Those of us who garden in a dry climate hardly have it easy when it comes to creating interest in the garden. The water shortages in many parts of the world, means that we have to really use our imagination, and dare I say it, our design and horticultural knowledge, in order to come up with a successful composition. I see this more as a challenge than a problem, because it gives us the opportunity to ignore the clichֳ©s, break the paradigms and start to THINK.

Today I'm going to focus on a particular shrub combination I planted in a customer's garden some three years ago, which now is coming of age, and starting to look fabulous. Before I reveal the actual species concerned, let's try to establish some basic principles when it comes to designing with plants in general and woody material in particular. We should always check to see whether our choice of plant conforms, yes conforms to the principles of good design such as unity, diversity, emphasis, scale, and simplicity.

Unity means there should be a lot in common between the plants that make up the composition. Diversity means there should be some variety, otherwise the arrangement is liable to be boring. Emphasis means that something should stand out a bit. It can for instance be a colour contrast, or a vertical element in a predominantly horizontal shrubbery. Scale means that the dimensions should be proportional to one another. A bush 4 meters high would be out of scale to a garden bed whose width is say 20 cm. Simplicity is possibly the most elusively difficult criterion to satisfy. To achieve it try to think of a beautifully designed interior, or a well-dressed person -- perhaps yourself!

Now to the bed itself. Its dimensions are small, 6 m by 2m. It's located opposite the entrance to the house, while the neighbour's rather tall house rises in the backround. I've used Carissa macrocarpa for the bulk of the space. It's mainly a green foliage plant. Green should be the dominate colour in most compositions.(Unity) For variation on the colour green ,I added the paler, Durante repens, and for contrast the deep purple leaved Euphorbia cotinifolia. (Variety/Emphasis). At the end of the bed are a couple of fresh green coloured junipers, of sculptural habit,--known as "Kaizuka" Now the deep reddish plants should be planted very carefully. Their over use is the sure sign of design naivetֳ©. But there's another point worth making here. It's important to combine together plants of similar leaf texture. The Euphorbia's leaf shape and leaf size, are very similar to those of Carissa macrocarpa. So while the leaf colours contrast strikingly, (Variety) the leaf textures are almost identical! (Unity/Simplicity).

Finally in the back corner I planted three pencil thin Cypresses, very close together, in order to form a vertical emphasis, but also to be in scale with the afore-mentioned neighbour's house. The Cypresses, called "Santa Catherina" also link well of course with the coniferous Junipers.

You've all heard the business-world's phrase -- KISS- "Keep It Simple Stupid" Keeping it simple is not easy in garden design. It's almost counter intuitive. But if you're going to err, err on the side of simplicity. You can always add things later.