, if you really want to learn the techniques properly, Donald Tucker offers five-day seminars on the technique. These flickr photosets give you an idea of what’s involved in a big project: part one and part two.

There’s also a coffee table book, Capturing Nature, about artist Carlos Cortes’ great uncle Dionicio Rodriguez, who is widely recognized as a master at the craft.

I love how the faux bois theme mixes natural with manmade, and I think it would make a unique touch in a rustic or woodland garden.

What do you think? Do you like the look of it, or should we stick with wood for a wood-like look?

A quick wrap-up of some recent posts on wildlife gardening from around the web. . .

You know how I love to read the garden trend reports at the start of each year, and this year I’m seeing a lot of trends that I like. Over at Beautiful Wildlife Gardens, Carole Brown posted a list of the gardening trends she’s hoping will take off this year. The post is filled with links to other articles for more in-depth reading, so head on over and check out her predictions.

Next up, I posted about three of the native plant books I’ve found indispensable in learning more about the plants that give California a sense of regional identity. Our natives go beyond bringing a unique design aesthetic to our gardens, though – they provide breeding spaces and food for wildlife in a way that purely ornamental plants just don’t do. Check out these three book picks and learn more about how to design with California’s diverse array of plants.

On a similar note, the Plant This, Not That trend has taken off! It’s inspired by Susan Morrison’s article in Fine Gardening Magazine last year, in which she gave some examples of overused plants and some less-common alternatives to use in the garden.

Native plant gardeners have been creating Plant This, Not That editions for their own regions, to give us all a quick hit of inspiration for gardening with more natives:

Plant This, Not That: California by yours truly

Plant This, Not That: The Book (for the east coast) by Vincent Vizachero

Plant This, Not That: Connecticut by Debbie Roberts

Plant This, Not That: New Jersey by Pat Sutton (and another!)

Plant This, Not That: New York by Donna Donnabella

And an updated version from Susan Morrison including a few lovely CA natives!

Lastly, a special thanks to Carole Brown, whose tireless work on behalf of wildlife gardening has provided amazing resources and inspiration for gardeners around the US and beyond. She just wrote a post thanking me for being her muse. But Carole’s long been MY muse and a real catalyst for changing the way landscapers like me approach our work.

Can gardens with wildlife benefit look as attractive as gardens devoid of birds, native bees, and salamanders? I’d say that with careful design, they have so much more to offer! And Carole’s been a huge part in my journey to discover how to design “stealthy” wildlife gardens – those that give back to wildlife and reflect a sense of regional flair without looking like a conservation project.

Wherever you are in your gardening journey, I’d encourage you to check out Carole’s work at Ecosystem Gardening, and her group blogs Beautiful Wildlife Gardens and Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens.

Perk things up this winter by adding some winter-interest plants, attracting birds, and creating colorful containers out of cut stems and evergreen boughs.

That’s my advice over at Landscaping Network, where I talk about some superstar plants and some non-intuitive ways of bringing birds to your winter garden. A special tip o’ the nib to Carole Brown, who graciously let me use her photos of birds enjoying her own wildlife garden to illustrate my post!

Then, over at Proven Winners, it’s all about planting beautiful plants that bring the birds flocking to your garden. Even if you’re not going outside much this winter, bird-watching can add an extra bit of joy to your garden from the windows.

Not in the Northwest? Check out my fellow Garden Gurus’ posts about winter interest in their regions:

Southeast- Carolyn Binder

Southwest – Jenny Peterson

Northeast – Laura Mathews

With more to come in the month ahead!

Lastly, check out Steve Asbell’s post on finding winter color for Florida. Strangely enough, most of his winter annual picks are the same ones I’d pick for my region! These tough annual flowers are a good for a variety of climates.

This post might get a little ugly. Scratch that. It’s definitely getting ugly. Today, I’ve got a quick round up of some of the worst offenders I’ve seen in professionally installed landscapes. Roving bamboo, landscape fabric stifling tree trunks, unhappy plants suffering a variety of maladies. . . and all of it easily preventable.

