How To Make A Garden Feel Abundant Yet Controlled – 3 Simple Steps To Prepare For Summer Hosting
The three restorative tricks every landscape designer uses
The arrival of summer means hosting outdoors, and preparing your garden shouldn't be a chore. A glorious burst of blooms, exuberant plant growth all buzzing with activity, the June yard can feel a little overwhelming and touch too chaotic for entertaining friends and family.
The secret to smarter hosting is to celebrate summer's abundance of plant growth yet maintain a restorative touch of calm. Sounds complicated? Well, actually it isn't. With a careful curation of clever garden design and thoughtful editing you can transform the most unruly yard into an inviting hosting space.
Landscaping experts and pro gardeners guide us through three key steps. From artfully blurring boundaries, using a repetitive plant palette through to selectively editing growth, discover how to achieve a desirable balance and make it look effortless, too.
Repeat Plants For Instant Calm And Harmony
Ever look at your summer yard and only see a chaotic jumble of foliage and flowers, well you are not alone, as landscape architect Gerardo Loayza explains. ‘When people go to the garden center, they tend to get one of everything, right?
'If you have 50 different plants mixed together, your guests' eyes have to work overtime to process all that visual noise. Repeating the same plant every few feet acts as a visual palate cleanser.’
Plant expert Corrina Stellitano Andrews adds, ‘One of the fastest ways to make a garden feel cohesive is repetition. Landscapes often feel larger, calmer, and more professionally designed when they rely on repetition. The key is to find a handful of plants that perform well and use them repeatedly.’
Balancing volume, texture and visual interest is all important when it comes to striking the desired balance. ‘Summer gardens are at their best when they feel lush but not overcrowded,’ adds Corrina.
‘Rather than creating dense masses of foliage, incorporate some plants with airy growth habits that add movement, texture, and a greater sense of openness.'
Gerardo continues, ‘It doesn't just have to be wispy grasses; we definitely want to mix textures. Alliums, with their pompom flowers and seedheads are amazing for this; there's brunnera with its sculpted leaves, and cushions of white sweet alyssums.’
It’s not just the must-have perennials and the easiest bulbs that repeat well, multiple shrubs also add a quiet grandeur.
‘A drift of White Wedding Hydrangea in sunny spaces or ‘Big Daddy’ Hydrangea in shade repeated throughout a property creates far more impact than scattering five or six unrelated flowering shrubs around the yard,’ says Corrina.
Corrina is a garden expert who translates emerging outdoor living trends into stunning and resilient landscapes.
Gerardo is the CEO and founder of landscape design company Bacqyard. He is a passionate landscape designer who offers outdoor designs at competitive prices.
Create Soft Edges With Planting
Blurring the meeting of paving and planting gives any garden a welcoming softness and relaxed appeal. Carefully positioned underrated ground cover plants encourage the eye to skim across the yard, creating an illusion of extra space.
'Creating soft edges in a landscape generally means using plants with arching and weeping habits,' says plant expert Katie Sunderlage. 'Hakonechloa macra, or Japanese Forest Grass, is a beautiful option for shady areas while smaller fern varieties like Japanese Painted Fern and Lady Fern have a weeping habit and soft fronds in different hues.' You can find these live ferns at Walmart.
Blurring hard paved edges can also put guests at ease, encouraging them to explore the space and interact with their surroundings
‘I always tell people to use the ankle brush test: if a guest steps backward while holding a drink and bumps into the edge of your gardening, is it going to scratch a leg if you have stiff boxwoods right up against the patio edges?’ says Gerardo. ‘People also kind of subconsciously feel boxed in; it's almost like you're in a fortress.’
In addition to our best edging plants, Gerardo suggests include the dreamy blue shades of Nepeta racemosa 'Walker's Low' available at Nature Hills, Japanese Forest Grass and dazzling Calibrachoas, aka trailing petunia.
Landscape architect Stacilyn Feldman also advocates this way of planting. ‘Allowing Juniper and other low evergreens to creep into a hosting garden creates the most lovely informality to an otherwise rigid space.
'Chinese Marshflower; Mazus reptans and Thymus offer similar visuals, but with the comfort of being able to be stepped on occasionally, without the host’s need for concern.’
Juniper plants are available at Amazon.
Edit One-Third Of June Growth
While we dream of outdoor evening party ideas, the planting in our gardens can often feel strangely lackluster and underwhelming.
‘June is often when gardens transition from spring beauty to summer abundance. It's also when many landscapes begin to look overgrown,’ explains Corinna. ‘This is a great time to practice selective editing. Rather than shearing everything into submission, remove roughly one-third of the growth that's unsightly or causing problems.’
The thought of reducing foliage and highly anticipated blooms can feel counterproductive, but it’s really a case of taking it slow, being selective and using the essential pruning tools.
‘What's important is knowing when to cut and leave alone,’ says Gerardo. ‘You want to target the really heavy floppy ones and leave the early blooms alone. Don't touch the woody shrubs, but with the really overcrowded plants literally reach into the center and snip out a few stems to let the air flow through.’
Other candidates for the June edit are, ‘Any plant that is beginning to dominate its neighbors,’ says Corrina. ‘For example, if a loropetalum (Chinese Fringe Flower) is starting to engulf nearby perennials, selectively reduce a few longer branches rather than shearing the entire plant.
'If an abelia is producing dense interior growth, thin some stems to improve airflow and maintain its natural shape. This improves airflow, reduces disease risk, maintains sightlines, and ensures neighboring plants receive enough sunlight.’
When it comes to suitable tools, Corrina favors a pair of sharp bypass hand pruners at Lowe's and lightweight hedge shears, also at Lowe's.
Stacilyn Feldman is a Principal at Oehme, van Sweden in Washington, DC. She has designed, managed, and shepherded over a decade’s worth of the firm’s landmark projects including green roofs, urban development, botanic gardens, and residential estates. Stacilyn holds a Bachelors of Landscape Architecture from The Pennsylvania State University.
Operations Manager at Holland Group, managing the customer service department and purchasing. Katie has been in the green industry since 2005 in the Greater Milwaukee area, earning her degree in Horticulture in 2008. She has been able to share her love for plants working in multiple garden centers, in sales positions and most recently in an online retail platform at Holland Group.
Once you have cajoled your summer yard into shape, there's plenty of other outdoor hosting inspiration to savor. The 3-zone outdoor hosting guide will ensure every occasion goes smoothly, while our outdoor candle ideas and outdoor table lighting ideas add a stylish sparkle.
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