Give Your Garden Mass Appeal

Increase drama and reduce maintenance with a design that focuses on grouping your plants

There is no deny that massing plants makes an impact . Many of the most compelling garden ( think Piet Oudolf ’s High Line planting in New York ) have masses of plants . Massing has play a big persona in a duad of influential planting motion of the previous 20th and former 21st centuries . The New American Garden elan of Wolfgang Oehme and James van Sweden , and the New Perennial Movement , defend by Oudolf , Noel Kingsbury , and others , immediately parachute to mind . We bang their names , and some of us can conjure up an idea of what their planting styles may look like . But more often when gardener intend of massing , they call to mind big commercial properties .

These spaces generally have bombastic installations of some uncouth plant that are surrounded by mulch . They look inflexible and sense cold and neutral — exactly the contrary of how we desire our place gardens to feel . So how do you mass plants to produce drama and impingement without creating a landscape you ’d find oneself surrounding an business office construction ? This was on the nose the challenge we face at Afterglow Farm , a secret home in Ozaukee County , Wisconsin , where the gardens are spread over about an Akka and a half around a sprawl stone bungalow . We design the planting beds to be large for make an impingement within the 120 - acre wooded dimension . But the ocular lick really come from our use of massing , which attend to to simplify the intention and create cohesiveness in these large beds . As a incentive , such massing offers rock-bottom maintenance .

There is a time to mass, and a time to mix and mass

While a traditional interracial border ( or any mixed planting ) can look dramatic and exciting , it can also often seem in use or spotty . It takes considerable science , knowledge , and live to be able to combine lots of single varieties of industrial plant and achieve skilful design effect . It is even more difficult to get a mixture of many wide-ranging plant that will look dear from spring to fall . The bigger the garden , the more difficult it can be to pull off a mixed planting that always bet good . Massing can be part of the solvent to these problem .

Massing of a individual , standout plant variety can cover a with child area of a garden without the bother of feature to match up plants with standardised conditional necessity , or to be certain that the bloom colors of different varieties look good together . At Afterglow Farm we have a planting of astilbe ( Astilbe chinensis , Zones 4–9 ) load 30 feet long and 7 infantry cryptical under an bowed pine tree Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree ( see exposure , top ) . It makes a swelled assertion , and it covers a lot of ground .

Massing also increases the impact of texture . In another area measure about 30 groundwork recollective by 10 substructure wide , we ’ve grouped 26 clump of little bluestem grass ( Schizachyrium scoparium , Zones 3–9 ) behind more than 30 ‘ Blue Wonder ’ Nepeta cataria ( Nepeta‘Blue Wonder ’ , Zones 3–8 ) and then let in a belittled pocket of ‘ Little Spire ’ Russian sage ( Perovskia atriplicifolia‘Little Spire ’ , Zones 5–9 ) between these two larger plantings . It ’s out of the question to ignore the okay texture of the gage and Russian sage above the denser mound of Nepeta cataria ( exposure , below ) . The fact that the leaf and bloom color of all these plants is like only make the waves of grain more impactful — especially when the wind blow . No one will use the words “ spotty ” or “ busy ” to describe such a scene .

Over time , however , my associate Christine and I have made changes to the original pot of plants to get more mixed bag and to achieve more of an English mixed delimitation looking at . We have flirt with the be mass plantings , eliminating some , adding novel one , and splitting others up by mixing in new plants . The result is what I call “ mix and mass . ” An example of this concept is best illustrate in an area surrounding a with child Austrian true pine ( Pinus nigra , Zones 4–7 ) . The just about 6 - foot - deep and 30 - foot - long touch was originally planted with mostly ‘ Six Hills Giant ’ catmint ( Nepeta‘Six Hills Giant ’ , Zones 3–8 ) . To introduce more grain and height , we mixed in cluster of ‘ Summer Beauty ’ allium ( Allium‘Summer ravisher ’ , Zones 5–9 ) , some ‘ Becky ’ shasta daisy ( Chrysanthemum×superbum‘Becky ’ , Zones 4–9 ) , and a few clumps of ‘ Blue Star ’ kalimeris ( Kalimeris incisa‘Blue Star ’ , Zones 5–9 ) in multiples of three and five . This mean that we kept some of the subsist mass of the long - bloom catnip but tot even more sake by integrate in smaller masses of other plants .

Choose the right plants

Another reason that massing in commercial-grade landscapes may often seem uninspired has to do with the type of plant used . Daylilies , carpet rose , and sealed cosmetic grasses can be really utilitarian when planting in difficult context , but they have become ubiquitous . And while it is always good to choose the proper plant for the conditions , why not use something a little more unexpected ?

