I am very lucky in having a large garden. I think that one style throughout would be boring.
I like to have areas with clashes: orange with purple, blue with red. Christopher Lloyd is a great inspiration.
I also have areas where I try to have nice restful coordination, and areas with no flowers, just interesting leaf colours and textures.
I also try to have different planting styles in different areas: some block planting, some areas of naturalistic planting, and some areas of no planning whatsoever.
Sometimes it is the areas with least planning that work the best.
It is interesting to me how many people say that you cant combine pink and yellow, but in nature these colours regularly occur together, on the same plant.
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
Explosion in a paint factory is mine, but it tends to follow a pattern by itself, Spring and early summer its very soft, pink lilac pale colours from the lupins foxgloves and delphiniums, then the hot colours automatically appear, red orange dark blue. Mines a cottage garden anything goes, as long as it in clumps, I dont like the one here, one there look. Everything has to go in 4 or 5's, thats why I dont buy anything, it would cost too much, so its all cuttings and seeds.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
I have that book. But I tend to plant where I think plants will be happy, sun, shade, dry, moist etc. Colour scheming as well is too complicated for me, especially when you have to work out the times of year as well. I try to mix early flowerers with late ones so I don't have bare patches. The middle bed was supposed to be pastels and the end bed was supposed to be hot colours, but it's got rather muddled.
Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
You mean I can plan my garden? I've planted it as a wildlife garden, so there's a lot of blues and purples, mainly Lavenders and Sage, plus a lot of herbs. If the wildflower seeds take, there will be a riot of colours. Also have Snapdragons, Borage and Birdsfoot in the propagators.
I'm artistic like most of us who garden, I know what I like and what I don't, but designing beds is akin to Shakespeare's plays...there are layers and levels of understanding.
I think I sit somewhere in the middle. I'm not yet educated enough with personal experience of how every plant behaves in my garden which I think makes all the difference, plants don't always behave as the label predicts.
The control freak in me has decided that the top garden is mostly pink flowers with yellow foliage contrasts. Definitely no yellow or orange flowers.
Middle garden is hot colours with icy foliage contrasts, definitely no pink allowed.
Bottom garden is harmonious purples and whites with white variegation. No orange.
Of course, I can't move the enormous Virginia creeper that tramples all over my tranquil purple/white garden come September but that's okay, a little bit of chaos keeps me from becoming a total control freak.
I mostly love formality with architectural forms within that framework, flowers are the bonus.
Mine is 'cottagey', so anything goes colour-wise, but the main long borders are east-facing against tall fences or tall hedges, so more thought goes into giving each plant/shrub suitable growing conditions than the colour scheme; If the plant is happy, so am I and I think there is nothing which catches the eye more than a struggling, sick or generally unhappy plant and that detracts from everything else in the area. I do group plants though and try to put tall stuff at the back and short at the front, which is usually as far as I go with respect to design.
A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
I like both styles, both contrast and clash, this year in my new bed I'm going for contrast with golden deep yellows with the full range of purple and blues.
But I love the vibrancy of clashing deep pinks and brilliant reds as they are so striking and work well because the lush green holds it all together.
Posts
I am very lucky in having a large garden. I think that one style throughout would be boring.
I like to have areas with clashes: orange with purple, blue with red. Christopher Lloyd is a great inspiration.
I also have areas where I try to have nice restful coordination, and areas with no flowers, just interesting leaf colours and textures.
I also try to have different planting styles in different areas: some block planting, some areas of naturalistic planting, and some areas of no planning whatsoever.
Sometimes it is the areas with least planning that work the best.
It is interesting to me how many people say that you cant combine pink and yellow, but in nature these colours regularly occur together, on the same plant.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
Explosion in a paint factory is mine, but it tends to follow a pattern by itself, Spring and early summer its very soft, pink lilac pale colours from the lupins foxgloves and delphiniums, then the hot colours automatically appear, red orange dark blue. Mines a cottage garden anything goes, as long as it in clumps, I dont like the one here, one there look. Everything has to go in 4 or 5's, thats why I dont buy anything, it would cost too much, so its all cuttings and seeds.
Christopher Lloyd wrote a fantastic book on colour in the garden, which I would really recommend. I think it is still available on Amazon.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
I have that book. But I tend to plant where I think plants will be happy, sun, shade, dry, moist etc. Colour scheming as well is too complicated for me, especially when you have to work out the times of year as well. I try to mix early flowerers with late ones so I don't have bare patches. The middle bed was supposed to be pastels and the end bed was supposed to be hot colours, but it's got rather muddled.
You mean I can plan my garden? I've planted it as a wildlife garden, so there's a lot of blues and purples, mainly Lavenders and Sage, plus a lot of herbs. If the wildflower seeds take, there will be a riot of colours. Also have Snapdragons, Borage and Birdsfoot in the propagators.
I agree re too complicated BL
I'm artistic like most of us who garden, I know what I like and what I don't, but designing beds is akin to Shakespeare's plays...there are layers and levels of understanding.
I think I sit somewhere in the middle. I'm not yet educated enough with personal experience of how every plant behaves in my garden which I think makes all the difference, plants don't always behave as the label predicts.
The control freak in me has decided that the top garden is mostly pink flowers with yellow foliage contrasts. Definitely no yellow or orange flowers.
Middle garden is hot colours with icy foliage contrasts, definitely no pink allowed.
Bottom garden is harmonious purples and whites with white variegation. No orange.
Of course, I can't move the enormous Virginia creeper that tramples all over my tranquil purple/white garden come September but that's okay, a little bit of chaos keeps me from becoming a total control freak.
I mostly love formality with architectural forms within that framework, flowers are the bonus.
Mine is 'cottagey', so anything goes colour-wise, but the main long borders are east-facing against tall fences or tall hedges, so more thought goes into giving each plant/shrub suitable growing conditions than the colour scheme; If the plant is happy, so am I and I think there is nothing which catches the eye more than a struggling, sick or generally unhappy plant and that detracts from everything else in the area. I do group plants though and try to put tall stuff at the back and short at the front, which is usually as far as I go with respect to design.
I like both styles, both contrast and clash, this year in my new bed I'm going for contrast with golden deep yellows with the full range of purple and blues.
But I love the vibrancy of clashing deep pinks and brilliant reds as they are so striking and work well because the lush green holds it all together.
.
Pales early
Hots later
But as Bob says, if it grows for me and is happy and was free of cheap, thats ok by me.
I'd have to remember when things flowered and where they are planted in order to have a plan.
No chance
In the sticks near Peterborough