Container Series: Fresh & Clean for Spring

Christina Salwitz

After working in garden centers for almost 25 years, as well as co-authoring the award-winning book “Fine Foliage” (St. Lynn’s Press 2013) and the upcoming book “Gardening with Foliage First” (Timber Press 2017), one very consistent idea was clear: white is one of the most sought-after colors for customers in the garden center at the beginning of the plant shopping season. Whether it’s cool white foliage, flowers or tints and hues that play off of white, you can capitalize on the fever for white with this fashionably HOT design approach for monochromatic combinations.

Any design that starts with a single hue works beautifully for this concept, then just expand the range of tones and you can sell this chic trend with nearly any color as your base. Imagine the opportunity to sell odd or slow-selling colors or styles of pottery based on imaginative monochrome designs in them!

This particular monochromatic design is based on the pearlescent white container set against the off-white house in a warm and bright, but indirectly lit, spot. Light-toned shrubs with delicate variegation and textures create a palette for bold perennials and annuals to shine. GP

PLANTS:
Variegated Boxwood
Tassel Fern
Pieris Flaming Silver
Phormium Wings of Gold
Heuchera Snow Angel
Lamium Ghost
Acanthus Whitewater
Bacopa
Ivy Teardrop

DESIGN TIPS:
Twigs left from the winter color of a Mid-Winter Fire red twig dogwood give a color echo to the pieris and coral bells and can be removed later in summer. Seasonality is a huge part of this arrangement, too. As the showy coral tipped new growth on the pieris fades, the warm cherry blooms on the coral bells begin to rise up. Then bacopa will trail exuberantly down the front of the pot all summer and into early fall. GP

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Christina Salwitz is an author, garden writer and landscape design hand-holder. She is The Garden Coach and can be reached at personalgardencoach@comcast.net.