Music to my eyes

Son of a son of a son of a son of a - son of a son of a sailor.  (ding ding)Sometimes when I’m doing something tedious like watering I’ll get a random song on repeat in my head – usually a catchy ditty that I can’t stand and can’t tune out and I never know all the words so I can’t cut the loop. I am plagued by ear worms! But today I saw music while I was watering and wasn’t irritated by it at all.

It occurred to me that planting a garden is a bit like making a mix-tape. (– I mean cd – I’ve just dated myself, haven’t I? I am a good deal older than 26…) We gardeners take a bunch of different plants that we love to look at (or smell or pick or eat) and place them all together where we can thoroughly enjoy them. Sometimes we put together visual medleys within a genre – like a particular color scheme or food group and sometimes we go a little wild and mix country with punk. And just like with a mix-tape, in a garden there can be jarring clunkers that don’t quite fit along with seamless and surprisingly perfect segues. Here are some of my favorite mixes: (mouse over for names/captions and click on for magic picture enlarger.)

a circus mix of echinacea, eryngium, monarda and rudbeckiaalt rock Phormium and plectranthus fruticosaCabbage on bass and eryngium snare drumdulcet greens:  nicotianas and Caryopteris divaricatus ‘Snow Fairy’LOUD!  Celosia ‘China Town’ and Phlox drummondii ‘Scarlet’folk singers:  Senecio viravira and Zinnia ‘Profusion Apricot’A mix I could listen to - I mean look at - over and over again

What are your favorite mixes? If you have pictures, please send a link! I promise to also show the clashes and clunkers (yes, we have some dissonance) in a later post… You too?