Green and White Plants

Attending spring garden lectures always sparks my own garden design ideas, and ever since last years visit to North Hill Gardens, I’m drawn to designing with more green and whites, both flowers and foliage. Not only will these blend beautifully with nature, but there are more variations on the theme than I can possibly imagine, leaving me plenty of room to explore. Here are just a few plants that are providing the backbone of my new design, for the decorative borders and the kitchen garden.
At a recent garden lecture by French landscape designer Louis Benech, hosted by Berkshire Botanical Gardens, I was inspired to loosen up my idea of how a garden should look. The lecture itself did not hold a candle the lecture given the year before by Hidcote Head Gardener, Glyn Jones. Yet once I accepted the fact that I could only hear a small amount of what he was saying, due in part to his French accent, a weak microphone and his philosophic dedication to the world of plants that trumped any desire to please the audience, I relaxed, put away my notebook and absorbed his slides with curiosity and awe. His perception of garden design is not just a visual experience, yet is a full immersion into the art of the landscape that has a discernible European flair. I had never heard of Louis Benech before, but his newest book titled Twelve French Gardens is a reflection on his impressive career, that includes restoration at the gardens in Villandry and Versailles, and showcases the wide range of his talents. As any good designer, he studies the site from all angles, as well as above looking down to capture a birds eye view of how the whole landscape fits together. In the printed program he writes: ” Different methods or attitudes may guide my work on gardens steeped in history: restitution, restoration, re-imagining, and in a few rare cases, even pure creation. But in the end, I often return to the same belief: there is not rule of approach to a garden, excepting the watchwords of care and humility.”