Jed Wolf

A long time ago I decided there are only four fundamental colors in landscapes – green, blue, chartreuse and maroon. Green is all shades of green, blue includes silvers, chartreuse is chartreuse and maroon comprises coppers and purples.

Without all four artfully placed, something’s missing. Fickle flower colors don’t count.

I similarly categorize contrasting textures into feathery, spiked, rounded and branchy so with this in mind, and $170 in my pocket from selling so many God damned swimming pools, it was time to turn my attention to my own neglected backyard so Dave and I set off this morning to Jim Bingham’s World Famous Discount Plants, 14985 Old St. Augustine Rd. on Rt. 1. In Jacksonville.

When we first started coming down here, we noticed gigantic blue/green Bismarck Palms in people’s front yards. “We don’t have room for that. Their scale is wrong,” I said for years. Impressive as they are, wherever they are, they scream “look at me,” minimizing everything else. Both spiky and blue/green, Century Plants on either side of our driveway were enough out front.

But in the back yard, recently removing the huge decrepit water oak which smashed the monk’s head after hurricane Isaias now lets a huge amount of sun pour into the pond and it’s surroundings. Vegetation which used to languor in the shade has suddenly taken off.

The bewilderness behind the pond needed something Herculean to compete and focus attention, so what could contrast the tangle of bamboo feathers, maroon dracaena straps, mounds of Mexican petunia and chartreuse anise than a jurassic Bismarck Palm which would have been over $300 anywhere else?