When it get along to creating cohesion and a gumption of harmony in your garden design , bigger is not necessarily better . While short works can serve a smorgasbord of functions in your garden , too often gardener underestimate the important role they play in deepening the landscape , enshroud the visually unappealing , or giving the centre a place to rest between break in landscape painting . In10 Small Plants to Grow Now , Fine Gardeningeditor Steve Aitken demo which plant of diminutive size but over-the-top character we should have our oculus on . Below you ’ll see a few ways you may use shortsighted flora to groovy effect in your yard .

As I start amass countless short mixed bag , only some of which sour in my front bed , I set out establish shorter works all over my garden . I would take bill of them , too , in all the gardens I visited , residential and botanical . I made genial notes of how others used small plants : the purpose they could toy and how indispensable they are to discharge the flavor of a garden , a bed , or a vignette .

— From “ 10 Small works to rise Now ”

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1. Blur the boundaries

The ripe angle where the garden meets the ground airplane ( be it lawn or walkway ) can get off as stark and harsh , but when your low - growers crawling over that edge , they soften its appearing .

2. Add depth

Taller plants stop the eye and stymy the view . Letting shorter plants move into the bottom disembowel the oculus in .

3. Cover the legs

Many plant require your eyes up at their tops , not at their bare or scraggly stem and still hunt . A myopic plant can hide these shortcomings , providing something else to look at .

illustration : Elara Tanguy

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Penstemon hirsutus var pygmaeus

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