When restraint pays off

I adore this front yard in Mission Hills and have been meaning to show it off to y’all for some time now.

There are a lot of things I like about it (whoever trims those Chinese Elms deserves a medal for it) but the one thing I wanted to talk about today is designing a garden using only a single flower color. In this case they used white, arguably the most elegant and understated choice. It contrasts wonderfully with the clean greens and pulls everything together into a single composition.

Most of these are very common plants, like the Lantana ‘White Lightning’ in the foreground, ‘Iceberg’ Roses, and ‘Tiny Towers’ Italian Cypress, but the combination of them is just flawless. If anyone knows who designed this, please leave a comment and let us know!

It takes a lot of restraint to limit yourself to one flower color, but it is a simple way to get a designer look, with or without a designer. This is absolutely a look you can duplicate at home! If you don’t like white, how about red?…