Container idea: One colour wonders

In art class, a depiction of a bunch of stuff all in the same colour family is considered monochromatic. Think Picasso during his Blue Period. In gardening, this is usually considered boring. Unless you were Vita Sackville-West, whose White Garden (Ok, so there are green and silvery grey plants, too) at Sissinghurst Castle still brings droves…

In the mood for purple

A professional artist once told me “Never forget the purple.” He was looking at a portrait I was painting–which lacked, among other things, any sense of depth–and encouraging me to try underpainting. Many great masters of the art world used this technique to give their works luminosity by, you guessed it, painting in layers starting…