Like a certain popular pornographic novel, monochrome gardens have had their detractors. Nevertheless, as recently as summer of 2011, Julia Hess, a senior horticulturist at the celebrated Missouri Botanical Gardens in St Louis created a sensational black-and-white display in the five acres of grounds surrounding the residence of the garden’s director. Whether she was inspired by the black-and-white themed artists’ ball so ably directed by Vincent Minnelli in An American in Paris, reprised with equal success a few years later in the screen version of My Fair Lady, Hess isn’t saying. What she has admitted is that, if ever she repeated such a planting, she would add more silver plants to the palette or, more prosaically, shades of grey.
