In taking some photos this week in my garden, I was struck by how the use of one color in a very ‘boundaried’ manner can make for a memorable composition. As gardeners, color plays such a prominent role in our creations, that it is easy to forget that ‘less’ can sometimes prove to be more effective. Gazing [...]
I’ve been trying to stay cheerful about the glories of the winter garden, but it’s getting harder. If the days were actually as warm as they look from inside, I’d be sharpening my shears and scythe, firing up the brush mower, and reducing all of the remaining stems and seedheads to mulch. Many of the [...]
I’ve got a thing for dark foliage. I love its smoky, sultry color, the way it can deepen a planting and lend it an air of mystery at the same time. It’s also a great foliage contrast with almost any other color and since I’m one of those who believes in building gardens from the [...]
Text and photographs ©Nancy J. Ondra 2008 The point of this month’s Garden Blogger’s Design Workshop is to indulge in some sumptuous color at a time when many of us don’t have much to celebrate in our outdoor gardens. But when you consider that browns are such a big part of our surroudings for a [...]
In the last post on red, I talked about using red as the la piece de le resistance, as that startling, snazzy ‘something’ that will knock your socks off. In this piece, I want to talk about red as the conductor or framework of a composition. I think gardeners find red to be such a [...]