Clever garden contrasts for your landscape

Find out how creating contrasts in a garden landscape can maximise your design, with information on garden plants, outdoor areas to use, foliage and other trends in Australian gardens.

1. Plant foliage with the right colour

Foliage colour can vary between garden plants, just like flowers can. Leave colours may be anything from greens to blues in summer and spring, and can run the whole gamut of reds, yellows and oranges in autumn.

By considering the different colours of your plant foliage, you can ensure contrasting colour in your garden landscape all year round.

2. Group garden plants according to foliage type

Try grouping plants according to their foliage type so that they complement one another. Then group other types of plants elsewhere in the garden to add contrast throughout the space. This works with trees too.

3. Branch and trunk colour

Some trees and shrubs have interesting branch structures and sometimes the bark is a beautiful colour, for example crepe myrtles. Taking bark into account is one way of ensuring you have interesting colours in your garden, even in an otherwise drab winter.

4. Different outdoor areas require different treatment

Think of a patch of shade beneath a shrub or small tree and often the earth is bare there, or there may be some dull groundcover, or possibly weeds.

Try planting groundcovers that thrive in that sort of shady environment: plants like the New Zealand rock lily, whose beautiful flowers provide splashes of white in the shade under the larger garden plant.

5. Frame larger plants

One effective way of providing rich contrasts in colour, size and shape in your garden landscape is to plant a series of smaller plants with different foliage or flowers around a larger plant, almost like you're framing the larger plant.

Think how several different-coloured groundcovers placed around a shrub or tree will look.

6. Do your research properly

To truly be sure of how different plants look at different times of the year, try visiting your nursery once each season. And while you're there, seek a professional's advice.

Contact a landscape designer in your area to find out how you can maximise the garden landscape with contrasts: