Contrasting Colors in the Garden
The color wheel shows how the principal contrasts in color are made – red with green, blue with orange and yellow with purple – but countless bold com¬binations can be used. These are strong effects, high¬lights to be used in garden design in a similar way to harmonies, but more sparingly. If a garden is over¬loaded with severe contrasts they cease to be effective. For instance, a golden-leaved conifer can make a bril¬liant highlight in the all-green days of winter, but plant a dozen of them and the effect is devalued.
A variety of smaller contrasts, in color as in tex¬ture, are the stuff of interesting gardening. They keep the eye entertained and moving along. Sharp contrasts, like purple hazel next to yellow elder or a blue spruce with a yellow cypress, can draw attention and focus a garden, but they also hold up the progress of the eye, whereas smaller, gentler contrasts allow the eye to flow along. Indeed, the most harmonious of planting schemes will need a little contrast to keep it alive and add that certain spark of the unexpected. A garden without enough contrast becomes a dull affair.
Colors which at full strength would war with one another can make good companions when one of them is used in a paler tint. The strong, creamy yellow of Anthemis ‘Wargrave’ would look crude beside royal blue delphiniums, yet if the misty lavender of Thal-ictrum delavayi were to be substituted for the del¬phinium there would be an interesting contrast, and the speck of yellow in the heart of the thalictrum flower would tie the two colors together. For a more gradual contrast, the thalictrum could be placed be¬tween the anthemis and the delphinium.
Contrast of foliage color can be just as telling as that of flower color, and this should be borne in mind when planning a garden. Schemes which are intended to carry a great deal of bright flower color will not require so much contrast or variety in the foliage: a reliable matrix of good stable greens will provide the best platform for floral pyrotechnics. By contrast, a garden which relies more on permanent shrubby plantings and evergreens will benefit from a greater range of contrasts in foliage color.
Color contrast can be made part of the whole gar¬den design with certain areas set aside for strong hot colors, in direct contrast to other pale, cooler areas. These color pools need not be kept separate in en¬closed areas of the garden; instead, contrast can be used to enhance and distinguish the different sides of a more open prospect.
Remember that the effects made by color depend upon the light in which they are seen. A really star¬tling contrast may be devalued by siting it in shade, but, conversely, this effect can be used to temper an unwanted, unavoidable clash of colors.
Tags: blue delphiniums, color wheel, planning a garden, yellow cypress