garden candy

I'm so predictable. This is just the kind of plant I could be expected to fall in love with. All sparkly and magical looking - and easy to grow! If - by all reports - rather "'Spensive", per a fabulous Gardening Blog I frequent, Garden Rant.

The more important question - as I am quickly learning - is:

Will the deer leave it alone?

It looks a little too much like a Hosta for my peace of mind, which I understand deer view as candy. And they eat their dessert first: none of this save-the-best-for-last for them! At the cost of these plants - if the deer are partial to them - I might as well take a deer to dinner every night until the deer hound gets big enough to be a deterrent. Then again, our last deer hound was afraid of deer. . . .

Meanwhile, I'm busy learning about garden design. So far, I have learned two very important things:

1. Be aware of your 'point of view'. I finally realized that one of my biggest obstacles in trying to come up with a design was that I was trying to design the garden from within the garden! That's nice as far as it goes, but it makes it a bit difficult to relate to the rest of the house. . . . In order to design a garden, you first have to step out of it. Sounds counter-intuitive, doesn't it?

2. You can only have one focal point (or only a very limited number). Too many stunning specimen trees and different, unusual flowers make for a mishmash of a mess and way too much to look at, peacefully. I've seen the punch of a single wash of one kind of flower - maybe poppies, or daffodils, or echinacea - that is not equaled by an area of the same size comprised of all three, plus cosmos, shrub roses, loosestrife, coreopsis, daisies and dahlias. There's the question of different flowering times, but you get my drift.

Note to self: Remember where you are, and keep it simple.

But I still like this plant! Maybe I can keep it simple with this plant - in the forest shade, anyway - so long as I can keep the deer at bay?

P.S. - it's a Brunnera macrophylla 'Jack Frost.' I want one. Or 20.