Woody I can see your point, when the plan is for straight lines and they get out of sync that would bug me too. By the way I love what you've done in this area, so serene.

Annette

Love that last pic woodyoak...what a perfect shed too.

So do you shred your leaves at all first? Or are they fine enough that they break down fast without having to do that?

I think straight lines are a nice contrast for enthusiastic mixed perennial gardens.

That being said, I have curved (some might say squiggly) shaped beds and edges. This is due mainly to the fact I'm not good with eyeballin' straight lines. Second is I am too lazy ;-) LOL
CMK

Very interesting and informative, Woody. I really appreciate the broad sweep.

I think, like garden journalists, we often show pictures of individual plants or of very small sections of gardens. Thus we appear to ignore what are, at the time, more challenged parts of a mixed perennial garden.

Re straight lines: I'm definitely not a rectilinear gardener. At the same time, it is perhaps easier to envisage curves (e.g. curved pathways) when larger spaces are at hand. An example is David Tomlinson's Merlin's Hollow, Aurora, Ontario. David says his 3/4 acre garden marries the "rooms" of Sissinghurst and the curvilinear lines often associated with the landscape designs of the Brazilian Roberto Brule Marx.

Re leaves: at Merlin's Hollow, 2 inches of wet (unmulched) maple leaves are put on top of the herbaceous perennial beds each fall. David cites a six or seven year cycle for the earthworm population to complete pulling that yearly leaf matter down.

Annette - green and serene is the goal for the backyard and we're quite happy with how it has developed.

CMK - we're quite happy with the shed too :-) The greens work much better than the initial blue-gray with white trim - looked nice but didn't blend into the background. Most of the leaves in the picture are white ash leaves, which are not too big so we don't bother shredding them now that we use a reel lawn mower without a bag attachment - we used to just mow the lawn in the fall after the leaved dropped. That would chop the leaves before they got dumped on the beds. Now we just rake them up and dump them straight onto the beds. Ash tree seedlings are my biggest weed problem in the backyard :-) For the next month or so a daily walkabout to yank any tree seedling we see is an almost daily event! I'm not good at 'eyeballing' straight lines either - stakes and string are an easy tool for that.

CMK and SB - I differentiate between curved lines and wiggles. Gentle, smooth curved lines are pleasant but wiggles seem unnecessary and 'busy' to me. In many cases, scale is an issue - i.e. too many wiggles in too short a span and/or too much of an extreme from the peak to the valley - stretch the line considerably longer and flatten the amplitude of the wiggle and the look would improve a lot in many cases. You can't see it in the pictures above but the 'vertical' path that goes under the pines turns left at a low bank along the back fence and traces a broad curve, emerging on the right side of the shed, crosses in front of the shed, and then curves down past the left side of the shed to run along 'the wet corner' bed before turning left again to run in a straight line up along the south fence and through the south alley to the south gate entrance/exit from the backyard. So there are both straight lines and curves but no wiggles. I use normal walking routes (and the dogs' patrol patterns!) as my model for shaping paths. Unless you're drunk or in very rough, obstacle-strewn terrain, wiggly lines are not a natural route. :-)

SB - I liked Sissinghurst when we were there 20 years or so ago. Burle Marx's stuff I've only seen in pictures and I'm afraid it's not my style.... :-) Merlin's Hollow sounds like an interesting place and I hope we can make it up to see it on one of the open days this year.

Your woodsy area looks like it would be a great candidate for natural log or branches, even small stones, to act as the appropriate border to distinguish the growing areas and the walking areas.

The narrow bed along the fence in the north alley is bordered with logs - I wouldn't do it anywhere else though because the logs block easy access to the planted areas in larger beds; since I am physically disabled, maintaining easy access is important (which is why there are a lot paths in the first place....). A log edge would also be one more thing to trip over :-) There are several 'nurse logs' in the beds though - tree trunks, logs, or limbs added to a dry area. The wood absorbs and holds moisture and provides nutrients as it breaks down. This is not a particularly stony area so, to me, stones in a woodland garden area would look unnatural, although I do use stones - and bricks -in the more conventional flowery front garden.

Woody, understand the point about bold curves (actually also one of David's past lecture themes).

I suspect that designing (even maintaining) a mixed perennial garden for a larger area is much easier (relatively speaking) than doing it for a smaller area.

Will certainly be in touch about Merlin's Hollow, Woody.
Nice and bright here, but wish it would warm up a bit more. But at least the lungworts and the primulas seem to be handling it. They're just beginning to flower in the sunniest locations.

Lovely garden. I too am always amazed by the sudden spring transformation in our area. The garden equivalent of jumping out of oilskins into bikinis.