Want to keep from making some of these landscaping mistakes? Read on for a quick, unattractive tutorial.

Don’t strangle your plants with landscape fabric

Nothing like enjoying the beautiful white bark of a lovely white birch, then following the line of the trunk to the base, and. . . What is that? Black woven plastic girdling the trunk of your elegant plant?

Just – no. It’s not that hard. Anticipate that your plants will grow and cut out a bigger hole. This goes doubly for ornamental grasses like Miscanthus, which flop unattractively and become impossible to dig and divide when a 3′ wide base of grass is growing out of a 1′ wide hole.

Goodness, where to start? Three don’ts in one.

First, be cautious of using landscape fabric on a mound. You see the mulch tends to slide off and expose the black stuff, which is tres tacky.

Second, try to put thick irrigation tubing on a flat region of the garden bed rather than on a mound. Let’s work with gravity here and place the tubing where the mulch will naturally fall to cover it, not slip and expose it.

Lastly, weeping plants tend to move around and brush the mulch off the landscape fabric. There are a number of ways you can prevent your landscape fabric from showing when using weepers like this Japanese maple. First, don’t put the weeper on a mound, where the mulch is already likely to slip off. Second, don’t use landscape fabric in that particular zone. The mulch adheres to soil much better than to slippery-slidey plasticky stuff and anyway, a little exposed soil is no big deal. Third, plant a few groundcovers close enough that their foliage can obscure the fabric should it become exposed.

(More tips on using landscape fabric effectively here, here and here.)

Choose bamboo varieties carefully and don’t plant without a barrier

OK, so there are spreading bamboos and clumping bamboos. When you plant a spreading bamboo, use some manner of barrier to keep it from escaping and eating your home. And while you may think a “clumping” bamboo is safe, the owner of my local bamboo specialty nursery says that even with clumping bamboos, you should use a barrier, as nearly every bamboo has thug potential in time.

What barrier, you may ask? They sell rolls of very sturdy plastic that can be buried and used to create a 3′ deep trough of any shape and size you wish. Or you can pour a special concrete pot underground for it. Whatever you do, do not let your bamboo go wild and free. Even with a barrier, it may escape, and you’ll need to make sure it doesn’t jump over the top of your barrier and get a foothold in the surrounding landscape. This is what can happen if it gets out (photos from a local parking lot):

Whew. Scared yet? I am. I like to plant bamboo in pots. Pots which I place on concrete.

Don’t plant heathers or Hebes next to sidewalks

All right, so this one’s not intuitive. But I’ve found that pretty much every variety of Hebe and heather, particularly the finer-leaved ones, are very susceptible to dog urine. I mean, no plant likes to be peed on. But plants with a fine texture tend to hold onto any liquids that fall on them.

When a larger-leaved plant is peed on, the liquid just rolls off and it takes a lot more urine to damage the plant for good. But if the urine lingers and doesn’t roll off, like with the fine-leaved texture of this Hebe above, then you have a recipe for icky dead patches that don’t regenerate. Just one more reason to plan your hell strip carefully!

Don’t plant lawn in shady, acidic soil

This is pretty sad, right? It’s all brown and unhappy, the grass is thin, and moss has taken over. Why fight nature? Lawn doesn’t like to grow in shade. And lawn prefers lime soil, so the acidic area under a pine or redwood tree is never going to be an ideal, happy parcel of frolicsome lawn.

Here are some tips on what to plant under a redwood or pine. Hint: not lawn.

If you really really want lawn under redwoods, or in the shade, here’s what you’ve gotta do. Impeccable care. Rake 1/2 inch of compost over the whole lawn each spring. Check your soil pH 1-2 times a year and treat with lime to keep it alkaline. Leave clippings and mow often so the clippings are small enough to easily decompose and add organic matter to the soil. Then add a mix of compost and grass seed to your lawn each autumn to help shore up any bare spots with fresh grass.

