Tapestry Gardens

Coastal, Hedge, Landscape Design, Naturalistic garden, Screening plants, Shade tolerant

Van Gogh reputedly introduced the idea of a tapestry garden, relying on the hue, texture, size and shape of foliage creating a tapestry like mosaic. Diane Snape

I was doing some research a couple of nights ago and came across this section titled Tapestry Gardens in Diane Snape’s book ‘The Australian Garden‘ and it is a few short paragraphs but has encompassed pretty much my intention when designing many native gardens. Below are a few images showing some gardens and plantings fitting of this theme.

With this permanent display, a garden can be beautiful all year round.

I realised that for me and my aesthetic taste in gardens I don’t need flowers, they are mainly an added bonus, what I get a big kick out of is when plants are combined to bring out the best in each others form and texture and also make a pleasurable ‘whole’, like a tapestry.

There are hundreds of different species of low-spreading native plants, each with distinctive foliage, with which you can create a pattern of subtle harmonies and contrasts.

There are many shades of green but foliage can show other colours too.

Finding new silver and grey leaved plants for this very use is one of my passions. I love combining differing greens and then incorporating lighter greys with these.