Garden Decoration With An Emphasis On Trees, Shrubs And Conifers. Photo

Table of contents:

Garden Decoration With An Emphasis On Trees, Shrubs And Conifers. Photo
Garden Decoration With An Emphasis On Trees, Shrubs And Conifers. Photo

Video: Garden Decoration With An Emphasis On Trees, Shrubs And Conifers. Photo

Video: Garden Decoration With An Emphasis On Trees, Shrubs And Conifers. Photo
Video: Dwarf Conifer Display Garden – Landscaping with Dwarf Conifers 2024, March
Anonim

The simplest and most effective way to design a garden that requires minimal maintenance is to use shrubs and trees in landscaping wherever possible. This approach means an almost complete rejection of the usual decorative compositions, perennials and annuals. A bet on large and durable "skeletal" plants, at first glance, seems like a solution not only radical, but also boring. This method of decorating a garden is not suitable for lovers of flower beds and flower beds. But it has its own charm. Monumental design allows you to create beautiful harmonious projects and lush vegetation design on your site, which does not require much effort from you and will retain style and beauty for decades.

A plot of the garden with a predominance of shrubs and trees of coniferous and deciduous species
A plot of the garden with a predominance of shrubs and trees of coniferous and deciduous species

Content:

  • Advantages and disadvantages of the monumental approach to plant selection
  • Small assumptions for the bloom game
  • Shrubs, trees and conifers - plants with which they create a unique inviolability
  • The basis of the garden design is dominant and skeletal plants
  • A fresh take on decorative compositions and space filling
  • Lawns, ponds and decor

Advantages and disadvantages of the monumental approach to plant selection

Flower beds, ridges, mixborders, massifs, seasonal accents, lawns and ground cover glades - all these objects only decorate the garden, are the main tools for color, stylistic and individual design. But they are also rightfully recognized as the most difficult objects to care for. Rejecting the usual flower beds and all the seasonal or losing their decorativeness within 3-7 years of plants, you can significantly simplify the care of the garden and reduce work in it to a minimum, freeing up time for rest, entertainment or pastime to your taste.

This version of a lazy garden is not for everyone. After all, not every gardener can give up his favorite flower beds and the usual mixtures of herbaceous perennials in favor of practicality, the play of textures and deep contrasts of garden giants.

The main advantages of landscaping with a focus on shrubs and trees:

  • durability - the garden, having reached the maximum decorativeness of plants, will remain unchanged for decades;
  • leaving will be minimized - haircuts, dressing and other procedures that will be required for the selected shrubs and trees;
  • the garden will always look classy, grand, monumental and noble;
  • it is impossible to create more protected from prying eyes and secluded landscaping;
  • there are opportunities to reveal in a new way familiar types of shrubs and trees, to use their talents in all their diversity;
  • the garden looks great at any time of the year, it is magnificent even in winter, because, in fact, almost all plantings in it are skeletal.

Visible disadvantages of such projects "scare away" from landscaping mainly from bushes and trees:

  • limited flowering and the possibility of introducing color accents;
  • too classic a garden is not always an advantage;
  • in such a garden, any miscalculations with the structure or selection of plants come to the fore (it is especially difficult to observe the ratio of scale, mass and other compositional means);
  • design requires bold moves, unexpected, original solutions and the ability to look outside the box at the task at hand;
  • landscaping should be in complete harmony with the house and other buildings;
  • when choosing any shrub or tree, you need to carefully select contrasts in leaf shapes, silhouettes, textures, observing the rules of deep contrast.

But it would be a big mistake to think that, because of its rarity, a garden decorated with the absolute dominance of shrubs and trees is the most boring and gloomy possible option. The assortment of deciduous and evergreen species is so great that even completely unexpected, exotic forms and colors can be found. Indeed, even the familiar “our” trees have amazing decorative forms and varieties, the appearance of which seems amazingly exclusive.

It is the choice of flowering, and decorative deciduous, and deciduous, and evergreen bushes and trees that allows an increasing number of professional designers to decide in the design of gardens that do not need painstaking care, to rely on skeletal plants. This design solves several problems at once - both creating a consistently attractive landscaping, and achieving amazing practicality of projects.

