WHAT WOULD THE IMPRESSIONISTS DO?

The Cantina Garden has been mostly green ere now, but it's finally starting to show some color. Most exciting discovery so far?

The coneflowers all survived (despite that dastardly "'Dillo Dan's" best efforts)! I planted every different color and variety I could find, except white, but this is the only one in bloom so far.

 
Is that gorgeous, or what?

In case you haven't noticed before, I tend to gravitate to the spicy hot and downright lurid shades.

Yarrow

I used to design my gardens according to how they looked from a distance -- from whatever viewpoint people were most likely to be seeing them from. No one ever sees the Cantina Garden beds from the street side. They look at them primarily from our upstairs porch and windows. If I had followed the traditional rules, putting the tallest plants up close to the house, many things would have been blocked from view. It was only by checking on things periodically from my dining porch windows, after my plants were beginning to take on some size, that I finally figured that out. I had a bit of rearranging to do!

A Hybrid Blanket Flower

Now, however, I'm beginning to look at my garden from a different perspective.

More and more I find myself zooming in on the details -- wondering how best to capture these on camera or with paint.

I have neither the time nor the temperament to be a realistic painter, trying to capture every last detail. But I just can't figure out how to reduce something this glorious down to it's very essence, with just a few brush strokes. And so I wonder, what would the Impressionists do?