Even with all of that, it won’t be 100%. I’d advise that you get happy with what you’ve got, and enjoy the excuse to create some new planting beds for shade-loving plants.

Want to see some more reality checks from professional designers?

Check out my fellow members of the Garden Designers Roundtable, as well as our special guest, uber-talented designer David Cristiani, as they tackle the topic of “Garden Don’ts“.

David Cristiani : The Desert Edge : Albuquerque, NM

Jocelyn Chilvers : The Art Garden : Denver, CO

Susan Morrison : Blue Planet Garden Blog : East Bay, CA

Andrew Keys : Garden Smackdown : Boston, MA

Susan Cohan : Miss Rumphius’ Rules : Chatham, NJ

Rebecca Sweet : Gossip In The Garden : Los Altos, CA

Christina Salwitz : Personal Garden Coach : Renton, WA

Shirley Bovshow : Eden Makers : Los Angeles, CA

I have a weakness for all the trend reports that come out at the start of each new year. While I have my own ideas about what’s going to be hot, I love to pore over these reports and alternately nod my head or think (hope!) the writer is crazy.

Trend reports are a fun way of getting encouragement to try something new, because if something’s coming into style, you can bet you’ll find the resources and instructions you need at local garden shops or in the glossies.

So what are my predictions for 2012? Here goes. . .

Eco goes in-depth

Designers keep on predicting a resurgence in regionalism – that is, a sense of pride in the place that you live and a desire to use regional materials like native plants and local stone to give your garden a sense of place. I don’t know if that prediction is just us being hopeful or if this movement is really taking off. But I’m going to go ahead and predict it again this year, regardless. I think we’ll see this general trend showing up as an interest in. . .

Birds

Birds bring such a sense of life to the garden, and seeing them scratch about in the soil for some bugs or leftover seeds has a restorative effect on the soul. As people plant more treats for the birds in their gardens and start to mindfully notice how it feels to see these little guys enjoying our gardens, I think we’ll start seeing more people learning about how to attract them (hint: it’s not about the bird feeders – native plants and water sources are where it’s at!). (Bird photo from Carole Brown at Ecosystem Gardening.)

Native plants used in “designer” ways

Native plants are boring, right? Actually, um, no. In the end, it’s really the designer who makes the plant exciting, not the other way around. Local author Peter Haggard likes to show people that you can prune, espalier, twist stems into interesting shapes, and generally treat natives like any other plant when it comes to doing artful training.

And when it comes to design, I think we’re going to see a lot of designers turning to natives and using them in wild, avant-garde combinations and settings. Clean rows of natives used in a stark modern setting, loosely-woven knot gardens of native grasses and shrubs, and of course the simple-yet-beautiful combinations from flower gardeners who are starting to appreciate that nod to regional beauty and the wildlife benefits that native plants bring.

Edible native plants

This one won’t fully take off this year, but it should be on our radar. The edible trend of years past has morphed from simple vegetables, to heirloom varieties, to unusual fruits and berries that nobody knows what to do with but make an awesome cocktail garnish, and now we’ve moved to native plants with edible parts.

A little reading about the indigenous people of your region will turn up lots of information about how they used to subsist on the plants native to the area. I predict that plants like Oregon grape, service berry, and miner’s lettuce will make a resurgence.

Do people actually want to eat this stuff? Well, about as much as they want to eat a medlar. But the great thing about planting natives that are edible or useful in some way is that if you don’t get around to actually eating them, you get to feel the satisfaction of watching birds chow down all fall and winter and know you did something great for wildlife.

Colors

Newly popular

Bright! Brilliant! Orange!

That Tangerine Tango shade that Pantone chose as color of the year is seriously on-trend. But I wouldn’t limit the bright! Orange! trend to that exact shade. I’m thinking a variety of cheery oranges will be on display as people look for ways of using color as a mood brightener. Plus, orange goes with my next color prediction, which is. . .

