The Humble Garden Shed Print
Thursday, 01 March 2007 03:00

Using echoes of similar plant material in shades of pinks and purples draws the eye from near to far. 2006 Perennials Marketing Contest Runner Up

Roseland Nursery in Acushnet, Massachusetts was the first runner up in the 2006 Perennials Marketing Contest sponsored by Plant Publicity Holland, the Perennial Plant Association and Branch Smith publications.

Garden sheds offer wonderful, and often whimsically creative opportunities for gardeners. Transforming such a utilitarian structure into a focal point often results in an entire reorientation of many postage stamp-sized urban yards, as well as larger suburban and rural gardens.


With the help of a bit of paint and artful plantings a utilitarian garden shed is transformed into a spectacular focal point.
 Given a choice what would you want in your garden? Bare soil or glorious perennial plantings? A wonderful way to demonstrate the power of colorful plant material. This picture truly is worth 1000 words.
Well aware of this fact, Roseland Nursery's Mary Wynne explained, "The shed is typical of many New England outside living areas and we wanted to showcase how to transform something that is often an eyesore, into something that is spectacular."

As such, the humble garden shed became the focus of the Nursery's perennial display.

"We featured a pre-planned color arrangement of perennials, specifically chosen to accent the shed and catch the eye," said Mary. "The colors of the plants were selected to coordinate with the shed and, very specifically, to demonstrate how color choices can be used to enhance structural features in the garden. For example," Mary continued, "note how the various shades of pink take the eye from the low edging plants to the taller ones in the back."

Deliberately using plants with a wide variety of textures and shapes, the Nursery wanted customers to be able to make choices reflective of their individual personalities, as well as imagine the creative possibilities in their own yards, from late spring all the way through to first frost.

The entire display was visible from the street, 'wowing' passersby, and, so as to be able to change the display through the season, on-site-grown potted perennials were placed in between existing plantings of shrubs.

"In order to make shopping at Roseland as easy and convenient as possible", said Ms. Wynne, "the garden shed display was adjacent to both perennial and landscape stock, enabling customers to easily select and compare similar, yet unique groupings for their own gardens.

A highly noteworthy feature of the Roseland perennial display is the one side of the shed which was deliberately left empty. Given a choice between bare earth and a glorious perennial garden — there's no question as to what 99.9% of people would choose. What a terrific way to demonstrate the colorful impact perennials can make.

 

Roseland Nursery is owned by Fred and Susan Reuter.

ROSELAND NURSERY INC.
247 Main Street
Acushnet, MA 02743
 

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