Where the landscape is dominated by shrubs and conifers, there is always a feeling of classical style and some monumentality. This does not mean at all that the style of the garden must necessarily be just a classic or one of the basic regular trends, but it is better to use rather than ignore the nature of the plantings to achieve a special atmosphere of impeccable harmony and cozy solemnity.

The abundance of bushes and trees of various sizes and shapes creates an excellent base from which to create projects that combine the natural beauty and charm of nature with regular symmetry or bold modern solutions. Such a garden definitely cannot be decorated in a country style. But whether to make it a classic Russian, English, rustic (a style based on rough natural beauty), French, Dutch, Scandinavian or to design it in modern, hi-tech, minimalist styles is up to you.

Landscaping with accents of trees, shrubs and conifers
Landscaping with accents of trees, shrubs and conifers

Small assumptions for the bloom game

It is impossible to completely abandon herbaceous perennials and annuals in any garden. When it comes to a garden with dominant shrubs and trees, this design does not mean that “other” crops are not used in landscaping. It's just that the number of such plants is minimized and used literally as piece decorations and living decor.

There is no place for ordinary flower beds, rabatkas and islets or seasonal accents in this design. Herbaceous and seasonal plants are introduced into the design of the garden as exclusive, luxurious points of attraction for the eye where it is necessary to create a special atmosphere or compensate for the gloom, volume, and monumentality of the created landscape.

Methods for introducing herbaceous crops into the design of a garden with a stake on skeletal monumental plants:

  1. A selection of durable landscape plants that perfectly complement shrubs and bring visual lightness to groups of large plants, most often ornamental grasses, large perennials like astilbe and fern, ornamental hosts, textured heucheras.
  2. Creation of just one beautifully flowering object from a number of exclusive compositions - iridarium, rose garden, primularia, swamp flower bed, a collection of rare exotics, etc.
  3. Introduction of several "spots" or a specially marked narrow border at the most ceremonial and striking place for the annual landing of one summer flyer according to your taste.
  4. Introduction to front garden design, placement at the entrance or seating area of stone flower girls or vases to accommodate multiple seasonal arrangements.

The first method involves the choice of one or two species, which will create a connecting link in the entire design, fill it with meaning and lightness, play the role of an ideal companion for the selected trees and shrubs. It is necessary to choose really favorite perennials from among the unpretentious and durable species, plants, one type of which causes positive emotions in the owners.

In modern gardens, it is no coincidence that the choice of designers most often falls on decorative grains - airy, textural, musical, diverse, with a play of colors and lines, sparkling and noisy, they literally fill the created basis of a garden of massive plants with life and movement.

The other three are means equivalent to decor. They also bring animation and harmony to the decor, act as living decor and create favorite focal points.

All the rest of the garden space, all the other roles that are assigned to plants in the design are the lot of bushes and trees.

Shrubs, trees and conifers - plants with which they create a unique inviolability

When decorating any garden, how successful the design is is always judged in winter. After all, only when flowers and leaves no longer attract attention and do not distract, you can really objectively assess whether enough skeletal plantings have been laid in order for the garden to retain its attractiveness.

Fullness and beauty in winter are carried not only by evergreen stars, but also by all, without exception, even deciduous, hedges, tree trunks, graphic lines of single soloists. In a garden in which shrubs and trees rule the ball, such a problem cannot arise in principle: after all, even in a rock garden or rockery, in place of a grassy star or rug, miniature copies of the most spectacular conifers and bushes flaunt. Such a garden is always guaranteed to look perfect, even in winter.

As in an ordinary garden, in this design, all plants are divided into five groups:

  1. Dominants.
  2. Skeletal landings.
  3. Decorative ensembles.
  4. Placeholders.
  5. Seasonal stars.

But the difference is that spectacular shrubs and woody ones are chosen as the main decorative, seasonal stars instead of herbaceous perennials and annuals, and creeping species are used for filling in combination with decorative dumping and mulch.

