Be a Wild and Sexy Gardener (and a little like Georgia O’Keeffe)

Take the O'Keeffe idea of sensuality into the garden and have a little fun. Tip the scales a bit and do gardening with a nod to the risqué...

Kniphofia uvaria 'Pfitzer’s Hybrid Mix'
Item # 96491 		Kniphofia uvaria 'Hybrid Mix'
Red Hot Poker

each $7.99
3 to 6 plants $7.79
7 or more $7.59
Echinacea purpurea 'Rubinstern'
Item # 46051 		Echinacea purpurea 'Rubinstern'
Ruby Star Purple Coneflower

each $7.99
3 to 6 plants $7.79
7 or more $7.59
Rosa x 'Nearly Wild'
Item # 82724 		Rosa 'Nearly Wild'
Pink Floribunda Rose

each $9.99
3 or more $9.79
Papaver orientale 'Beauty of Livermere'
Item # 74860 		Papaver orientale 'Beauty of Livermere'
Beauty of Livermere Oriental Poppy

each $7.99
3 to 6 plants $7.79
7 or more $7.59
Monarda 'Fireball'
Item # 70994 		Monarda 'Fireball' PP#14325
Fireball Bee Balm

each $7.99
3 to 6 plants $7.79
7 or more $7.59
  • Topic: Plant Selection
  • Author: Cindy Bellinger
  • Keywords: design, landscape, Annuals, gardens, gardeners, perennials, artistic, Georgia O'Keeffe
  • Date: May 2005

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I happened to be driving by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum a few years ago in downtown Santa Fe. Her work was showing in conjunction with Andy Warhol’s. On the marquee two different posters depicted two different flowers. Andy’s was a thin dancey thing. Fun, but plain. Georgia’s was curvy, layered and sensual. Definitely female.

It got me thinking, and then I remembered a friend from long ago. She loved doing things a little off kilter in her garden. Like growing a big bright blazing red hibiscus right in the middle of a bed of prim, dignified antique roses.

“It was a bit like having some floozy drop in on the missionary ladies’ sewing circle,” she said.

She went on: “I got the biggest kick out of watching the tasteful, genteel roses purse their lips. They pretended to ignore the hot red lipstick, the big hair, and the overflowing cleavage that had landed in their midst. But you could just tell they were all atwitter. They couldn’t wait for her to go dormant so they can gossip about her.”

So why not take this and run with it? Take the O’Keeffe idea of sensuality into the garden and have a little fun. Tip the scales a bit and do gardening with a nod to the risque.

How about planting a Hot Red Poker in the middle of a very tame and conservative groundcover? How about a tangle of columbines draping suggestively near the more sedate Gayfeather? The Gayfeather is a spiky, structural plant. And those columbines. You know how they bob around looking for something to kiss.

I once had a friend who, when seeing a crane high in the air dangling a tree root, say: “Look! A giraffe eating lunch.”

Well, why not do the same with plants? Take a trip through our catalog and make up stories about leaf patterns, flower clusters, styles.

You get the idea. Now put two and two together. Place plants that are opposites next to each other. Get some tension going. Get a conversation happening. Do with plants what the poet Carl Sandburg said about the purpose of poetry: “Saying one thing and meaning another.” Only with plants make your friends say, “And look at that tree, strutting around like that.” Make them see one thing and think another.

Go ahead. Mix the layered and sensual alongside the thin dancey things. This could be whole new take on gardening.