The same plants grouped together form not only a cohesive look but also can be less costly if propagated from existing plants/shrubs.

Willy nilly planting has it's place I'm sure but one of the things I've learned from the people here and from research and finally trial and error is that groupings of similar plants are noticable.

My row of hydreangas would be less impressive if there were only two or even one of them.

I think that I read somewhere on here that the difference between a gardener and landscaper is that a gardener will put lots of different plants that they love; a landscaper will put a few of the plants they love in a lot of places.

That's Ok, grow whatever you want and then you came to a forum on garden design to say what?

Dear Shapiro,

Here's my take. I maintain gardens for a living plus do a few installations a year as well. I don't believe in all this business of drifts of this and drifts of that.

It especially does not work well in smaller urban or suburban gardens. Drifts work great if you're on an acreage with huge beds or it's a large commercial planting.

They say drifts create impact. What creates impact is repeating themes - it could be a single (or two) repeating plant(s) to keep an otherwise eccletic garden from looking totally chaotic or it could be a repeating color or texture. The key is: you need a continuous thread of something to keep things balanced.

For example, I recently installed a huge part-shade to full sun bed - my repeating theme here and there was moon-beam coreopsis (in the sunnier spots) to tie it all together along with repeating textures using native and non-native sedges.

Here goes my rant: I am so tired of taking care of blah gardens put together by some designer who mapped it out on CAM-CAD or a drafting board. On some of my clients gardens I've been given permission to de-assemble these drifts and create a personalized space based on the style of house and/or the owner's personality. To know the plants you have to go out there and garden - from March to November and even into to winter. Then you will really understand the plants from start to finish.

The other problem is that you can have large die-offs or a grouping of plants that based on the time of year can look less then good even when properly selected and maintained. Think daylilies and you'll see what I mean. To keep them looking good you have to spend quite a bit of time thinning out or cutting down those yellowing leaves. A huge drift of them while beautiful in June and part of July is a nightmare by late July & August for the person taking care of it.

My advice is to break the rules and experiment with what you like and what works with your climate.

Drifts have movement, that is their value. Lack of drifts, as in individual specimens is static. One of this and one of that produces a look of spottiness or dots. The term "dot planting" has even been used for the placement of compact annuals and similar plants as widely spaced solitary specimens.

Large drifts is a subset of drifts. Drifts can be small. For pleasing textural balance small-leaved plants should be planted in larger amounts than large-leaved plants, with medium-leaved plants between in both quantity and placement. In a small bed only one large-leaved plant might be used, these are bold (coarse-textured) and heavy in effect.

For more on planting in drifts see Grant, Garden Design Illustrated.

I've seen many 'plant collector' gardens that were drop dead gorgeous, and they rarely used a drift of a single plant. But they did use their collections to achieve repetition and cohesiveness.

For example, a succulent garden can create a patchwork of color and texture, which, although varied, is pleasing to the eye because the plants tend to have colors that work well together. Example:
{{gwi:41402}}

Similarly, a variety of palms and bananas can be grouped together to form vertical accents or an intimate grove; in fact it is often only another collector who might recognize that they are not all one species. (Seems crazy to me, but to some people a palm is a palm is a palm, including anything that remotely resembles a palm.)
In this example, the native stone is a unifying element:

{{gwi:41403}}

There's DRIFTS and then there's drifts--you can still have drifts in a small, urban garden and indulge your appetite for a variety of plants--this year my drifts are monarda, one year it was coneflowers. I can't drift hydranga (although I would love to)because of the small area I have to plant.

In the spring, I have "drifts" of spiderwart, which I then pull out by the handful when they are done blooming to make way for the expansion of my astilbe.

The perennials that self-seed help to make my garden different each year, and each year I decide what to pull out and what to leave. And there is nothing better than self-seeders who decide that they want to take over the troublesome spots where I can't get anything else to grow.

All the plants in the top photo of succulents except the one aloe to the left and the grayish plant behind are in drifts. Even the two orange aloes give an appearance of a drift that twinkles in contrast to the unpleasant massive stasis of the Jabba the Hutt-like single specimen at the rear. One of the first impressions this view gives is that there needs to be more of that hump at the back to fill the empty space to the left and get some visual movement going in that part of the scheme.

The bottom photo, with every plant bearing huge leaves of the same coarse texture - and with massive rocks added to reinforce an already strong impression - shows why the common approach to tropical planting soon becomes wearisome. Everything in the general landscaping of that realm has bold foliage, loud colors or bizarre large, elaborate flowers. My late grandmother, who lived 98 years in Hawaii once exclaimed on one of her visits here that "We don't have all these pretty flowers!". Other than mass plantings of impatiens the drifts of numerous small flowers we can do in infinite variety in temperate climates are not seen where everything is a "house plant."

Catkim--those succulents and aloes are making me drool...

I tend to do a combination of collecting and drifting. I tend to buy three of a perennial...and then if it does well I buy more. I'm putting together a collection of Japanese Maples (slowly--they are expensive!) and I've got my fern groupings down to three types. (The ones that live without coaxing.)

