Are you a drifter? 

As a landscape designer, I’m often called in to make sense of a plant lover’s landscape and help develop cohesion and a sense of flow from a mixed assortment of thrilling nursery scores, failed experiments, and overly rambunctious successes. Choosing a few key plants to repeat in larger swathes is one way I bring order to a wild rumpus of plants, and there are both practical and aesthetic reasons this works so well. 

Why are drifts so successful?

Provide ease of maintenance. A well-spaced grouping of a single type of plant is so much easier to keep looking well maintained than is a diverse array of different shrubs and flowers. When it’s a big stand of the same plant, they can gently lean on one another and blend together as one. With a big variety of plants in a small space, each one needs to be individually shaped and it can quickly start looking messy if plants overgrow their space.

Winter pruning of grasses and dormant perennials is also simplified with bigger drifts, when you can cut back and rake up numerous plants in one go.

Lead the eye through the landscape. From an aesthetic perspective, drifts can be shaped and situated to guide you to look towards focal areas, like the front entry or a beautiful tree. They can also “pool” around a naturalistic cluster of rocks or a bench, encouraging you to rest your eyes there and enjoy the view.

Keep it in scale. For many of us, our homes are the biggest defining feature in our landscape, and little disorganized tufts of plants simply don’t have enough presence to stand out next to a building. Because larger groups of plants “read” as one, they feel more right-sized in a home landscape, and the shapes, colors and textures can be noticed and appreciated.

Add a sense of movement. Planted en masse, ornamental grasses or loosely spiky flowering perennials can create a billowing effect which is more like a grand, far-off view of nature than a close-up. They can also move with the wind in a graceful way that is fun to watch.

 Best choices for drifts

Not all plants are well suited for using in drifts. Anything with a distinctive shape that you want to appreciate, like many ornamental conifers, won’t be as impactful when grouped. You’ll also want to be cautious not to overwhelm a space by using plants that are too bulky for the size of your landscaped beds. Keeping it low and flowing is a recipe for success when using drifts.

Native perennials and flowers. You can host butterflies, attract interesting native bees like bumblebees and sweat bees, and bring in birds to watch by planting the native plants they have an ecological relationship with. Native plants also establish a sense of place in your landscape and make it unique to our region.

Foothill penstemon, Penstemon heterophyllus, hosts checkerspot and buckeye butterflies, and several types of moth. They have flowers ranging in color from the rich purple of ‘Margarita Bop’ to the aptly-named ‘Electric Blue’, and grow together into a wildly colorful groundcover.

The coastal form of our California poppy, Eschscholzia californica var. maritima, has softly textured blue-gray foliage and yellow flowers with an orange center. Lower growing than the common California poppy, it quickly covers the ground and easily re-seeds to fill in a large space.

Common yarrow, Achillea millefolium, has dome-shaped clusters of white flowers that bloom in summer. The foliage has a soft texture, and the flowers sway gently in the breeze. They are a great nectar source for butterflies.

Ornamental grasses. The swaying, swishy texture of grasses is a natural for planting in drifts. They undulate in a breeze and create the look of ripples, not unlike the movement of water.

Dwarf fountain grass, Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘Hameln’, is a well-behaved grass that grows about 2-3 feet tall and wide. The foliage emerges a fresh green in spring and colors up with russet tones in autumn. Fluffy flower spikes emerge in mid to late summer that seem to float above the foliage. Planted in a drift, it is easy to cut back in winter when it is thoroughly dormant.

California fescue, Festuca californica, has a strong structural form with evergreen leaves that grow up and then arch down and outwards in a graceful fashion. The upright flower spikes are held well above the foliage for an airy display.

Ornamental flowering perennials. Many classic garden flowers lend themselves to drifts by filling in together and having a strong simultaneous bloom for a bold display.

Meadow sage, Salvia nemorosa, has tall spikes of intense purple flowers that attract hummingbirds and pollinators. I love them as an accent in my cut flower bouquets, where they last up to a week. The upright texture is a wonderful contrast to plants with a more arching or fluffy habit.

Dwarf Shasta daisies, Leucanthemum x superbum, make for beautiful bouquets and a cheerful display in the landscape. The variety ‘Goldfinch’ has shaggy lemon-yellow blooms on strong, non-flopping stems. ‘Real Neat’ is a crisp classic white, with fluted petal tips that will make you look twice.

Heaths and heathers. These evergreen plants are a perfect season extender! By the end of summer many flowering perennials have slowed in their blooms, but that’s when many summer blooming heaths and heathers really start to take off. There are even varieties that bloom at different times through the winter. Planted in drifts, they can cover a huge area of ground in colorful fashion, and it’s easy to shear them into a continuous, flowing shape after their bloom season is done.

Myretoun Ruby winter heath, Erica carnea ‘Myretoun Ruby’, has magenta blooms February through April, and brightens up the landscape when our Humboldt skies are grey.

Velvet Fascination Scotch heather, Calluna vulgaris ‘Velvet Fascination’, has feathery textured silver foliage and bright white bloom spikes which rise above the foliage in late summer.

Arielle Irish heath, Daboecia cantabrica ‘Arielle’, has rich green foliage and covers itself in hot pink bell-shaped flowers late spring through fall.

Genevieve Schmidt is a landscaper and garden designer in McKinleyville, California. Her company specializes in planting design, and all of the skilled and routine maintenance of landscaped beds. Find her at www.GenevieveSchmidtDesign.com