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swmogardens

Garnet

swmogardens
14 years ago

Here is a Garnet I use for accent color in the only sunny bed in my garden.

Comments (7)

  • Embothrium
    14 years ago

    That is a good variety. And you have clearly chosen the arrangement for compatible flower colors. However, your specimen looks out of place with that combination of plants, as weeping laceleaf maples often do. It needs plants of more similar habit next it, more dense and horizontal.

  • swmogardens
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    Here is the same Garnet from another perspective.

  • Embothrium
    14 years ago

    Different view makes no difference. Maple also needs to come to the front of the border. Used in this way, as a frontal plant can work with visually compatible subjects in a mixed border. Otherwise growth habit so often fails to look well with other kinds of plants that I've even seen it suggested weeping laceleaf maples be planted by themselves in a fenced enclosure, with little more than moss and rocks for accompanyment, to be viewed as a living sculpture - in the manner of a bonsai.

    Another thing is that yours has been trained up to have an elevated crown, making it already a tree - and therefore an accent point. This adds to the impression of it being out of place, like a small tree struggling up through a patch of weeds.

    If it is allowed to branch to the ground and to the front of the border, and given immediately adjacent companions of more similar growth, it may eventually look better placed. (It could take many years for this stage of crown development to be reached. I've got a low-grafted one planted as long ago as the 1960's here in Zone 8 that may now be about stomach height. Its skirt has been touching the ground for a long time).

    At least during the summer. During the winter the miniature tree shape will still be present.

    If you dig it up when leafless and plant it elsewhere then the rest of the plants in that spot will mesh nicely.

    In general with a mixed border backed by a fence a good basic successful formula is some version of evergreen shrubs on the ends, deciduous shrubs between these and the main display with the bulk of it consisting of herbaceous plants. Climbers are trained onto the taller deciduous shrubs and the fence, to be seen behind the herbaceous plants.

    Where border perennials and annuals etc. are thought too much of a bother, carpeting groundcover perennials and shrubs are used instead.

  • sawemoff
    14 years ago

    To be honest with you I think it looks really great where it is. Just goes to show we all have different opinions and view things in a different light.

  • swmogardens
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    Thanks, I planted it there to add texture and the purple color to a mostly green bed.

  • botann
    14 years ago

    It doesn't look right there to me either. It seems out of place. The scale isn't right.

  • modaniel
    14 years ago

    I have a large 30-40 year old garnet in my front yard and I am thinking about having it taken out. Anyone know how much it is worth approx?