Creating an attractive garden employs both art and science. We use science when we meet a plant’s physical needs such as sunlight, water and nutrients. We use art when a plant’s physical appearance becomes the brush stroke that creates beauty. Many think of a plant’s color first, but texture is of equal importance in garden design.
A garden’s texture appeals to both our tactile and visual senses. We use words like feathery, fuzzy, rough and velvety to describe the way a plant feels.
Besides giving a garden its feel, texture also helps determine its look. Using a variety of visual textures can turn monotonous into marvelous. Even an all green, shaded garden becomes a visual treat when texture is considered. First, select plants that vary according to the size of their foliage—fine, medium, bold—such as feathery fronds of ferns, medium leaves of heuchera (coral bells) and bold leaves of hosta.
Also, vary the plant size and height. Use a massive five-foot tall hosta with a medium-tall heart-leaved caladium and a ripple-leaved coleus. Another choice might be a huge oak-leaved hydrangea, a variegated hosta, and a speckled leaf pulmonaria.
A sun-filled garden could employ the same strategies with lance-shaped iris foliage, feathery silver artemisia, arching foliage of daylilies and the bold foliage of peonies.
Even a vegetable garden can look less utilitarian by combining textures that contrast. Pair the deeply lobed leaves of tomato plants with tall airy dill, feathery carrot tops, and ruffled lettuce as well as medium textures of basil, parsley and spinach.
Garden views can be close up or at a distance. Long views change textural qualities and depend on the interplay of light and shadows as well as the effect of mass plantings. At a distance it takes several fine-foliaged plants to equal the visual mass of one large-leaved plant.
Bold-leaved plants appear to be closer, whereas fine-leaved plants recede into the background. Knowing this, gardeners can create the illusion of small, intimate spaces within a large expanse or a lighter airy feel in a small area. Use roughly two-thirds fine-textured plants with one-third medium- to bold-textured plants to create a spacious feel. Reverse the proportions to achieve more intimate areas.
See also “Home Landscape,” PM 2004, at https://store.extension.iastate.edu/ or check the local library for “Refresh Your Garden Design with Color, Texture and Form” by Rebecca Sweet or “Fine Foliage” by Karen Chapman.
(For answers to your gardening questions, call Hortline at Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, (515) 294-3108 or email firstname.lastname@example.org.)