Walk this Way: Two Good Design Pointers

If you own a house, there’s a good chance you have a side yard.  And you pay taxes on that side yard because it’s part of your property. Even so, many homeowners figure the side yards are an afterthought.  In a crowded city, the side yard is likely to be quite narrow and shady.  In the bungalow where I grew up, the sides of the house were cloaked with hostas and a slim ribbon of cement walk that lead from the street pass the side entryway and to the alley.  

Stand across from any house with side yards and notice how they frame the building.  They are part of the curb appeal.  What’s planted there?  How do the owners access their back yard?  What are the focal points--what draws your eye first?  And second?  

In our ex-urban one-acre setting -- we’re not quite in suburbia and not quite in farm country -- our side yards are quite large and filled with shrub borders and flanked by lawn and steps, planting beds around the foundation and arbors on each side of the house. 

I like arbors because they provide a sensation of leading one through a doorway and into the next garden room.  All the better if the style and  material of the arbor honors the architecture of the house.  This incredible arbor-and-fence combination enhances the turn-of-the-century frame house. What a bore this side yard would be with no flowers, no arbor, no path, just lawn.  There’s be nothing to stop your gaze.

But here your eyes are drawn to the arbor and then the sweep of plantings, curving around and hugging the lawn to the front walk.  It’s a stunning scene even in winter when the plants are dormant. 

There’s something else here that works particularly well but you may not notice immediately.  It’s the color palette.  And a very English one at that with pinks, chartreuse (lady’s mantle flowers), blue salvia, catmint, silver-leaved lamb’s ears, variegated dogwood and white daisies.  It’s a limited pastel palette--no hot-lips' reds, oranges, or other warm tones.  Oftentimes when a perennial border or even a container combination is not quite right, it’s the color palette.  Stick with a triad of colors or a monotone combination of one color and you can’t go wrong.  

For more on effective color combinations, see Painting Your Garden with Plants classes, coming this spring to the Chicago Botanic Garden.   

What are your favorite colors in the garden?