I used to go to garden centers and pick one of this and one of that. I love plants. I love how different and cool they are. But my garden always looked kind of scraggly. And you couldn’t really see the plants. Nothing stood out.
A while back I read that you should plant in 3s. So now that’s what I do. I buy 3 of each plant (unless it’s something that will be a strong focal point and able to stand on its own. Think tree. Or prickly pear).
I then plant these in triangles, and try to overlap the triangles so I don’t end up with plants in straight lines. I generally tend to think more of tri-corner boomerang shapes when I’m mixing plants together. This is easier in practice than to demonstrate in a picture, since plants are different sizes and it’s easy to keep them from lining up.
If you haven’t tried this, I’d highly recommend it. It makes a HUGE difference.