Specialty Gardening: Looking for a new look, 1 by sempervirens

sempervirens wrote:
You do have a very pretty cottage garden and it would be a shame to remove the butterflyweed since it is so good for the monarchs and not always easy to move when it is mature.

I also agree that what you might feel is "wrong" with the plant choices is a lack of variety in leaf size, color and texture. In the photo most of the plants form similar sized rounded ball shapes except for the tall airy heliopsis which gives an excellent shape and size variety.

An easy fix is to choose some fine textured low plants sporadically in the front of the bed like Phlox subulata, which could spill a little over your concrete edging to soften the look a little. You also could consider a few lavender plants in the front for their blue leaves. The lavender looks wonderful growing with my next suggestion Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium Scoparium).
An excellent addition near the butterfly weed is a grass like Little Bluestem with it's lovely fine texture, bluish toned leaves (especially in the cultivar "The Blues") and rosy Fall color. In the Fall the pink toned grass looks good planted with Penstemon "Husker Red" which adds red leaves and bolder texture to fine grass. Mountain mint, Pycanthemum tenuifolium, is a fine textured plant with small white flowers that is also good for attracting butterflies and many beneficial pollinators and it laxly falls into open spaces.

If you want pink near your butterflyweed, another milkweed, Asclepias purpurascens, and my favorite milkweed for the variety of colors between the buds and flowers is an excellent addition. The buds are orange hued but the flowers are pink.
It is also taller and bolder in leaf.

Another trick is to repeat a color or texture throughout the garden bed.
In the photo I'm picking up the red in the stems of the Penstemon "Husker Red" with the fine textured bronze Fennel and tying it to the red leaves of the Ornamental Plum with red leaves in the background.

This message was edited Dec 7, 2011 8:06 AM