COLOR and TEXTURE in Landscape and GARDEN Design 🌈🌲 – What I’ve learned!

Random thoughts on some things I’ve learned over the years on color, texture, and structure in the garden. Definitely much to take into consideration with planning a garden landscape and designing for curb appeal and practicality… it’s a process that takes years to learn, but I’m glad to share some with you! 🙂

Our garden, Naughty Pine, is located in Zone 7b/8a in Fort Payne, Alabama. We usually host a garden tour every June.

I plan to keep making more (and better) content across all platforms, so y’all hang on and follow for more garden goodness! 💜

Thanks for watching! 🕺
– Matty Croxton (and Byron)

www.mattycroxton.com
@southernlivingplantcollection

#garden #gardening #summergarden #flowers #flowergarden #flowerboy #landscaping #color #pretty #Summer #mattycroxton #naughtypine #plants #gardentour

people ask “Who designed your garden who designed your yard did you have someone draw that up?” No I did not this is my crazy brain and I didn’t have a plan when I first started six years ago I planted some rose bushes and it just kind of went from there this yard when we bought this house about seven years ago the whole yard was full of mature trees there was a lot of silver maples uh that were in decline they were falling apart so I had about five silver maples taken down out of the yard and had so much more sunshine which I mean I’m all about trees i’m all about shade but I wanted that sunshine so I could plant this garden and have all these colorful plants in a sun garden especially I wanted a pollinator garden so that really helped and here it is the second week of June with all these plants in full bloom especially the summer perennials are just going crazy we’ve got flocks and we’ve got cone flowers and we’ve got dlies just everywhere great great plants because perennials you’re going to get that color every single year you know you could the plants are going to get bigger you can divide them up move them around the yard and you know it’s not always about the flowers it’s not always about oh that plant doesn’t flower it only flowers for a couple weeks or or a few weeks or what whatever you’ve got to think about the garden more so as in the plant itself how it’s going to look throughout the seasons because a flowering plant you know it might be a flowering shrub you might have an aelia that turns crazy garish pink color in the spring but then you’re going to have it the rest of the year as this green backdrop for all the other plants and then you can have all your your perennials blooming around it and you can have all this color and not even think about that plant the fact that it doesn’t flower because it’s still serving its purpose in the garden purple Laura another great shrub because where else are you going to get that dark purple color year round awesome sunshine the gustramm that’s the bright yellow chartreuse bushes that are in the yard we’ve got probably you know 20 of them uh a lot of them I have shaped up into trees kind of kind of a lollipop whatever you want to call it and so I can kind of plant under them but that’s one of my favorite shrubs for color because you get that bright pop of yellow against purples against greens you know you get small leafed foliage against larger leaf plants and you get that texture it’s not always about the flowers flowers are great i love flowers i love annuals we’ve got sunpacions in here going crazy pinks but I found especially with the annuals those are also based around the perennials and the shrubs that I have here we’ve got so many yellow and chartreuse plants here i don’t really need any more yellow flowers got yellow dlies that that come into bloom this time of year so whatever annuals I get I usually get pinks or purples because they they go well with those colors simply that’s that’s what what it is they go good you got to think about color theory in your yard you got to think about the way the colors relate to each other that’s a great thing uh back here you’ve also got to think about your your depth of field you got to think about your flower beds and for for so many years this house just had a front flower bed and it kind of you know it it started out wasn’t very deep it was about six or seven feet deep and there was some shrubs in it and some hostas but what I did is bring that flower bed out now it’s been a gradual process it’s um seems like it gets a little deeper every year but I brought that out and now we’ve got this backdrop of the arborites and the the one remaining holly that was there when we bought this place and there’s three aelas in there that were here and and they’re just a green backdrop for all the other plants that we’ve added now absolutely just love that but when you think about those plants you’ve got to think about what’s around it and you’re not always going to get it perfect you’re not always going to going to going to get it absolutely perfect where the the plants are are you know when you’re looking at it from all angles it’s not always going to be exactly what you want but you do the best you can I guess is what I’m trying to say anyway uh colors yellows chartreuse gold green blue you got blue foliage plants you’ve got uh blue star juniper in the front here and you’ve got a ground cover blue denths with these blue leaves and irises they’re often overlooked as just a you know old-fashioned uh plant that’s in front of you know old houses but irises are another great texture element ye pretty much year round because you’re getting these these swordlike leaves these these strapping leaves that’ll get tall and and they’re they look pretty great year round but it’s this blue color it’s green but it’s got this this coating on the leaves that gives it this this green and it looks really great against yellows and purples and other green plants you got to think about texture in the garden for sure little leaves against big leaves against strappy leaves like dlies or laapi or carroex you got to think about those plants against larger leaves leafed plants and how texture comes into play anyway color is just uh color is just one part of landscape design uh because you got to think about year round you got to think about um when when plants aren’t blooming and this is about the best my brain could do and as far as figuring out how I wanted the garden to look for the most amount of time throughout the year and I always tell people the middle of June is my one of my favorites i love the springtime too i love when all the aelas and the spring blooming plants are coming to life but I really love the middle of summer i don’t love how hot it’s it’s getting already but I love when all the perennials are are showing off and the annuals that you’ve planted in the spring have put on growth and are flowering because it’s absolutely a rainbow there’s no other word to describe what this yard is in the month of June and it’s a rainbow every color anyway that’s my little thoughts on color garden design landscape design i’m not a professional uh I didn’t study these things professionally but I have done so much research over the years and I’ve watched so many other you know creators on YouTube and and social media with with gardens and getting ideas and getting inspired and that’s really what I want to do for the rest of the world is take all that inspiration that I got and all that knowledge about plants and about color and and all those things and I want to share them with more people i’m Mattie Croxton thank you for watching