Accent In The Garden

Today was a relatively quiet day with some visitors to the Horticulture Center but primarily Dr. Gredler staining benches and me attached to my desk. I've been putting together some neat bus tours (Rotary Gardens Members only) for next year (Aug. 4 and Oct. 6) and continuing my perusal of seed and plant catalogs. Those bus trips will be on our website (www.rotarybotanicalgardens.org) by early January. We had a productive education committee meeting which helped solidify some initiatives that we'll follow next year for increased programming and an increased focus on our mission of providing that education. We saw Rose, Urban, two Marvins, Marianne, Janice, Big John as well as Bill and Maury in the afternoon. My recent blogs have had a landscape "slant" recently so I thought I'd continue with the concept of accent in the garden. Accents can certainly be specific plants that catch the eye and provide significant ornamentation because of their appearance and/or location. Accents can also be non-living elements like benches, sculptures, ornate containers or even the gazing ball as seen below. Accents allow us to not only personalize our space but can be integral to our design scheme. The second picture down, taken in my backyard (not), shows the value of an accent container as a focal point in a formal garden scene. Lined up with the circular gap in the wall, this formal element helps define the space and emphasizes the formal theme (as does the wall and distant hedge). Accents that are used as focal points will draw the eye thru a garden and perhaps add depth and interest to any sized space. RBG has accents in almost every garden space to help individualize the specific garden and perhaps contribute to the style of that garden (i.e. lanterns in the Japanese garden). Below are just some examples of accents that I've run across in recent years but the important thing to remember is the selection and placement of any garden accent is a very personal decision and the variability is limitless. I'm off tomorrow but may be able to sneak a blog in...