Front gardens contribute significantly to the overall ambience of a city. A town gains a particular kind of aura when attractive home gardens can be seen from the street. But as is the case with public gardens and parks, private gardens need gardeners to create them and maintain them. It takes time, money, and effort to establish gardens and for a tradition that emphasizes the importance of gardens to take root in a community. And partnering with Mother Nature means dealing with the vagaries of weather and other unforeseen challenges.

Trees and shrubs surround the stone home at 721 S. Ballantine Rd. and provide cooling green textures while the annuals and perennials are strategically placed to provide eye-catching splashes of color.

As C. B. Purdom wrote in 1913, “A gardener…knows that while great things come from small beginnings, a goodly tree does not spring up in one night; that what quickly grows as quickly perishes. He (or she) knows how complex and variable is nature and how utterly we are in her hands. He (or she) will know, if others forget it, that the building of a garden city will not be the work of one day.”
Purdom’s words undoubtedly are still true, yet ever since Bloomington acquired its characteristic and prophetic name, the city’s residents have been planting, not only for their own pleasure but also for the benefit of future generations of residents and visitors. Their legacy and the efforts of contemporary gardeners are all around us at this time of year when our city is ablaze with color. But color is not the only element that is important in the creation of a garden. Form and texture are also essential.
The overall effect of a mass planting results from the way the silhouettes of the individual specimens meld together. The distinctive features of the largest items—the trees and shrubs—provide impact through structure and shape. Because of their density and permanence across all seasons, evergreens provide both weight and continuity and anchor the landscape. The contributions of deciduous trees and shrubs change across the seasons. When covered with leaves, they are softer than their exposed trunks and branches in winter. Texture is superimposed on form and is created by the similarities and contrasts provided by leaves, blossoms, berries, and bark. In summer we enjoy not only the textures of the foliage of trees and shrubs, but also that of vines and herbaceous perennials and annuals that weave on and under them. The lushness and textures of the soft-stemmed plants unite and harmonize with the solidity of the permanent specimens.
Scale is also important in plantings, especially in front gardens. A small house looks even smaller if dwarfed by huge trees, and a large house needs more than a few tiny plants dotted about. Selection of plants should always be influenced by their ultimate height, width, and shape. While it is easy to change the perennial and annual plants we select season-by-season, trees are long-term residents. Siting trees appropriately with an eye to what they will look like at maturity is, therefore, critical. In a small garden, for example, narrow columnar trees can provide height without width, and woody shrubs can also provide structure if there is not enough space for a tree. Trees and shrubs with multi-season appeal are always preferable to specimens that are attractive only in one season of the year.
The design of all gardens, but especially front gardens, is primarily about relationships. There are the intrinsic relationships between each of the individual plants in a grouping; how their forms, textures, and colors enhance each other, and how they relate to—and preferably mesh with—the architecture of the home. Some gardens are best viewed up close while others have the greatest impact from a distance. It is certainly not necessary to understand the principles of design in order to admire a garden. To create a garden, however, and to understand how it affects the senses and mood, it helps to recognize the elements that contribute to a viewer’s response.
Focal points cause the eye to pause; color, form, and texture all affect mood. Japanese formal gardens, for example, rely on a limited palette of colors, mainly greens, interspersed with such textures as stone and wood, to create a feeling of tranquility. Informal gardens, full of many colors, create a feeling of energy as grasses rustle and birds sing and fly. Massed plants with blooms of the same hue have more impact from a distance than do blooms on a few individual plants. Groupings of different plants in close proximity, incorporating colors of both blooms and foliage, have the potential to either soothe or jolt depending on the colors that are combined.

Find Bloom at a location near you to read the rest of this story!