Color Schemes in Gardening
Selecting color themes for your garden means choosing flowers of one color or a group of colors. Which color or colors you choose depends on the effect you want to achieve: hot and stimulating, or cool, relaxing and peaceful.
If you have a large garden, different areas can have their own color theme.
This lens offers tips about color for gardeners who love flowers and want to know how to place plants in the garden with respect to color. This will help achieve the garden color schemes you want, at the same time as avoiding haphazard planting and color clashes.
If you have a large garden, different areas can have their own color theme.
This lens offers tips about color for gardeners who love flowers and want to know how to place plants in the garden with respect to color. This will help achieve the garden color schemes you want, at the same time as avoiding haphazard planting and color clashes.
What Types of Flowering Plant to Choose
Remember, each flowering plant will only appear for a while
Things to consider when choosing flowering plants:- color
- habit of the plant i.e. how tall it grows
- how much light it needs
- how much it spreads
- how long the flowers bloom
- when and in which season they bloom
Remember that each flowering plant will appear only for a while, make its contribution to the attractiveness of the garden, then disappear as other flowers come into bloom. When plants are chosen thoughtfully, this ensures a constant succession of flowers to brighten the garden through the seasons.
Red Rose Bud Gifts
Red roses are always memorable
If you are looking for a gift for someone special especially for Valentines Day, you will find several beautiful choices of red rose bud gifts available at this zazzle.com images & photos store.
The Color of Flowers and Their Foliage
To some extent the colors chosen will depend on the background to the flowers. For example: the color of brickwork of a house or garden wall or fencing, and if the flowers are to be set against a backdrop of shrubs, the color of those shrubs. Light colored flowers will look best against a dark background.The foliage of a flowering plant will provide the best background for the flowers. Nature doesn't make the mistake of having the color of flowers do battle with their own foliage.
Pale green foliage and brilliant blue flowers are inharmonious. Gray foliage, however, can be used successfully with vivid colors such as crimson, pure blue and scarlet - as shown in this example of a scarlet poppy with its gray foliage.
Incidentally, bluish pink and magenta both clash with crimson and scarlet.
“Garden-making is creative work, just as much as painting or writing a poem”
Flower Garden Color Scheme
Selecting Flowers for Their Color
When selecting flowers for their color, first choose those with the warmest tints: yellow, orange, crimson and scarlet. Since they associate harmoniously with each other, they can be planted close together and reinforce one another as shown in the image below.
Another color groups consists of purple, violet, mauve, lilac and lavender - the cooler colors. They blend successfully with each other and do particularly well when planted in large masses to contrast with various shades of yellow.
White flowers generally fare best when associated with the paler shades of the primary colors such as primrose, yellow, mauve and pink.
Another color groups consists of purple, violet, mauve, lilac and lavender - the cooler colors. They blend successfully with each other and do particularly well when planted in large masses to contrast with various shades of yellow.
White flowers generally fare best when associated with the paler shades of the primary colors such as primrose, yellow, mauve and pink.
Blue & Scarlet Flowers
for your garden color scheme
It is generally advisable to keep striking blue flowers such as lobelia, delphinium and gentian as far away as possible from purple and mauve. These blue flowers are difficult to fit into an harmonious color scheme. Vibrant blue flowers are best used in small numbers as vivid contrasts.The same advice is applicable to brilliant scarlet flowers such as lychnis, oriental and annual poppies, some varieties of canna and salvia splendens.
Books about Garden Color Schemes
"The Ever-Blooming Flower Garden" has received sixteen 5 star reviews at amazon.com
The Ever-Blooming Flower Garden: A Blueprint for Continuous Color 
one reviewer wrote: "Recommended without reservation: I love this book! I have a bookcase full of gardening books that I enjoyed reading but were really not particularly helpful in the actual execution. That is where this book is seriously different - the author knows her subject well, but, perhaps more importantly, understands her readers equally well."
See more garden color scheme books below or Click here to see a full selection of books about garden color schemes available from amazon.com
one reviewer wrote: "Recommended without reservation: I love this book! I have a bookcase full of gardening books that I enjoyed reading but were really not particularly helpful in the actual execution. That is where this book is seriously different - the author knows her subject well, but, perhaps more importantly, understands her readers equally well."See more garden color scheme books below or Click here to see a full selection of books about garden color schemes available from amazon.com
Using Contrasting Colors in Your Flower Bed
When planting a flower bed with plants of two contrasting colors, it's a good idea to have a broad edge of one color and fill the central area of the bed with another.For example: white dianthus or pinks can be edged with mauve violas and purplish Canterbury bells. If the Canterbury bells are used in the center of the bed, then the edging can be of yellow violas or the yellowish-green foliage of pyrethrum.
The same planting strategy can apply to long beds or borders whether using annual flowers, spring garden flowers, perennials or even flowering shrubs.
Flowers for the Herbaceous Flower Border
Typical of an English cottage garden
In the herbaceous border plant flowers in irregular masses so that the groups of flowers merge easily with their neighbors.
Here are some examples to give an idea of which colors should follow each other in an herbaceous border ...
1) purple, mauve, white, pale yellow, bright yellow, orange, scarlet, crimson, rose, pink, white, pale blue, and bright blue.
2) dark blue, light blue, white, pale yellow, yellow, orange, scarlet, and bright red.
Here are some examples to give an idea of which colors should follow each other in an herbaceous border ...
1) purple, mauve, white, pale yellow, bright yellow, orange, scarlet, crimson, rose, pink, white, pale blue, and bright blue.
2) dark blue, light blue, white, pale yellow, yellow, orange, scarlet, and bright red.
Gardening Links
- The RHS Advice on Color Planting
- The Royal Horticultural Society advice on planting schemes and color.
- Color Theme Gardens
- "The garden's feeling is determined by its light situation and the seasonal variations. So, the choices of color are affected, as well."
- Fish Pond Pumps
- Discover the world of garden ponds and how to keep them aerated and healthy using a pond pump including a solar pond pump.
- Home & Garden Product Reviews UK
- Reviews of some of the most popular products for use in the home and garden.
- Images & Photos: Red Rose Bud & Pink Dahlia
- Beautiful red rose bud gifts and pink dahlia gifts available here.
Please leave a comment about this lens ...
... if you would like to, and maybe award it some stars?
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Reply
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Ilona1
Feb 12, 2011 @ 9:16 am | delete
- Thanks for linking to my page :) You've done a very nice job on your lens.
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Nata_S
Aug 1, 2009 @ 4:46 pm | in reply to Angelus | delete
- I posted new pictures on my squidoo pages from my garden.
Take a look. My floxes look so happy this summer.
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Angelus
Jul 17, 2009 @ 6:27 pm | in reply to Nata_S | delete
- Yes - I think we both enjoy flowers a lot.
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Nata_S
Jul 16, 2009 @ 9:25 pm | delete
- Nice job. Simple and practical.
Looks like we are in sync. I actually called my other blog "painting with flowers".
Let me know what you think.
http://natagarden.blogspot.com/
http://www.squidoo.com/natagarden
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Angelus
Jul 14, 2009 @ 2:42 pm | in reply to LindaJM | delete
- Ah, another gardener :-) Aren't flowers wonderful - their colors and their scents. Thank you very much for the blessing.!
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Angelus
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