Creating a landscape that is both functional and pleasing to the eye requires some basic knowledge of design principles, including texture, form, and color. But to produce a landscape that reads like a panorama, you need elements that serve as connectors. I’m talking about plants with trailing or cascading qualities.
Here are a few examples:
- Prostrate rosemary – This drought-tolerant shrub is not only a useful, fragrant herb, but its gentle, cascading form also plugs in nicely to many landscape styles. The added bonus: it’s evergreen and remains attractive and visible all year long.
- Silver ponyfoot – Used most often as a ground cover, this leggy perennial tumbles over pots and walls like silvery streams of water. Plant it in a pot or at the edge of a retaining wall or terraced landscape for a strong cascading effect.
- Trailing lantana – Widely used and wildly popular in our area, its mounding and creeping habit allow it to spill onto pathways and over walls to connect neighboring spaces in the garden.
Using plants like these will entice the eyes to move in a more fluid manner across the landscape, greatly enhancing its appeal! You have just planted a panorama!
Update on Lantana
The New Gold variety is the only one we now recommend due to the previously unknown invasive qualities of the popular purple trailing lantana – and all others.
