Place them so that their colors will blend properly and there will be no concentration of color in one part of the border at any one season, and nothing any where else. Try to distribute color evenly, both seasonally and spacially.

In placing the groups of shrubs, take into consideration also the herbaceous material that will be planted in front. Often a particular green can be utilized as a complement for a color composition in the border. Blue-greens are pleasing with orange flowers; bright green with purple and orange makes a split-compliment.

Accent and Emphasis

Any shrub border of considerable length must have some where in it an occasional accent plant to break up the long undulating lines of foliage. Without these points of emphasis, the whole border becomes dull. To define an accent plant is not easy, since a plant's ability to create accent depends largely on where it is placed, and with what other plants it is asso ciated. Violent contrast is the keynote of accent, and it can therefore take the form of a change of line, like a tall cedar among rhododendrons, or it may be contrast of texture, color, or relative density that makes the difference. Suppose you use a single plant of variegated rose weigela among a larger planting of ordinary green-foliaged weigela and philadelphus.

Here is accent by color. In a planting of shrubs with dull green leaves all about the same size, like lilacs, calycanthus, and viburnums, use a single Russian olive. Here is accent by texture and color. A pointed spruce in a shrub border, or standing free just in front, is a powerful accent, and if the spruce is blue, the accent will be stronger, perhaps too strong.

Avoid accent unless it is needed, and then place it at ex actly the right spot. Merely breaking up the skyline of a bor der here and there by introducing a dogwood, birch, flowering cherry, or sourwood, a tall evergreen or a bright-colored foli age plant may destroy unity. In fact over accenting is worse than none. Ordinarily accent is effective if it is placed just off center of some particular scene. If you are looking down a garden path toward a shrub border that is forming a back ground for the garden, it is pleasant to see accent in that bor der at about the center of your field of vision. It can be a slight accent perhaps, if the view is unimportant, or a drama tic one, if the view is one frequently seen.

Filler Material

To allow for growth, the permanent material in shrub bor ders should be set rather sparsely. Mass plants, interest plants, and accents should be placed so that each plant will have room to grow to decent size before it begins to crowd its neighbors.

This means that for the first few years there will be open spaces unless something is used to fill in.