​Purple Spring: Flowers in Bloom

It’s nearly June and gardening season is in full swing.  Spring is a great time to consider two really important points for a fully contextualized planting bed.  First, there are the flowers themselves.  Flowers are the aspect of most people know and desire for a space.  The second element however, is how to frame the flower so it is more alluring and compelling. The bloom of a flower needs to be accompanied by fullness: this is important to create drama as well as to have a full garden before and after the bloom.  In my opinion, this is critical to a successful planting. For the bloom to take on a dramatic character where the colors and shapes are magnified, the garden needs to be a stage for the flowers to shine. With the right background for your flowers, they transform from simple plants into a heroic protagonist of nature’s theater.  You get what you want with more intensity and beauty.

​OK, but How?
Accomplishing this can happen in several ways: some perennials have their own leaves that create seasonal interest early enough to both fill the space around the flower while offering a complimentary features.  Complimentary features like shape, texture, fullness, color and height are just a few examples of how foliage interplays with a flower.  The other way is to use other plants to create complimentary aspects to your flowers.  These other plants may replicate a feature of the flower, or may totally be different.
 
Three Examples
The image below is of an iris.  It’s basal leaves form a spiky throne while the stems for the flowers grow into position.   To really have irises sing, you need several plants located near each other.  In my example, there are three plants between 2ft and 3ft away. 

​​Planted around the iris is an elymus species that has a similar shaped leaf but is much darker than the iris leaf.  The two leaves intensify the sense of danger so that the bloom floats above the sharp points like a purple & white cloud in the sky.  The nice thing about both plants is that after the bloom is finished, the leaves remain and continue to fill the space throughout the season.  You can also see a Monarda didyma ‘Jacob Cline’ starting to grow in the lower left corner.  It will continue to grow and add color to the area as spring becomes summer and the irises are but a memory.
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Lupinus perennis

​The image above is of Lupinus perennis.  These are great late spring flowers that appear overnight.  They are extremely soft to the touch and offer a unique shape to a garden.  The L. perennis grows from a clump of foliage that you can see in the picture.  It fans out like long green fingers bring to mind tropical plants and warm beaches.  Its leaves pop out early in April (and sometimes in late March), coating a bed with interest before other plants have even awoken from winter dormancy.  In fact, the foliage is so attractive that I find myself visiting it over and over during the cool morning of April to see how they have developed.  Once it blooms, the contrast of the leaves and the cone-shaped flower bring the drama you want in a late spring garden. 
 
The last example is of a black tulip shown below.  Of all the examples, this is the earliest of early bloomers.  Tulips are a must-have for any planted bed.  Along with other bulb species, tulips are in full effect by mid April (if not sooner) and add color to a new year while other plants are still fast asleep.  The only down side to tulips are they offer nothing to a planted area after their bloom falls.  That shouldn’t stop anyone from using them…and in my opinion, you should use as many as you can.  I like to add more bulbs each autumn with the goal of establishing an army of tulips stationed any and everywhere possible throughout my yard. 

​You don’t want lonely tulips growing in a sea of old mulch.  That is the saddest of ways to present such incredible flowers.  Though most people think of Dutch farms as the origin of tulips, the reality is they come far afield from Western Europe.  These plants are from places like Turkey, Syria, Israel and Persia.  They are naturally found on steep hillsides where native grasses encircle them.  The long stem of the tulip gives this away.  Just like many prairie flowers from Midwest of the United States, perennials that have to compete for sunlight have evolved with a long giraffe-like neck to perch above its competitor’s blades.  To call back the wild and more natural state of wind swept mountainscapes, I like planting tulip bulbs within areas of native grasses.  In the image, above, you can see ryegrass and Calamagrostis creating a circle around the flower.  The grasses will be as high as 24 inches while the blossom is still tight and strong.  The green will give the dark purple something to play off and helps to intensify the aesthetic of a sustainable yard. 
 
Plants at Night
There’s no reason to only enjoy beautiful flowers during the day.  For about two years now, I’ve used an instagram hashtag #plantsatnight to show just how incredible different plants can be when no one is looking.  Below are a few shoots of the irises and Lupinus I recently took.  Enjoy!

​Want More on Sustainable Landscape Design:
​The Quest for the High Line in Suburbia
​Winter Gardening: Beauty in the After
Outdoor Seating I Love Right Now
Rain Parks and the Future of Rain