Grey

I’m usually annoyed when people say that something is the new black. No, people, BLACK is the new black. End of story. But the people saying grey is the new black are sounding slightly less bone-headed than usual, because grey does actually perform some of the same functions as black. In the garden, it’s completely unexpected and gives a modern twist. New introductions like Dead Spider columbine, with its drooping grey flowers, will turn heads and be noticed.

And in décor, grey contrasted with bright colors will be hot. Check out this set of chairs used by the designer at Elevations NYC to get the idea:

Still going strong

Amber

Amber’s been growing in popularity for the last few years, primarily because of a few new plant varieties, most notably the Amber Flower Carpet roses. Most people swoon when I show them amber blooms, but feel some trepidation when it comes to actually using amber in the garden – what do you combine it with?

I predict this is the year when amber will really take off as a trend, because I think a number of bloggers and gardening magazines will be featuring articles on how to design with amber. Once we all see those drool-worthy photos in the glossies, amber’s going to really take off.

Black

Black’s been big for a couple years and is only getting hotter. I tend to think trends involving flower and foliage colors take a while to flourish because it takes time for growers to start carrying new plants. I’ve been seeing black plants everywhere in the media, but in my local nurseries it’s been tough to get some of the unusual new varieties – growers are only just starting to have a great selection for nurseries to choose from in this shade.

In any case, black looks sleek, modern and unexpectedly fresh, especially against grasses and foliage combinations. I think it’s going to be another good year for black. (Photo of Summer Wine ninebark courtesy Proven Winners.)

Other assorted trends

Metal and stone in the landscape

While lightweight resin pieces have been on an upswing in the last few years (it’s inexpensive, versatile, and can fit into any scheme), I think metal and stone are coming back.

The grey trend is speaking right to metal, and I’ve also seen a huge number of interestingly crumpled metal sculptures in the garden lately. Whether rusted or sleek, softly rounded or dangerous-looking, metal décor and sculpture are coming back into style. There’s something wabi-sabi and REAL about metal, and I think people are craving real.

Same with stone. The heaviness means it’s expensive and takes some commitment and vision to buy and place into the garden, but this is part of what makes it so satisfying. I’m tired of the easy button. Our lives are cluttered with easy. I want something that feels permanent and solid, something that grows lovelier with a bit of weather and moss. And I want to sweat when I install it and kick back with a well-deserved margarita after.

In particular, I think stone fountains are going to take off this year, because they offer a pause point in the garden that invites reflection, and they’re less expensive than creating an entire patio or pathway out of stone.

Lavish minimalism

Who else is exhausted by too much stuff? Every garden I go to, I see too many pots, too many impulse-buy plants, too many types of materials and just too much – and people keep asking what to get rid of, because clearly something’s gotta go.

I think we’re all feeling that urge to downsize and simplify. And the economy has made us think about where we spend money (even if we have plenty of it) and has given rise to a kind of mindful, intentional minimalism. Less waste, more appreciation.

The trend is toward using fewer types of plants, but choosing mature or hard-to-find specimens that really make a statement. Fewer décor pieces in the garden, but those that do make the cut are custom-made or handcrafted by a local artisan. Patios may be smaller, but they’re made with the best materials available.

I’m calling this lavish minimalism. While there’s some scaling back involved, there’s also an appreciation of the finest things, and a willingness to forego the “lots” in favor of the meaningful.

Photo-based social media

I can just hear you groaning right now. ANOTHER social media account to keep track of?

Hold off on throwing tomatoes and hear me out. Pinterest is a new social sharing site where you “pin” photos from around the internet onto your very own inspiration boards. Read foodie blogs, but have trouble finding that special recipe when you’re ready to actually make it? Just “pin” it to your Pinterest board on recipes and you’ll have a photo complete with a link to the original recipe right there for reference.

This has huge potential for gardening types. You can create boards for a color scheme, a design style, or a type of project you’ll be tackling soon, and just “pin” photos from around the web onto one inspiration board. I’ve been working with Landscaping Network to curate their Pinterest boards, so if you’d like to see what I’m talking about, you can check it out here.

Want to play along? Right now you can only join by invitation, but if you want to sign up, just let me know in the comments and I’ll pop an invite out to you.

What say you?

Here’s what others have to say about gardening trends for 2012:

Thomas Rainer of Grounded Design has the most design-oriented list of predictions, with the new Romanticism coming out on top and creative hedges, moody and expressive plantings, and heirloom ornamentals filling out the list.

Kym Pokorny of the Oregonian thinks clean and modern’s the way to go, plus unusual fruits, miniature conifers, gardening for the elderly, and smaller water features.

Jim Hole of the Edmonton Journal predicts black and Tangerine Tango will be hot, plus vertical, edible, and water-wise plants.

Yahoo News has printed predictions from Tesselaar Plants, including some quotes from yours truly. Mediterranean plants, smaller water features, and gardens that change dramatically with the seasons are some highlights.

Want to predict the hottest-selling plants at Plant Delights Nursery for ’12? You can win a hefty $250 gift certificate if you’re right! See some current and old best-seller lists here.

What do you think is going to be big in 2012? Let me know by leaving a comment.

I have mixed feelings about the Perennial Plant Association’s plant pick of 2012. I mean, I love it and all. Jack Frost Brunnera (Brunnera macrophylla ‘Jack Frost’) is one of those shade plants that seems to thrive wherever you stick it, looks elegant and classy in a variety of gardening themes, and is unusual enough that when I plant it, clients say marvelous things about my fine taste for having chosen such an aesthetically-pleasing plant.

That, of course, is all over now.

Remember Geranium ‘Rozanne’? She was a lovely, exotic, unusual beauty too, in her time. But then she won 2008 Plant of the Year, and it changed her. Soon she was seen in parking lots, cavorting with the trashiest of Stella d’ Oro daylily/ Crimson Pygmy barberry combinations.

And what about golden Japanese forest grass? Now that was a looker. Went in English perennial beds, modern minimalist combinations, and ran the gamut in between. Until its gracious good looks and amicable growth habits landed it the 2009 Plant of the Year award, and it too became common.

Don’t get me wrong. These are some of my favorite plants! It’s right they should receive such an honor. But the last time I wrote about my darling ‘Rozanne’, I received mocking – mocking - emails from pals in the trade, saying, “oh, Rozanne is sooo 2007″.

So it was with sentimental feelings that I read about Jack Frost’s latest accolades. Yes, he deserves it. A finer specimen of shade perennial-hood is hard to find. But for folks in the trade, this award signals a fall from grace of kinds.

Oh, we’ll still plan his curved spiderwebbed foliage into our shady garden corners. But after this year of promotion and popularity, it will be with a kind of ironic sadness. A feeling that we knew him way back when he was a rare little shade-lover, still needing a champion to urge him into the hands of uncertain homeowners. When we see him in the Target parking lot, we’ll know he’s really made it.

Will he still be our kind of plant? Only 2013 will tell.

If you invite him into your home, just don’t let him hit the Miracle-Gro too hard. Excess fertilizer can get him into trouble with the snails and slugs, and you know how much fun that can be.

Photos courtesy the Perennial Plant Association.

Pantone’s just released their top pick for 2012 color of the year – Tangerine Tango – so given the Garden Designers Roundtable topic for the month is deer – it seemed a perfect excuse to talk about Bright! Orange! Plants! for the deer-resistant garden.

While selecting a color of the year is an obvious marketing ploy, and not a terrifically effective one at getting me to rush out and buy things (I mean, are you going to go out and buy a Tangerine Tango-colored appliance as their press release suggests? I’m not even sold on the nail polish color!), it’s still kind of fun to think outside our usual color favorites and try something new. Especially in the garden!

A know a lot of deer-resistant gardeners feel like they can’t really “play” in the garden as much as they’d like. So many new introductions and planting trends seem like they’d be food for the deer. But I truly believe that in gardening as in life, an obstacle is just a challenge. If you look out for the shapes, textures, and colors you’d like to use and try to find unusual varieties of tried-and-true deer-resistant plants that fit those themes, you can enjoy pretty much any planting style in your deer garden.

So without further ado, here are some Tangerine Tango-inspired plants that can rock your deer-resistant garden – twenty brightly-hued varieties of those great garden standbys that you know you can count on in a deer garden.

From left to right: Helianthemum ‘Henfield Brilliant’, Rhododendron ‘Honey Butter’ (photo from Singing Tree Gardens), Kniphofia ‘Papaya Popsicle’ (photo from Terra Nova Nursery), Achillea ‘Paprika’

From left to right: Salvia splendens ‘Lighthouse Red’ (photo from Proven Winners), Hakonechloa ‘Nicholas’ (photo from Singing Tree Gardens), Echinacea ‘Coral Reef’ (photo from Terra Nova), Leucadendron ’Winter Red’

From left to right: Erysimum ‘Apricot Twist’, Crocosmia ‘Twilight Fairy Crimson’ (photo from Terra Nova), Chaenomeles ‘Pink Storm’ (photo from Proven Winners), Euphorbia ‘Fire Glow’

From left to right: Leonotis leonuris, Echinacea ‘Hot Lava’ (photo from Terra Nova), Cornus ‘Midwinter Fire’, Acer palmatum ‘Beni Otake’ (photo from Buchholz and Buchholz)

From left to right: Azalea ‘Mandarin Lights’ (photo from Singing Tree Gardens), Coreopsis ‘Cherry Lemonade’ (photo from Terra Nova), Calluna vulgaris ‘Firefly’, Uncinia uncinata ‘Red’

I hope these twenty Tangerine Tango-inspired picks inspire you to play with color in your deer garden for the coming year.

And if you’re unsure about using fiery orange plants, you can always experiment with paint colors or décor. These Tangerine Tango-colored cushions add a splash of color, and there’s no danger of the deer eating them!

See what my fellow members of the Garden Designers Roundtable have to say about gardening with deer:

Rebecca Sweet : Gossip in the Garden : Bay Area, CA

Lesley Hegarty & Robert Webber : Hegarty Webber Partnership : Bristol, UK

Pam Penick : Digging : Austin, TX

Douglas Owens-Pike : Energyscapes : Minneapolis, MN

Christina Salwitz : Personal Garden Coach : Renton, WA

Susan Morrison : Blue Planet Garden Blog : East Bay, CA

Debbie Roberts : A Garden of Possibilities : Stamford, CT

Want to read more?

Deer on a Diet: Tips for Gardening with Deer

Deer-Resistant Plantings You Can’t F*** Up

Oranges and Ambers Brighten the Garden

When selling your home, it really stinks to spend money on improvements that you may not recoup. However, it stinks worse to have your perfectly lovely home sit for ages, unsold, because that first impression isn’t all it could be.

Recently, I wrote about a few weird tricks that are inexpensive but generate some serious curb appeal fast:

How to Spruce Up Your Landscaping for a Fast Sale

This is easy, weekend warrior type of stuff. Once you know a few quick things to tackle, it’s not too hard to select a few projects and make a significant difference fast.

Of course, great minds think alike! I noticed that Debbie over at Garden of Possibilities also recently tackled the same topic! Here’s her take:

Enhancing Curb Appeal

If you need more than just a few quick tips and fast projects, these books might help:

Taunton’s Curb Appeal Idea Book (by Taunton, who publishes Fine Gardening Magazine)

Sunset’s Guide to Curb Appeal

House Colors: Exterior Color by Style of Architecture

Photo at left: Mackerel showing his love of Phormium ‘Black Adder’

October always makes me want to curl up with my gardening books and highlight the deliciously wicked black plants found within. But you don’t need to limit black and dark plants to Halloween. They can fit into pretty much any garden scheme, from English cottage, Japanese, tropical, woodland, or any style of gardening you’ve got going on.