Decoration of a garden and flower beds with a predominance of deciduous and coniferous shrubs
Decoration of a garden and flower beds with a predominance of deciduous and coniferous shrubs

The basis of the garden design is dominant and skeletal plants

Dominant plants in the garden, where the stake was placed on durable giants, must be selected especially carefully. The main focal points and the most massive vertical accents should be placed around the garden in such a way as to create the perfect counterbalance to the house and buildings, get rid of monotony and set all the basic design techniques. Particular attention should be paid to beautiful contours, ideally to balance all major crops in silhouette, height, mass.

Skeletal plantings, it would seem, should occupy the entire area in this design style. But in practice, everything is not so simple. As in any other method of landscaping, skeletal plants are the “frame” of the garden, the group of plants that forms its structure. And although decorative plantings will also be replaced by bushes and conifers, this does not make them part of the skeletal base.

Basic plantings should be planned so that the plants are just the background in the summer and come to the fore in the winter. The main attention is paid to the shape of the crown, fruits, winter-green leaves, beautiful bark.

When creating both dominants and skeletal plantings, coniferous crops remain favorites in the middle lane. Austere and solemn, with their dark, rich color and dense textures, easily recognizable and expressive lines, they allow you to play with scale, contours and mass at the same time, creating a background that will perfectly contrast with other plants, regardless of the choice.

Light and color solutions against the background of conifers will sparkle in a new way, a basic deep contrast will be created within the compositions, which will make it easy to play with individual accents. Conifers perfectly correlate with each other, and with deciduous shrubs, and with stone chips or stones. And they can easily cope with a variety of roles, including:

  • divide the space into separate seasons;
  • create hedges, and not necessarily strict;
  • play the role of a counterweight to the house and buildings;
  • will give privacy and security to any design;
  • will place accents and bring structure;
  • will allow you to play with vertical relief.

At the same time, in addition to giants like spruce and thuja, you can safely use pines, and junipers, and yews in the design of the garden.

Deciduous trees are not inferior in beauty to coniferous dominants, many of which are much better able to reveal the style of the garden - birch, linden, maples. The latter even offer such an assortment of species and colors that it will not be quite easy to dwell on one particular plant.

The favorites of the skeletal frame among the shrubs do not change in such projects either: unpretentious but beautiful honeysuckles, dogwoods, barberries, hawthorns, irga, deren, viburnum, etc. will cope better with the task.

Garden decoration with shrubs and conifers
Garden decoration with shrubs and conifers

A fresh take on decorative compositions and space filling

Where, in ordinary gardens, revitalization and variety are brought with the help of decorative perennials that fill the garden space between dominants and skeletal plantings, open areas and garden paths, radically different plants are used in the design with a focus on shrubs and woody plants.

As ornamental crops for various ensembles, arrays, groups and compositions, as well as for the role of decorative tapeworms, flowering shrubs, the best vines and species with a particularly attractive color, texture, non-standard shape and other decorative "zest" are chosen.

Even in decorative compositions, the first plants you should think of are conifers, inimitable dwarf or compact species with irregular colors or perfect shapes. They are able not only to place catchy contrasting accents, polish on rock gardens or in a group, but also cope with the task of creating charming borders, help to play with strict lines and bring perfection and revitalization even to boring corners.

Delightful mountain pines of the "mini" format, horizontal junipers, the colors of the varieties of which allow you to select hundreds of shades of blue-green and dark green, trimmed into strict thuja figures - these are just a few examples.

Do not forget about deciduous species, because they can also become a true design star with a focus on durability. A win-win combination is a play of shades of green with silver, but you can also pick up decorative deciduous crops with a completely different look.

Bordered derain, silver sucker, barberries, euonymus, cotoneaster - only by selecting different types of these shrubs can you create a group of stunning beauty. But today the choice is not limited only by them. Inimitable at the end of the garden season, snowberry, charming decorative goat willows, purple and white will set the tone for the design and bring a touch of exclusivity.

Although the main favorite of any minimalistic design is barberry. Different heights, density and type of structure, beautiful flowering, different shades of leaf color allow you to use this shrub as you like and outside of skeletal plantings. In addition, barberries tolerate formation perfectly, which only expands the already almost limitless possibilities. From this shrub, you can even create a separate zone - a mini-garden or a front garden of barberries, mixing up to 20 species and varieties.

