Kent Higgins

The Landscape Rhythm

This principle is less ephemeral than unity and more easily defined, and can even be set down in nearly precise mathematical terms. Essentially, the elements or areas of a design have a visual weight; and these weights achieve balance like that of the old-fashioned scale, or seesaw. If the seesaw is unbalanced, the result is distracting or disturbing. The principle of balance is usually mandatory, but the methods of achieving it are not. There are many ways to arrange elements and areas to achieve a balanced design; and here is where originality and personal taste improve the picture.

Two types of balanced composition are generally recognized – formal and informal. Formal balance calls for a focal point or center of interest in the center of the design, with areas and/or elements of equal weight on either side. You can’t go wrong with formal balance. There is no question that the geometric arrangement of classic rose gardens are of good design; or even that Colonial or Victorian settings seem suitable for formally balanced decoration.

In informal balance the focal point is off-center–above, below, to one side of the exact center; and it often achieves a lively, interesting effect. To break a broad expanse of garden wall, a vine is planted at one side of its center; or a pillar rose used as an accent is placed similarly off-center – in either case, the larger, unbroken or unaccented areas are large enough and have sufficient weight to balance the object of interest or accent.

Rhythm

Vitality and “dynamic line of force” are somewhat synonymous terms for rhythm. It is a basic principle that creates interest because it gives the effect of motion rather than of static immobility, variety rather than dull monotony. Using lines to create fluid effects contributes to rhythmic quality. For example, a combination of horizontal and vertical lines is more active, more mobile, than a set of running parallels, either horizontal or vertical. Hanging a vine down over the edge of a table, or letting it climb a wall behind a bookcase, at right angles to the horizontal line of the furniture like the hepa air filters, is more effective than training it in a parallel direction.

Using a variety of colors and tones, textures, and structural forms also helps create rhythm. So does allowing one element to overlap the next.

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Getting Decorative With Vines

When you step into a living room – your own or someone else’s – where a vine softly frames a large window with green leaf tracery, you feel an effect of gracious living and the pleasant kinship of the room with its outdoor view. When you entertain – or are entertained on a terrace or patio with the family or friends. even with the smell of the with the BBQ smoking away and the natural way vines spill down from containers along the edge or up and down the steps, your eyes dwell on the refreshment in well-planned design.

When you step up to a garden bed – familiar because you planted it, or intriguing because you didn’t – you appreciate its beauty more if it is unified by a flowering or foliage vine spreading along a fence or wall in the background.

This is the some of the decorative value of vines. Their relaxed, flowing lines blend one element with another, create smooth transitions, soften harsh geometric lines or large, bare areas. Vines are mobile, not static; exuberant, not depressing; in tune with today’s vitality and restlessness, yet somehow soothing, too.

Vines are both artistic and functional in container gardening – a popular way of decorating with all kinds of indoor and outdoor plants such as the sansevieria. The basis is the container or planter, mobile or permanent, carefully designed in relation to its decorative use and the plants it contains.

Anyone can garden in containers, no matter how small his house or yard, how limited his time and money, how impermanent his residence in apartment or house, or how deep-seated his desire for frequent and refreshing change. And anyone who does garden in containers will use vines to soften lines, accent points of interest, tie a group of plants or arrangement of containers together, or simply to have artistry of their own.

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Rules For Creating Landscape Unity And Harmony

It is easier to understand what unity does than to explain what it is. Any design – a small dish garden, cut-flower composition, living-room decor, patio planting, landscape – has unity if the whole hangs together to make one pleasing picture. Without unity a design “goes off in all directions,” has a restless, disorganized, discordant effect.

Not quite the same as unity, but an important part of it, is harmony – a restful quality created when all parts of a design or decorative effect add up to one style or mood. An extreme example may illustrate the point. Setting an urn of clean, stark contemporary lines beside an ornate, Victorian garden seat would be inharmonious; each style is foreign to and unsympathetic with the other. But a low fence is in harmony with the rose that clambers over it; vining plants can unite harmoniously the upright plants in a window box with the box itself.

There are innumerable techniques for unifying a design, of which the following five are probably basic.

1. To have unity, a design usually has only one focal point or center of interest. For example, a vine or other planting and its container can be the object of interest against a wall; or the vine can be so arranged that it supports a center of interest, like a fireplace. Any attempt to use it for both purposes can result in either chaos or complete lack of interest.

2. To have unity, a decorative effect should be designed to hold the eye inside the picture. The flowing lines of vines are particularly effective here. Training a vine around a large window, for example, holds the eye and keeps it from wandering off.

3. To have unity, the elements of a design can often be arranged so that they interlock or overlap. Here again, vines are useful. Without a vine planted at its base, a tall shrub may seem entirely separate from the tub it is planted in; when a vine overlaps the container below and the shrub above, the two are tied together.

4. To have unity, the important parts of a design must be in pleasing relative proportion or scale. The vine selected to blend a shrub like yucca branched and its tub should be neither so small that the shrub overpowers it, nor so large and bold that it dwarfs the shrub.

5. To have unity, a design or decorative effect should be executed with restraint, moderation, good taste. Too many elements create a disturbing, helter-skelter, cluttered appearance. So a single wall bracket or hanging basket, or a matching or harmonious pair, is generally preferable to a varied assortment.

Create your own unity in the landscape with vines!

Kent Higgins frequently contributes to http://www.plant-care.com. The more you know the better decisions you can make, like the topic of yucca branched. Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service

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