Light and Shadows

I recently took up photography. My husband gave me a digital camera years ago and I’ve been using the point and shoot option. I wanted to get more out of my photos so I took a lesson from a local photographer on using the manual mode. I started experimenting with different light settings and shutter speed and I started to notice the light and shadows that make up my landscape.

Very few spaces on our property get direct sunlight. In the mornings and evenings, the gardens are diffused with a beautiful light filtered through the trees. In summer, the sun stays up high enough and long enough to light up the west-facing yellow roses and trumpet vines. In spring, the leafless trees allow sun to warm the soil for the daffodils and snowdrops.

I have a long garden bed that moves from east to west with deep shade, morning sun, and afternoon sun. Finding plants that can thrive in all those light conditions is difficult so I’m designing the garden bed around colors–yellow, white, blue/purple, pink–and leaf shapes. The white flowers of mountain mint move to a white coneflowers. Yellow native sunflowers and black-eyed susans bring yellow to the sunny parts of the bed. Purple coneflower and pink monarda add sparks color to the sunny beds as well.

Plant leaves is also an important design element. The sedges in the deep shade are reflected in the little bluestems in the areas with more light and the feathery stems of ferns in the deep shade are brought to the sunnier parts of the bed with russian sage and achillea.

The forest that surrounds my garden beds is a great teacher, and inspiration, on the simple, yet profound, beauty of light and shadows. On a summer morning, the light weaves through the tree trunks illuminating the possibilities, the path, for the day. In the afternoon, I follow the light through the bright, shimmering green of the leaves overhead to the dappled shade on the moss at the ground. Evening fills the open spaces with a green hue that calms and cools.

My gardening approach is about creating a mood and light and shadows are the key design elements. This garden is about magic and enchantment. And that is not a bad world to live in.