Even climbing roses can be used in such a garden, but only if you choose the most modest and almost maintenance-free varieties. But it is better, instead of garden princesses, to use those vines that can grow for decades without your intervention - species, not varietal clematis, honeysuckle, wisteria, lemongrass, ground cover hydrangeas, girlish grapes, ivy.

Of the flowering shrubs, they also rely on the most proven and hardy species that require minimal care, choosing the most effective options only as accents, carefully assessing how many shrubs you can pay attention to.

The flowering relay can be created even without the participation of herbaceous perennials. Forsythias, yellow acacia, treelike hydrangeas, decorative apple and sakura trees, rowan trees, spireas and mock-mushrooms that do not give rise to lilacs, decorative viburnums and currants, inimitable shrub cinquefoil - all of them will help create flowering accents and spots in the monumental garden.

When creating decorative plantings, you need to try to achieve not the greatest splendor and integrity, but a spectacular catch. Each plant should contrast with its neighbors and stand out effectively in any company. Orange-leaved or red-leaved spireas with purple bladders and gray spruces are an example of a perfect combination. The same can be attributed to the composition of barberries, variegated thuja and cinquefoil shrubs or an ensemble of bladder, barberry, spirea and junipers.

Fillers, ground covers, carpet crops and touching rugs are great decoration tools, but in a garden that wants to make maintenance easier and make the most of shrubs and trees, they are not always appropriate. Creeping shrubs - euonymus, junipers, etc., as well as ivy and decorative grapes, which can be used not only in vertical design, will help to solve the problem of replacing filler plants. Plants go well with decorative loose coatings - bark mulch, gravel paths and playgrounds, playing with the texture of crumbs from different types of stone. By combining stones and creeping views, you can achieve unprecedented expressiveness and a flawless look.

Seasonal accents should not be massive, but “precise”. Choose your favorite plants that will create a great mood in the same place every year. Magnificent ageratum, marigolds, purslane, calendula and nasturtium require almost no maintenance, as do muscari, daffodils or species tulips with crocuses.

But one cannot say so about petunias, lobelias, varietal tulips and Co. Therefore, when choosing your accents, for which it is worth leaving small areas or places in the foreground, weigh the pros and cons. In order for such "piece" annuals and seasonal stars to make the garden shine, plant them near conifers - it will be impossible to find more contrast.

Use in landscaping a plot of shrubs and trees
Use in landscaping a plot of shrubs and trees

Lawns, ponds and decor

In a garden in which the main focus is on bushes and trees, a classic lawn is the most spectacular, logical, but not always the best option from a practical point of view. Arrays of junipers or coniferous lawns will fit more organically into the concept.

But if the area of the site does not allow you to simply spend large planes on non-functional zones, then you can break up an alternative lawn from ground covers, and set aside an area for a lawn in the shade, covering it with mosses, and equip loose coverings, and play with combined options from paving, dumping and ground cover plants that do not require maintenance. Of course, if you have the time and desire, a shining emerald platform will also fit into the classic look of the monumental garden.

Even in the design of reservoirs in this version of the garden arrangement, the dominance of bushes and trees should be preserved. Fortunately, the choice of species that can settle on the banks, as well as options for using stone in the decor or the construction of decorative walkways, are limited only by the imagination.

Cinquefoil, hazel, spireas, derens, barberries, willows and giants in the form of pine, larch, pedunculate oak or Ussuri pear are excellent candidates for their role in decoration. Near a pond or stream, you can also break a swamp bed or a wet iridarium with irises, which prefer a moist environment, shifting here the only lush blooming garden object with herbaceous plants.

The main tool that can revitalize and fill the charm of a garden created on the basis of shrubs and trees is small architecture. Fountains that emphasize the style of garden decoration, classical or original garden sculpture and art objects, cozy benches and a gazebo, charming parapets and railings, bridges or lanterns, forged or wooden parts, large pots or vases, plinths and stone flower girls are accessories in such a garden should be catchy, perceived as objects of art. They are easy to place in focal points and those corners where color and emotion are desperately lacking.

Recommended: