A green dragonfly visited my garden this morning. The big-eyed bug let me approach very closely to snap this photo. Perhaps it felt so friendly toward me because I was attracting plenty of mosquitoes for it to eat. The feeling was mutual. Go get ’em, dragonfly!

The bat-faced cuphea is still blooming, despite some crisped-up leaves. The garden is so thirsty for rain right now. We’ve had highs in the 100s and 90s for a month and no rain since the first week of July, and the garden is desperate for a deep soaking. The natives are hanging on with the little water I give them, but I’ve never seem them so stressed, especially those out by the curb.

Since planting or moving plants is out of the question until fall, I’ve been moving garden ornaments around instead. Today I moved the yellow dragon pot (so named at the nursery for a bas-relief dragon along the rim). I’ve been playing musical chairs with this large pot for several months, trying to find the right spot. I love the look of colorful pots in the garden, but it can be tricky to place one so that it seems a part of the garden and not something just plopped into it.
For my own future reference, here’s what I’ve learned.
1. Place the pot amid complementary or contrasting colors. I had thought this golden-yellow pot would look great behind black-eyed Susans and backed by red roses. But the black-eyed Susans were too yellow against the golden pot, and the bright-red roses clashed too. The new placement still pairs the pot with yellow and red, but more subdued versions: the seasonal golden-yellow of Wilson’s daylily and the low-growing, dark-red flowers of Texas betony.
2. Arrange the pot in front of a taller grass. The pot will look especially lovely in the fall with the feathery seedheads of the grass rising behind it, looking as if the grass is planted in the pot. I tried this trick with a bicolor iris first, in lieu of a grass. The large, South African bicolor iris is evergreen, and its sword-like leaves and clumping habit make it a good shade-tolerant substitute for a grass. But I soon discovered that the 4′-tall and -wide iris dwarfed my pot, hulking over it and hiding it from view. The pot was lost in the jungle. Now it is backed by a Lindheimer muhly grass that is hanging on in the partial shade of my cedar elm. The muhly is airier, shorter, and more in scale with the pot, and its tan seed spikes look great with the golden pot.
3. Set the pot amid low-growing plants, with a taller plant (like a grass) behind it. This may seem obvious, but I had to learn it the hard way. You love your pot. You want to show it off. So you decide to stick it on the edge of a planting bed in order to show it off from every angle. Do this and you’ll disover that you’ve taken away all the mystery and fun of discovering an object in your garden.
Instead, put the pot in a bed, with low growers in front and a taller plant behind. Your pot will not be visible from every angle of your garden, and so it can be discovered in the course of a garden stroll. Set the pot back from the edge of the bed, with plants growing around its base, and the pot will have a timeless, more natural look than if it were stuck nakedly on the edge of your path.
4. It was the grande dame Emily Whaley who said, “There’s such a thing as too many dancing girls” (from Mrs. Whaley and Her Charleston Garden, a charming “conversation” with the sociable, outspoken, octogenarian gardener). Like her, I love ornament in the garden, but she’s right—you must have discipline or you’ll clutter your garden. For some of us (me), this is like saying not to purchase that beautiful new flower that catches your eye at the nursery because your garden is already stuffed. So I say, go ahead and bring home that new, must-have ornament, but put something you already own in the garden shed when you get home, or maybe switch ornaments out with the seasons.
I’m on the verge of crossing into over-ornamentation myself, but I do try to restrain myself these days. Previously, the dragon pot was in a bed with a wrought-iron gate against the wall behind it as well as another pot (terra cotta) on a stand. Too much! Now it shares space with three birdhouses mounted on posts, but because they are at a different height, it works. But nothing else can go in here without making a jumble. (I’ll just have to read this line over and over again whenever I am tempted to add something new.)

This is a photo of the pot in a previous location that was perfect except that it sat too close to the edge of the patio. Now it is set deeper in this bed, with plants at its feet but still backed by the grass you see here. The garden is too tired and thirsty from the drought to bloom much right now, but I’ll post another photo this fall.