Big cabbage roses might bloom among white daisies, with a sprinkling of poppies in front. Delphiniums and hollyhocks create a spatterpaint effect behind them. Sunflowers might rise up like torches from a tangle of nasturtiums. Perennials grow in sweeps. Bulbs pop up in colonies, then scatter out to dot the garden here and there as they expand their territory.
Ferns snuggle next to logs and stumps.
Grasses tuft up next to rocks, then march into meadowlike plantings, where they rustle and nod in the breeze. Trees grow singly or in groves, pruned to enhance their natural shapes, to clear out dead or damaged branches, or to open the lower levels of the garden to more light. Boughs of lofty evergreens wave and sway with a cheerful abandon that eludes their sophisticated and sheared cousins. Structures are tucked unobtrusively among the plantings, so they don't interfere with the garden's natural rhythm. Little surprises abound, hidden amid curving trunks, dangling vines, obscuring shrubs, and tall grasses.