Looking for some goth gardening inspiration?

My latest column over at Landscaping Network brings exactly that, in Deep Dark Plants for the Halloween Garden. In it, I share tips for how to harmonize dark-foliaged plants with the rest of your garden, as well as some top picks for container gardeners and in-the-ground gardeners.

Last year, I was similarly smitten, and went back to my goth-girl roots for an article about my favorite Gothy Black Plants for the Garden.

This year, I tackled the design end of things with my post for the Garden Designers Roundtable, Dark Designs.

Introducing dark plants into the garden can definitely take some cojones. They’re such an unexpected addition that they always attract attention, and while it’s easy to combine black with other colors when we’re getting dressed, it can take a bit more nerve to create long-lasting combinations with black in the garden. Read the article for some quick tips on getting started.

Then, two of my pals have also caught the black plants bug. Rebecca Sweet shows off photos of her ten favorite black plants, and Fern Richardson has a very helpful list of black plants for container gardeners. Go on over and check them out!

With Halloween around the corner, what more appropriate topic for the Garden Designers Roundtable to tackle than darkness? Specifically, dark and black foliage.

Black is dramatic. Unexpected. It’s all about contrast – between dark and light, living and dead. Like a glittered Day of the Dead skeleton, there’s a playfulness there, along with a somber dignity. Darkness in the garden must be used with intention, because whether you’re using it well or poorly, it will be noticed.

Here are some tips to rocking the darker tones:

Darkness adds depth to a small garden

(Design by Ryan Scott (top), Patricia Wells (bottom left), and Ryan Scott (bottom right).)

Because dark colors often seem to recede into the backdrop, using them can be an easy way of fooling the eye into thinking a space is bigger than it really is.

In the top photo, the dark color and open form of the smoke bush (Cotinus coggygria) lends a feeling of airiness to the planting, and makes the garden feel larger than it really is. Had the designer chosen a green shrub instead, I think the garden could have felt walled-off.

You can see the same concept in play in the bottom right photo, in which the Japanese maple adds a feeling of depth to the garden bed. The ivy-covered wall behind it could feel fortress-like, if not for the skillful use of dark foliage to bring a textural and color contrast to the bed.

In the bottom left photo, this garden path feels mysterious and compelling because of the tension created by the dark-foliaged fuchsia tree obscuring the destination.

Using dark plants to play with shadows is an easy way to bring depth and spaciousness to the garden.

Let darkness punctuate rather than dominate

In this garden, the striking chocolate-black edges on this flax bring a needed balance to the warm tones of the home and the garden plants. Without the bold exclamation point of the flax, the pink color of the home could turn cloying. But the careful use of dark color as a contrast makes all the colors feel like part of an intentional design statement, and it works beautifully.

Use referee plants between potentially clashing colors

I wouldn’t be that keen on the gold of this spirea with the bronzed purple of this plantain, if not for the fact that they have a layer of green running interference between them.

“Referee” plants calm everyone down and smooth any potential clashes with a color and texture that’s hard to argue with.

While you’re getting comfortable introducing some dark colors into your garden, try putting a friendly layer of green in between any combinations you’re unsure of. As you figure out what works, you can become bolder in your pairings. (At left, design by Patricia Wells.)

Be playful!

Dark plants needn’t feel somber. I love how this garden bed changes from refined to wildly exuberant with the addition of these tulips in spring. (Design by Tina Rousselot.)

Above, this fearlessly colorful garden uses dark plants to accent and anchor a variety of flower colors and textures. The darkness of the foliage gives a feeling of structure and continuity that makes this enthusiastic perennial bed feel well-planned. (Design by Patricia Wells.)

Looking for more inspiration about how to play with darkness in the garden? Two other members of the Garden Designers Roundtable will be writing about darkness today as well, so go on over and check out their posts!

Lesley Hegarty & Robert Webber : Hegarty Webber Partnership : Bristol, UK

Jocelyn Chilvers : The Art Garden : Denver, CO