Re: Color emphases on Perennial border design
- To: <perennials@mallorn.com>
- Subject: Re: Color emphases on Perennial border design
- From: "* a* A* <e*@enterprise.net>
- Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 17:28:05 -0000
From: McAlpine, Duncan G <Duncan.McAlpine@PSS.Boeing.com>
To: 'perennials@mallorn.com' <perennials@mallorn.com>
Date: 16 January 1998 15:47
Subject: Color emphases on Perennial border design
>The
>main concern to me is understanding the relationship of colors in the
>perennial border. I have spent many hours trying to align my colors to
>provide a picture perfect effect as we all have seen in our favorite
>books.
I have a lot of old gardening books (mostly from secondhand bookshops) and I
often find them more interesting than some of the modern ones. The best
writer on colour in plantings IMHO is Gertrude Jekyll - she used a gradual
change through her borders from the hotter colours (reds and oranges)
through the rainbow to cooler ones (blues and purples). The hotter colours
should be closer to the house as the cooler ones recede and make the border
look longer as you look down it!
Having said that my garden is a bit of a jumble of colour and I often try
plants in one place, then move them. I can't imagine planning a bed from
scratch - maybe I'm just not that organised or disciplined in my approach to
gardening.
One useful technique is to pick some flowers and foliage of a plant you are
trying to place harmoniously and walk around to see what else it looks good
with - it can surprise you sometimes what works! You need to do it several
times in the year.
Alison in North Wales UK
PS The snowdrops are out today with lots of primulas and pulmonarias - it
must be nearly spring!
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