At Afterglow Farm , we use many different plant for massing . So while you will see large planting of more distinctive ‘ Goldsturm ’ black - eyed Susan ( Rudbeckia‘Goldsturm ’ , Zones 3–9 ) and ‘ Karl Foerster ’ feather reed grass ( Calamagrostis×acutiflora‘Karl Foerster ’ , Zones 5–9 ) , we also mix it up with many other pick perennials , such as Allium , Shavalski ’s ligularia ( Ligularia przewalskii , Zones 4–8 ) , and ‘ Autumn Bride ’ heuchera ( Heuchera villosa‘Autumn Bride ’ ) . Much of the plant pick at Afterglow is also determined by what can defy the deer browse . In gardens where size allows , use masses that flower at different times . This can shift the focussing of attention around the garden as the time of year dally out . We ’re able to go around the bloom time in sealed areas from midspring through the destruction of summer . When using multiple masses of plants in the same area , it is important to regard any overlap bloom time to create pleasing color combinations or demarcation , depending on your intent . The other retainer with multiple massing in an region is to practice plant that have a long flowering period and/or are interesting even before or after bloom . In our gardens , a mass of ‘ Brunette ’ American hellebore ( Actaea simplex‘Brunette ’ , Zones 4–9 ) arrive at an impact all season long . The dark - leaved ‘ Brunette ’ is attractive in spring when match with purple aquilege ( Aquilegia vulgaris , Zones 4–9 ) and yellow green - flowered lady ’s mantle ( Alchemilla mollis , Zones 3–8 ) . afterwards in summertime , the grouping still looks good next to white - blossom meadowsweet ( Filipendulacv . , Zones 3–9 ) . These combinations all occur before the bugbane itself at long last blossom in other autumn .

How you lay them out matters

The way you found your masses can mean the dispute between a garden that looks corporal and one that look stylish . Often the use of massing in a commercial landscape can look unfaltering or regimented because planting is done in elongate rows with regular spacing within geometrical - shaped areas . Plant spacing matters , and we often plant with much sloshed spatial arrangement than recommended . We generally do n’t use linear placement . Instead , we place plants irregularly within the depute orbit , spacing them off of each other in any direction . We consult the nursery tag for recommended spacing , but we in general eye the intent rather than using a evaluate peter . We by choice create masses with irregular border , bending and intermix the edges . Masses take on amoeba - similar shapes without right Angle or straight line . The result is a much more innate and dynamic look , as the eye tends to postdate these shapes in and out , resting less and instead looking for patterns . Plant - space guidelines are just that : guidelines . You should also use your experience or suspicion about how tight you want the plant to grow .

The way of life you dwell out the plants can also affect whether or not you reap the benefits of reduced maintenance that massing can put up . Laying individual plant out in large , closely grouped plantings can stand for less infinite for weeds to mature and less need for mulch . For exercise , we implant a hoi polloi of ‘ Blue Wonder ’ Nepeta cataria at approximately 16 inches on center rather than survey the recommended 24 - in spatial arrangement . This means that the plant life relegate into each other and cover all the reason between them . We usually give the catmint a trim after the initial bloom to freshen and advance a second flush of flowers anyway , and that prevents too much overlapping .

Massing provides cohesion and simplifies a design while stimulate a large impact in your garden both visually and in terms of maintenance . prefer plant that lick in the conditions you have and that have more than one time of year of interest — and remember beyond the usual suspects . Why flora three when 23 would work ? Sometimes more is more .

Design

Mass by Numbers

When you ’re first planting your masses , it can be hard to foresee how many plants to include and how close to install them . This part of the garden was originally design by Judith Stark about a class before I came to Afterglow Farm . Although it has changed quite a bit since then , it ’s a upright model of what the masses in one country of the garden wait like in a planting plan ( below ) and what the garden look like all fill up in several years afterward .

1.‘Peach Blossom ’ astilbe

( Astilbe×rosea‘Peach Blossom ’ , Zones 4–9)12 plants

2 . Winter Glow bergenia

( Bergenia cordifolia‘Winterglut ’ , Zones 4–8)First group : 15 plant ; Second group : 5 plants

3 . ‘ Blue Wonder ’ catmint

( Nepeta racemosa‘Blue Wonder ’ , zone 3–8)7 plant

4 . ‘ Kobold ’ blazing champion

( Liatris spicata‘Kobold ’ , Zones 3–8)First group : 5 plant ; Second group : 21 plants

5 . ‘ Moonshine ’ yarrow

( Achillea‘Moonshine ’ , Zones 3–8)15 plants

6 . Prairie dropseed

( Sporobolus heterolepis , Zones 3–9)11 flora

7 . Blue star topology

( Amsonia hubrichtii , Zones 5–8)3 plants

high-impact garden

Get a high-impact, low-care garden.There may not be a ton of different types of plants in this landscape, but it’s still eye-catching. The interest comes from selecting a limited number of varieties and then grouping them into flowing masses.

8 . Bloody geranium

( Geranium sanguineum , geographical zone 3–9)15 plants

9 . ‘ Brookside ’ geranium

This clearly is not a commercial garden.Plant choice and placement ensure that this space won’t be mistaken for the landscape of a big-box store.

( Geranium‘Brookside ’ , zone 5–9)3 plants

Dean Wiegert is the head nurseryman at Afterglow Farm in Wisconsin .

Photos : Danielle Sherry

Texture makes more of an impact en masse.It can be hard to make texture stand out when using singular plants within a border, but group several plants with dynamic texture together and you get undeniable impact.

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