Contrast. Repetition. Alignment. Proximity. C. R. A. P. These are basic design principles, but not the only ones. This is a very handy mnemonic—a memory device—that I learned from William’s The Non-Designer’s Design Book* in another century. She laid it out as P. A. R. C., but it is just naughty enough for my students to remember when it’s C. R. A. P.
I’m a sucker for green and for texture. Green is very restful. On the other hand, an endless expanse of the same texture, even in green, can become either boring or overwhelming depending on the scale of the texture and of the plants.
My rain garden presented an opportunity to make a crazy quilt—those locust roots defined some of the patches to put plants in. My contrasts are among textures, colors (mostly shades of green), and blooming periods. Within each plant type there is repetition, alignment, and proximity.
As the plants bulk up, the contrasts from one patch to another and the similarities within patches are becoming more obvious. Although many almost all of the plants in the rain garden are nursery-propagated wild things, imposing this sense of human order on them announces to passersby that this is not a patch of weeds running amuck. It is an intentional garden.
Looking at my Rudbeckias, I am surprised that Rudbeckia triloba is not the more widely available of the two, as it grows into a neatly bushy plant that’s not bristly. Of course, I’ve only had it a bit over two months. It may yet try to run amuck.
The little lady fern that’s just barely showing on the far left in the first photograph is a bright green, verging on chartreuse. The larger ones, below, have red stems. Now that they have settled in, the newer leaves are stiffly vertical and facing the sun, which heightens their chartreuse-ness. The redbud that shades it has rather dark green heart-shaped leaves.
The blue-eyed grass is filling in very nicely along a honey locust root, with little seedpods forming and an occasional flower still appearing.
The last plant of the day is nodding onion, at the opposite end of the rain garden from the Rudbeckia triloba, so that each can get attention without distracting the viewer from the other—they are probably 20 feet apart in that very narrow bed. The nodding onions are still blooming, but they are starting to go to seed.
Other signs of a waning summer include a third brood of fledgling robins. Mama parked Junior under the neighbor’s downspout this morning while she followed me and my hose to see if I would come up with any worms while watering. I don’t think I did.
* Robin William’s The Non-Designer’s Design Book was recently updated. If you are a non-designer who is responsible for making documents look nice, this book is worth its weight in platinum.