How and why to plant in multiples, plus which plants to pair in your garden

How and why to plant in multiples, plus which plants to pair in your garden

SOMETIMES MORE IS better. Planting in multiples, often referred to as massing, creates excitement in a garden. I’m not talking about monotonous beds of single-species plantings but creating a composition with a limited community of compatible plants and going big on the numbers. How big? Of course, that depends on the size of your garden.

Richard Hartlage is founding principal of Land Morphology, a landscape architecture firm that designs and implements grand landscapes — think public gardens, private estates and artfully planted urban spaces. “We plant en masse when designing contemporary landscapes where the client is looking for simplicity and impact,” Hartlage says. Drifts of ornamental grasses underplanted with bulbs for seasonal interest figure prominently in these Land Morphology designs. “Only the most durable plants with multiple seasons of interest work in this scenario,” he adds.

You needn’t have a grand garden to make a big splash. My front garden is far from spacious, but that hasn’t stopped me from planting swathes of blue grama grass (Bouteloua gracilis); apricot sun rose (Helianthemum ‘Cheviot’); and a few small, rounded shrubs, like Berberis thunbergii ‘Concorde’ and a variety of heathers. The blooms of drumstick allium (Allium sphaerocephalon) bobble among the eyelashlike flowers on the grasses all summer.

Planting numbers are scaled to my small garden with groups of six, not 60. The color palette is limited, and the plants were selected for fine textures and continuing interest as well as having similar cultural needs. Filled with movement, blooms and colorful foliage, this bed looks good (can I say that?) throughout the growing season yet requires the least maintenance of any planting in my garden. I simply get to enjoy it.