Plant by number

Picture yourself at the garden center salivating in front of that hot new perennial or the hard- to find shrub yoy've coveted for years.You know you're going to give in and buy it, so the real qustion is how many do you need ? Though most design courses recommrnd planting in threes and fives, there are ways to successfully incorporate other numbers, as well. The following guidelines for selecting the ideal number of plants reflect the conventional wisdom I've learned by studing landscape design as well as insights I've gained designing gardens for the past decade.

Once you've become familiar with the concepts underlying these guideline, you'll likely find that the process of deciding how many plants to buy becomes second nature. As you play with the number, just remember that if the design of your garden is not adding up the way you've imagined, you can alway get out a shovel and shift a few plants around until the whole picture is geater than the sum of its parts.
BY JULIE SIEGEL