I've also discovered I like to use the color chartreuse to punch up my shade gardens...so there are touches of that throughout. Different plants...same color.

melanie

Shapiro,

Soliciting opinions, eh? My opinion is that you have laspsed into a large group of gardeners who unwittingly stunt their own personal growth and that of their gardens by embracing an "either or" thought process. A person short changes oneself by limiting choices to either "A" or "B" -- when real opportunity lies within the incorporation of both. Plant collecting needn't be a banishment of good design. Several of the above photos have certainly proven that.

It is good that you have brought this mistaken notion to the forefront for discussion.

IronBelly

I am both a confirmed plant collector and landscape designer who believes that repetition of plant material really does help tie a garden together. I would also caution posters to avoid making generalizations about plants they don't really grow, because appearances can decieve. Almost all the plants in that succulent photo could just as easily be from one plant that has clumped, (the midsized midground Aloe in bloom, the yellow flowering dwarf Aeonium simsii, and the foreground Aeonium canariense. I would not find the background Euphorbia lambii oppressive, but instead a good neutral backdrop to the hotter colors in the foreground.

The one unfortunate thing about growing fast growing succulents or bromeliads is that they do form clumps that can start to look disorderly if one prefers them to stay more defined or geometricly ordered, and they tend to need dividing and replanting every 2 to 3 years if one wants to maintain the look as they were initially planted. On the other hand, they are so easily replanted as fresh cut divisions or cuttings without any roots, that I often will design a new client's garden around a division/refreshing of an existing client's garden, without planting anything with any roots, or needing to buy new plants from the nursery. It is wonderfully satisfying to get a whole new garden installed without a trip to the nursery, or having to dig big holes for 5 and 15 gallon cans. It is critical that one remember how spreading each type of plant will become, and give them the room to do what they want, or be prepared to constantly prune or remove specimens as they get too crowded.

Impressions of tropical gardening are obviously shaped by our biases as well, and when they are well done, the textures, colors, year round interest and seasonal changes can be as satisfying as any temperate climate garden. I tend to be seduced by the possibilities inherent in a mediterranean climate garden, where we can mix and match the subtropical with the mediterranean and the natives with the temperate and the cactus/succulent plant palette, to get a garden style that could only be done in our local climate. To some it appears chaotic, to me, it says California gardening...

I feel so sorry for all those travelers bound for relaxing vacations in places like Hawaii, Tahiti, Bora Bora, Thailand, or Bali where they will be confronted with only wearisome tropical plants.

David is right about the succulents; I'm fairly certain the Aeonium in the foreground is a clump of a single plant. As for the "empty space to the left", photos can be deceiving. This is merely a framed snippet of a bed on the sunny side of a 1/4-mile-long drive.

Here's a true 'drift' at the entrance:
{{gwi:41404}}

Most of the advice I've seen in gardening design books that referred to drifts tended to talk about 3, 5, or 7 of the same plant. Are we all talking about the same thing here? I suspect we may not be.

I see a lot of commercial plantings that use, say, 30 Stella d'Oro daylilies. Is that a drift anymore, or is it something different?

I also thought the idea of a drift was that it was staggered spacing, not all in a row, so the different plants blended into each other, a la Gertrude Jekyll, who I thought coined the term in the first place.

A lot of my perennials are planted in groups of 3, since that is how Bluestone sells most of them! The number I end up with depends on how many survive, self-seed, etc...

One thing I did in one border was to have different varieties of daylilies running through it sort of like a river - so you had the same foliage, but different ones blooming throughout the summer. (3 of each variety) It was a nice effect, imo. Now, is that a drift, or something different?

Doesn't the word 'drift' convey some notion of movement? I find it hard to think of Catkim's succulents as drifts as hard as I find it to think of a single plant with movement resembling a drift. A drift is a very subtle flow whether we are talking about sand or plant grouping. Gertrude Jekyll's drifts were tall perennials arranged so that they worked together as a group. A stand of ornamental grass swaying in the wind may be taking 'drift' too literally but this I think is an example.

Yes, obviously they may not have been planted as a drift originally but the appearance they are producing in time for the photo is that of drifts.

Drift, as in snowdrift.

Heavy is heavy, regardless of how rare and special the plants producing the visual effect are. And there is planting, and then there is plants. Whenever you plant plants, you are designing.

I love drifts and collections.

On a busy street, a dramatic drift of red geraniums have a powerful impact on the driver. Those geraniums may encourage the driver to look for the business (or home) again, maybe even slow down the driver, just so she can get a better look.

Now, in a garden that I'm constantly nudging my toes right up to the boarder. I love to visually seek out each individual plant. Small combinations are ideal.

Bboy said: Whenever you plant plants, you are designing.

Okay, I have to argue with this one. "Designing" implies intent. I can agree that whenever you plant plants, you are creating a design. However, if you are plopping plants here and there without thought, that is not designing! (That was the hypothetical you, not directed at anyone in particular, of course.)

Ink - I agree with the implication of movement in drifting, too, which is why I think there ought to be a distinction between talking about masses of plants, vs drifts.

My dad went to the University of Chicago. His favorite thing to quote from his time there was, "Define your terms!!!"

