Landscaping Design with Color
It's always very important to keep color in mind when planning your perennial flower bed. Learn how in this article.
Having worked in Architecture most of my adult live and a good portion of that time was spent dealing with interior designers and presenting clients with color boards, all of the color coordination had to be just so or the whole theme fell apart.
After starting to work with landscaping, and dealing with perennial and annual borders, I felt that anything that mother nature would put together would be just fine and there wouldn't be any color clashing or concert about what goes with what or what doesn't. I led a happy life....Until I visited a new landscaping friends yard, that is.
He and his wife had been working on a well planned, color coordinated garden for years. Guess what? I wasn't happy any longer, at least not with my landscaping. Their garden looked unbelievable!! In fact, I couldn't understand why it would make such a difference.
I went directly home, got out my sketch paper, a pencil and my favorite plant book and went to work. I was on a mission.
To make a long story short, color coordination in your landscaping border, does make a difference, a very important difference and now I know that for sure.
One of the most tried and true methods of coordination is to get your hands on a color wheel - or better yet, just use the one shown below. The nice feature of this particular wheel is that the color names are slanted towards the colors we use in our gardens and not the artist's colors.
Landscaping Design with Color - Keep the Color Wheel In Mind
Primary Colors: Red, Yellow and Blue. These colors will make a very strong statement and you should use them when you want to do just that.
Secondary Colors: Orange, Green and Violet. These are located directly next to the primaries and kind of bridge the gap between the primaries.
The Tertiary Colors: are red–orange, red–violet, yellow–orange, yellow–green, blue–violet and blue–green.
The nice feature of this wheel is it really lets you design with flower color rather than artist's color lingo.
Landscaping Design with Color - Work With Shades of the Same Color
One of the safest, yet nicest looking color combinations is to pick a cultivar that has several pastle color variations, as the Astilbies in the above photo.
If you feel uncomfortable with an entire landscape border, you can start in small sections too, by experimentation. Try the method above with several different perennials and annuals.
A few that come to mind are the Astilbies, Monarda, Daylily, Yarrows and many in the daisy family.
Landscaping Design with Color - Plant in Large Drifts
If you have quite a large border to deal with, it almost always works to plant large groupings of colors as in the photo above. This cuts down on your decision-making process considerabily.
I also feel that is you use dabs of color and lots and lots of different color, the landscaping border becomes too busy and your eye doesn't know what to follow or focus on.
Using large groups of color and gently working your way both around and outward on the Plant Color Wheel will give a well-ordered and very pleasant flow of color.
Landscaping Design with Color - Hosta Are Great Folaige Plants
One of the most important elements you can introduce into your garden is both folaige color and folaige texture.
Many perennilas abound with great leaf structures and subtle differences in color between different cultivars.
If you have a shady spot, or even part shade, take a close look at the Hosta that are available. They vary in shades of green ranging from a bright almost glow-in-the-dark green to dark green and multcolors. Leaf structures are also very interesting, as are the sizes available.
When I lived in 5 acres of woods, it was the Hosta that was the foundation of my borders. I have well over 800 of them, in every shape, color and size and they all looked great together.
Keep in mind to again, plant in large groupings if possible and if in a larger area. Planting different sized hosta randomly will not give you a happy look.
Landscaping Design with Color - Don't Forget About The Folaige Plants
Also understand that most perennials do not flower for the entire season and even though we picked them for their bloom color, height and bloom time, we do have to endure them during their folaige period as well.
While some will die back, others can provide you with a handsome display of prominant folaige for the balance of the season, much the same as a flowering shrubs, such as azeleas and rhododendrons.
