Regional
(2008-07-30)
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I was able to tour the exhibit of Impressionist landscape paintings at the Denver Art Museum. It's a great exhibit worth taking the time to see.
One of the things that struck me about the impressionist artist was their use of forms and silhouettes. They didn't paint details of plants but they used plant structure. Something we should be sure to use in our landscapes.
Plants come in all shapes. Some ornamental grasses are tall and upright. Some perennials are low and tight but their flowers are tall. Some shrubs are sprawling. Some trees are wider than they are tall. We can use these shapes to accent our landscape designs.
Some folks think Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass is over-used. And it may be. But it is one of the few plants that grows three or four feet tall and stays about a foot and one half wide. It gives the landscape a medium sized columnar form that few other plants have.
We all know the towering shape of Colorado Spruce. But there are also dwarf forms of Colorado Spruce. `Mesa Verde' is a groundcover form of spruce. It grows about a foot tall but spread four to five feet wide.
Globe spruce has a round, mounded form. Globe spruce can grow ten or more feet tall and eight or more feet wide. Something to watch for in globe spruce is a central leader. If this isn't cut out the plant quickly looks like a regular blue spruce.
An interesting mugho pine to look for is `Big Tuna'. It grows about twelve feet tall and six or so feet wide. `Big Tuna' has a Hershey's Kiss form.
Some plants are wider than they are tall. This is a form that smaller gardens can make use of. They can also be grown under power lines without interfering with the lines. They include many of the hawthorn varieties and Tatarian Maples.
A tree form we don't see used much in our region is the upright, columnar form. An individual tree can make a statement or used in groups to create an interesting silhouettes. Swedish Columnar Aspen grows thirty feet tall but only about ten feet wide. They will grow on the plains or at high elevations in our mountain communities. `Crimson Spire' Oak is another columnar tree with red fall color.
Go see the Impressionist exhibit at the Denver Art Museum. Then use forms and silhouettes for year around interest in your landscape.
tomthrogmorton@mywdo.com
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