Irene is probably right, in that most gardeners are planting masses of the same plant, rather than drifts, particularly within the context of small urban or suburban gardens. In my mind, the terms "drifts" and "massing" are synomymous, but that may just be because they are so commonly used this way locally. I don't hold to the planting in groups of 3,5,or 7 as that seems entirely too limited to achieve nice looking masses for many types of plants. I prefer to think in terms of 10's, 20's or 50's, especially when dealing with plants that read better as massed rather than as individuals. I suspect this is a style that either appeals or leaves one cold, and I'm not trying to persuade anyone to change their personal style to suit someone else's notion of what looks good.

I particularly like to repeat larger shrubs and trees in a garden if there is space to do so, and think this helps to tie a garden together visually even more so than just working at the ground level.

Y'know, I think the 3,5,7 thing only works with bigger plants where you can see them as distinct objects, as opposed to a mass of smaller plants that sort of run together. And of course, once you get past 7 or maybe 9, no one is going to notice if you have an odd or even amount of objects!

I also think the odd number idea is for when you are looking for a natural look, vs symmetry...

I am a collector trying to be more of a drifter.

The advantage of collecting for awhile is that it is fun and I have learned a lot about what grows well and doesn't, and in my own yard, which does not follow all the rules and what may be written about the plants; plus many that I thought I would like, I don't, and vice versa. So while I am now having to re-organize some areas, if I had started out with drifts or masses, I would have used the wrong drifts and had to re-do things anyway.

One drift that is not working out is Happy Returns daylily. It was intended to provide movement and repetition and all that throughout areas that differed a bit in sun and moisture conditions. It may be happy, but is not returning much, at least not with whatever water and fertilizer I am giving it presently.

Maybe a garden designer would not have made any mistakes, but I doubt would have been able to predict which plants would catch my fancy or not or turn out to have the right maintenance requirements--since maintenance issues have also not always turned out as anticipated from descriptions.

However, I would now be able to work much better with a designer than I would have 10 or 20 yrs ago.

I still tend to buy a couple of something, but am more likely to say, if you earn your keep, I'll multiply you.

I have paid more attention to proportion and distance. I have a front corner bed I am trying to design/develop--since it is enjoyed mostly either from inside, or if outside but still from a distance, or I drive by it and view from car, I can tell that I need large masses/more dramatic stuff to be visible; skip the tiny leaf details and delicate combinations. Similarly, I have determined to simplify and mass/drift more in some front foundation plantings.

OTOH, near a patio where I sit and look at a garden spot closeup, I love various small vignettes that are produced by some of my collecting and I enjoy trying to think of new ones to try.

'member the 'set in aspic' thread frankie? It doesn't matter who designs it or lays it out 'it' will change. Someone who has done it before may prevent you from re-inventing the wheel but if you are in no hurry and have the energy, and dare I say intelligence you will find out for yourself. Hopefully these posters won't be offended but if you look at the garden containing the twisted walking stick you will see an emphasis on variety. I would need a severe bribe to design a garden like that yet the owners who did it themselves love it. Most of what a professional designer does takes over this process, and I love Andrew for this gem when the question of labour and material comes up "We are not selling plants and labour."

Thanks, Ink.

I recently observed a change in a neighbor's yard that was not for the better, for my taste.

There is a black iron fence in front of a small neat home--whatever is that sort of typical narrow black wrought-iron uprights, and not too long a run of it. For a long time, growing in front of it was a large row/mass of annual vinca--shiny green leaves and perky white flowers, maybe they had the red "eye" as well. Sounds like it could be boring, but I found it delightful, refreshing-looking and also something about the colors--black/green/white/bit of red. In fact, I liked it so much that I found myself thinking, that although I do not have such a fence, I wonder what area in my yard might lend itself to somehow reproducing this particular effect (could be with the vinca or not, but just the feel of it)and just what it was that I liked about it.

Recently drove by and found all that pulled out and now there are some purple coneflowers, daylilies, and other things I can't determine, and on the front edge, some dwarf mondo grass, which really looks out of place.

Now, in part, this planting is young and may later have a nice lush feel that is currently missing when you see the mostly mulch, and, when filled out and all in bloom it will probably have some appeal as a cottage garden thing. But, I think it is more than that. Something about the coarse coneflower habit and mix of plants, even the shades of green and surface textures, does not look as good with the open black fence as did that simple cool swath of vinca lower down.

Now what is that?

My friends are entirely correct when they accuse me of "planting in generous drifts of one," but, hey, I'm a plant collector first and worry about design second. I'm never going to own one more inch of land than I have right now, and what I want is to grow every plant I can that fits into my criteria for a low-water, very low maintenance garden of evergreen plants with colorful foliage.

I do design pleasing arrangements of plants out of this wealth of material (my last garden was featured in many magazines and several books), and in the front garden I have even repeated a number of plants, using 3-8 specimens each of about 5-6 small trees and large shrubs, plus many specimens of lots of different succulents. It works for me and I find it more pleasing than many gardens where there are far fewer plant varieties to enjoy.

Shapiro - follow your own bliss in the garden!