May 11, 2003
Contrasts
It's May and my garden is blooming. Maybe I was just impatient in March ... but finally things are going great.
The former owners of my house loved foxgloves. In fact, a neighbor even brought special foxglove seeds (what a lovely gift!) back from a vacation in England. Over the years the foxgloves have self-seeded so that they come up in any patch of dirt that gets even a small portion of sun and water in the front yard.
The result -- digitalis purpurea everywhere. And that's not a bad thing ... for example:
That's the front door of my house. You might also notice the white calla in the left background and the white shrub rose in the right background.
Of course, you can always have too much of a good thing. To wit
That's Gertrude Jekyll (a lovely David Austin rose) in the front, then foxgloves, and a glorious violet Rhododendron in the back. This view is a valuable lesson in contrasts for me. While each plant is lovely, the color scheme -- pink, pink, and pinky-violet -- is tiring on the eye. My trick -- look at it from a different angle.
Maybe next year I'll plant some Delphinia where the foxgloves are.