The Canadian Oxford dictionary defines whimsical (adj) as:

• imaginative or playful
• unconventional, fanciful or quaint.

It’s the imaginative aspect of whimsical that gets ignored. Whimsical gardens are really ways to personalize your garden. Unfortunately many of us get caught up in conforming to “norms” that we don’t allow ourselves to truly use our imagination in our gardens. Hopefully by the end of this blog you will be comfortable enough to dare to experiment, use your imagination and create a truly unique personalized garden.

The unexpected

Orange decks, blue pots, painted snags & sticks, indicate imagination at work and at play. So are repurposed containers: garbage cans, tubs chairs. A bottle tree, a wall of reclaimed “junk,” broken, overturned pottery spilling out colourful annuals shows an artistic gardener at work.

Garden art

Don’t even think of plonking garden ornaments all over the garden border and calling it whimsical. It’s not. Garden art in whimsical gardens challenges, delights or takes away your breath. Thoughtful placement is everything.

Planting design

Being a horticulturist, using plants to create unique vistas intrigues me: Plants with bright colourful flowers, unusual plant forms, and combining them in unexpected ways. Not so long ago pastel colours or white gardens were the prescribed colours for tasteful gardens. Fortunately, influential gardeners have challenged this paradigm.

For example, the legendary late British gardener, Christopher Lloyd, successfully contested this paradigm. In his Guardian gardening column he says “I love strong colour contrasts some, not all, of the time. They excite me. Save me from soft lights and sweet music. It will send me to sleep and I’m no insomniac at the best of times.”

Piet Oudolf, a Dutch nurseryman, expanded our plant choices and combinations in our gardens. Deriving his inspiration from nature, Piet’s perennial borders are four-season, subtle although full of form and colour. His naturalistic borders popularized the use of grasses in the garden.

Who can talk about changing gardens and landscapes without talking about the iconoclastic landscape designers, Wolfgang Oehme and James van Sweden? Oehme and van Sweden are widely credited with the creation of the New American garden style, a style based on naturalistic planting.

Of course, nowadays naturalistic plantings and vivid colours are the norm in gardens. So, what do you do to create a unique and imaginative garden? Follow your intuition and listen to your heart. Feelings of joy let you know you are on the right path.