A green screen

It sometimes takes very little to disguise an unappealing visual element in a garden. The next best thing to eliminate this visual assault is to use plantings – to render its presence less obvious and to create a diversion.

In this case, a tree, some shrubs and flowering perennials take turns in distracting our eye and attention with their masses, shapes, textures and colours. As they grow, this inharmonious visual element will gradually disappear behind the colourful, seasonally changing, vegetative screen.

This colourful display will give you many hours of joy, discovery and peaceful delight. But it confers something else on you; something very valuable: time. You see, this aesthetic oasis requires very little upkeep other than trimming the shrubs in spring if required, and deadheading the perennials as their flowers wither. Over the years, some of the perennials will profit from being divided, too. This provides you with a great occasion to enlarge the floral display in your private grounds.

Plant list