Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Harmony in a Garden

                  RHS Wisley is well known in many countries Garden center. Therefore I was determined to get a closer look at the beauty of Wisley. When I came there at first I saw two parts of RHS Wisley - the Walled Garden and the White garden, and was surprised by the arrangement of shapes, sizes, colors and textures of plants, blending similarities and differences in proportion to one another.

the Walled garden

the White garden

I've read that 'Harmony is the product of likeness' and 'The success of combinations of opposites always works'. So I could see this product working in Wisley Garden center. One of the first things I noticed was the perfect combination of colors. Then I found a rectangular pool with water plants in different shapes and textures, and a round pool with steps coming down.

 the Walled garden

There were some of the many ways to make harmony and contrast within a planting. These principles also relate to plant colors, shapes, sizes and textures. I wanted to take a closer look as they said that 'Confining the hues in this planting gives harmony to highly contrasting combination or likeness combination'.

 the Walled garden

In my garden I always noticed that evergreen shrubs also borne colors. There in Wisley the deep green conifers provided the perfect backdrop for the burgundy color of the maple. Along the paths I saw many flowers as calla, lilies, heuchera that have given additional colors.



The White garden has been planted with white, silvery, light-yellow and pink plants, here you can see how these shades are contrasted with green, that as always, is the unifying color.

 

 the White garden

Around the both gardens there are some paths, benches, vases, perennials, conifers, maples. Look at how nice these paths are.




In my garden I always try to plant shrubs, perennials and bushes in concordance of colors and texture but I realized that it is difficult for various reasons. The Wisley Gardens have given me examples of combinations that work for every purpose, whether in sun or shade, path or meadow, porch or poolside. 

What do you think about harmony and combination in your own garden? 
P.S. RHS Wisley is situated to south of London, near town of Woking.





34 comments:

  1. Nice pictures of Wisley gardens, I´ve visited the place several times and always find new ideas. Years and years combinations and harmony kept me busy in the garden, especially when I had my garden open for visitors in summer. Now I´ve stopped opening the garden for the public, I´m more relaxed and I don´t mind when something is going wrong. I love it now the way it goes and grows.

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    1. I agree, Janneke, it's difficult to keep harmony and have open garden many years. I think that only very experienced gardeners could create the combination and composition in bigger gardens as Wisley.

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  2. Hello Nadezda girl and what a wonderful garden tour ! I love the white garden especially .. I am doing a post on white in the garden in fact .. but mine are just pops of white mixed in with the colored plants/shrubs. But timed throughout the garden season from Spring to Fall. I loved that pop of red provided by the Japanese Maple in the middle of all that green !
    You are my go to garden tour blogger .. I don't travel any more so I rely on you girl ! haha
    Thanks !
    Joy : )

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    1. I've seen today your white garden Joy and I liked it!. You grow very pretty Japanese maple as well.

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  3. What a beautiful garden! And how lucky you were to be able to visit it. I don't always think about colors and textures when I'm planting, since I'm usually just looking for a bare spot to place a new plant. But gardens like this inspire me and give me ideas that I try to copy in my own garden whenever I can.

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    1. You're right Rose. This garden inspired me too, especially when I saw different varieties of hostas. And the white dahlias gave me an idea to grow them in another spot.

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  4. Ηello dear Nadezda!!!
    I can see your tour to the Wisley gardens,was a joy for the eyes and the soul!
    I would love to visit it one day!
    Gorgeous pictures!!Such beautiful flowers and plants!
    Thank you for sharing!Have a happy week ahead!
    Dimi...

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    1. Hi, Dimi!
      Yes, it was! I was wanting to visit Wisley since another trip to UK. The problem was that Wisley is situated far from London but I found the way to arrive there and it was my award :))

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  5. Hello Nadezda, are you/have you been travelling in England?! Lucky you!!
    Thank you for this really beautiful and inspiring post.
    I don't plan the colours in my garden very consciously. In general, I try to imitate nature, but for the flowering plants, I usually choose different shades of pink - purple, because I like them, and a little bit of white. :)

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    1. Sara, I have been to UK in July and wanted to see many parks and gardens. I understand why you choose these colors: the weather does not please us in our climate so bright pink -purple colors go well in gardens.

