The Whimsical Gardener: Balancing Eccentricity with Design Cohesion

Gardeners are as diverse as their gardens. Artists craft color and form; travelers display collected treasures; philosophers cultivate contemplation. Then there are whimsical gardeners — bold, gregarious, unpredictable, raising eccentricity to art. They're collectors at heart: if one is good, three is better. Thrift shops and garage sales are their hunting grounds. Plants often become supporting actors to garden art. The challenge: walking the fine line between inspired design and flea market.

Let's explore how whimsical gardeners balance passion with cohesion.

Shannon Malone

Display Your Collectibles

Collecting runs deep. Subtlety is rare; brighter and unusual wins. Common items repurposed creatively carry premium value. This garden showcases wine bottles — not on a traditional bottle tree, but retrofitted with Edison bulbs hanging from a single steel fixture. Shared history and unified lighting bring cohesion to a disparate, colorful collection.

The lesson: Find the common thread among collectibles and group them.

Exteriorscapes llc

Celebrate Color

For whimsical gardeners, color is fun, festive, playful — "the more and brighter, the better." This garden proudly displays bright hues and stripes on similar vertical surfaces, creating rhythm. All-green foliage tones the exuberance. Imagine chartreuse or red foliage — chaos.

Jay Sifford Garden Design

Embrace Shapes

Artist Marcia Donahue's Berkeley garden epitomizes whimsy — shapes, colors, textures in childlike frivolity. The common denominator? Vertical shapes everywhere, even formally sculpted junipers taking on informal whimsy as they lift the eye upward.

The lesson: Appropriately used shapes direct the eye through the garden.

Jeffrey Gordon Smith Landscape Architecture

Display Sculpture

Whimsical gardens host unique sculptural pieces. This dragon-in-a-tub fountain nestles peacefully among rosemary and salvia. Its power would diminish if competing sculptures crowded sight lines. Place sculpture at path bends, hedge gaps, or house corners — where each piece speaks alone.

Jay Sifford Garden Design

Use Foliage to Its Best Advantage

In whimsical gardens, foliage often plays stellar supporting actor. Green shades provide continuity and visual rest. Here, foliage mimics the sculpture's color, form, and orientation — a rich nest grounding the art.

The lesson: Seek unique foliage plants to complement art pieces.

Amy Renea

Repurpose What You Already Have

Whimsical gardeners master repurposing — limited only by imagination. Tools, equipment, tile remnants, broken pots: all fair game. An old wheelbarrow becomes a basil planter, adding a missing third dimension against a background mural, pulling both mural and visitor into the scene.

See more weirdly wonderful repurposed planters

Urban Landscape

Mix Things Up in Garden Beds

Formal bed lines? Rarely. Why be normal when you can be spectacular? A vertical succulent garden with curlicue design and chartreuse foliage screams whimsy. Striped cushion fabric and vertical horsetail rush balance and frame the statement.

Kristen Rudger Landscape Design

Use Ground Covers to Establish Cohesiveness

Ground covers unify disparate elements like an area rug ties a room. Chartreuse ground cover weaves cohesion through salvias, pansies, and tree roses — adding texture, drawing the eye, inspiring childlike exploration. The whimsical garden begs to be explored.

More: What Kind of Gardener Are You? Find Your Archetype