Unity And Harmony Sings With Vines

By Kent Higgins | January 28, 2010

It is easier to understand what unity does than to explain what it is. Any design – a small dish garden, cut-flower composition, living-room decor, patio planting, landscape – has unity if the whole hangs together to make one pleasing picture. Without unity a design “goes off in all directions,” has a restless, disorganized, discordant effect.

Not quite the same as unity, but an important part of it, is harmony – a restful quality created when all parts of a design or decorative effect add up to one style or mood. An extreme example may illustrate the point. Setting an urn of clean, stark contemporary lines beside an ornate, Victorian garden seat would be inharmonious; each style is foreign to and unsympathetic with the other. But a low fence is in harmony with the rose that clambers over it; vining plants can unite harmoniously the upright plants in a window box with the box itself.

There are innumerable techniques for unifying a design, of which the following five are probably basic.

1. To have unity, a design usually has only one focal point or center of interest. For example, a vine or other planting and its container can be the object of interest against a wall; or the vine can be so arranged that it supports a center of interest, like a fireplace. Any attempt to use it for both purposes can result in either chaos or complete lack of interest.

2. To have unity, a decorative effect should be designed to hold the eye inside the picture. The flowing lines of vines are particularly effective here. Training a vine around a large window, for example, holds the eye and keeps it from wandering off.

3. To have unity, the elements of a design can often be arranged so that they interlock or overlap. Here again, vines are useful. Without a vine planted at its base, a tall shrub may seem entirely separate from the tub it is planted in; when a vine overlaps the container below and the shrub above, the two are tied together.

4. To have unity, the important parts of a design must be in pleasing relative proportion or scale. The vine selected to blend a shrub like yucca branched and its tub should be neither so small that the shrub overpowers it, nor so large and bold that it dwarfs the shrub.

5. To have unity, a design or decorative effect should be executed with restraint, moderation, good taste. Too many elements create a disturbing, helter-skelter, cluttered appearance. So a single wall bracket or hanging basket, or a matching or harmonious pair, is generally preferable to a varied assortment.

Create your own unity in the landscape with vines!

Kent Higgins shares his vast knowledge at http://www.plant-care.com. There are lots of information you can learn on yucca branched.

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