Design Element 6--Form

 

    

    Since rhododendrons take on many forms it
    is not difficult to find variety, but it is important to select
    shapes that complement each other. The 50-year-old r. fastigiatum
    in the center above make a tight mound and provide an interesting
    break in the path. They are a focal point the visitor can walk
    around, and are surrounded by increasingly taller shrubs and
    trees.

 

    Huge rhododendrons can be a backdrop rather
    than a focal point. They appear even larger when one focuses
    on an object in the foreground rather than on the plant itself.

    



     

    
The most common but still effective attention
    to form in garden design is arranging plants of increasing height
    from the near edge to the center or back of a bed. Good design
    means knowing how tall plants will grow in five or ten or twenty
    years. A garden is more interesting if the same pattern is not
    repeated in all beds. Both the height and steepness of the plantngs
    should be varied.

    
The bed at left lies between a lawn and
    the perimeter of the property, so it is larger than some. The
    layers of flowers ascend from waste-high to nearly twenty feet.
    Six different heights of rhododendrons are used.

    
Other beds begin with r. keleticum
    that are under a foot high, and some contain tall plants, such
    as the Beauty of Littleworth above, right up to the path or lawn.








© 2001 by John and Doreen Anderson