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  6. What a beautiful garden, Nadezda ! It would be great to visit this garden !I love to visit gardens and look for some new ideas for my garden !!
    Greetings

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    1. Glad my post helped you and gave new ideas, Ela.

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  7. You have visited so many beautiful and very different gardens already Nadezda. So glad you share them here with us. I enjoy reading and learning about all these different types of gardens. Thank you so much. I hope that in the future I will be able to visit more gardens myself and be inspired by them.
    A garden to me equals flowers and colours, a lot of both, but our garden with harsh clay soil and far too much shade doesn't allow me to have the garden of my dreams. I try to create a bit of a garden in containers but that's not really the same as planning a garden in full soil. The great thing about containers is you can move and rearrange as you desire. It's a lot of work, creating a garden in containers but for me it's the only way to have some colour and flowers.

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    1. Marian, sure container garden gives you an opportunity to change colors or even plants when they bloom or fade. I love container garden too. The soil in my garden is turf and in spring and winter is very wet, that isn't good for many plants.
      I hope you go to see interesting gardens next vacation as you've seen beautiful Monet's garden, that is on my "list to see" :0)

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  8. Very pretty combinations, Nadezda. I don't think very much but just plop plants in wherever there is space in my garden. Luckily it works sometimes.

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  9. I haven’t been to Wisley yet, but I have seen it many times on TV – looks like a great place to visit and it is supposed to be rather different than Kew, more modern, did you find that too?

    I always think of colours when I plant, but as I used to have a very small garden – and still have a rather small garden, colours in one area will affect the colours next to it. You need a very big garden and many more plants than I have to create truly harmonised flowerbeds in terms of colour, texture, height and varieties. In my garden I tend to plant what I like, just having in mind the colour of the plants just next to it – that’s it really :-)

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    1. Helene, I think RHS Wisley has more plant collections than Kew, although it's smaller than Kew. These collections themselves are large as Walled , Rock and Alpine gardens. You're right Wisley is modern Garden center.
      I agree it must be a big garden to bring to life ideas of harmony and combination.

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  10. Armonía y belleza están siempre presentes en tu jardín. Está precioso!!
    Ya estamos en casa las fotos son de las vacaciones. La mano ya está ya bien .Gracias Nadezda ;))
    Besos.

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    1. Que bien que tu mejoras, Laura! Gracias por tus palabras amables.

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  11. Welcome Nadezda!
    The beautiful garden. Great plants.
    Calla lilies, maples arouse my admiration.
    Greetings.

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  12. What an amazing place to take a walk or sit a while! I have years of practice ahead of me before I'll be able to even think about the details of contrasting plants that coordinate well. I'm still cultivating a green thumb! :)

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    1. It's very important, Mary Anne to have a green thumb :0)

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  13. I love visiting well-planned gardens, but I have to say I don't know how they do it! My garden listens to my plans very little and does much more whatever it likes to do :) All to say, your pictures are wonderful and it is always a good thing to collect new planting ideas!

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    1. Wisley gave me new ideas too, Rosemary. For example I liked several varieties of hosta, it's a good idea to plant them along my front garden path.

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  14. I will have to visit this garden one day. I like to think of flower shape and colour and leaf shape combinations when I design a garden bed.

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    1. I'm sure you will have a wonderful day visiting Wisley, Sue.

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  15. When we were in the UK we also got to visit RHS Wiseley. Your pictures do a beautiful job of capturing this wonderful place.

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    1. Jason, I'm sure you had seen these gardens and had nice time.

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  16. That's beautiful garden. I like the lilies.

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  17. I need to work on these things too...and I love the combos in the white garden with the foliage and flowers!

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    1. Yes, the White garden is pretty and elegant, Donna.

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