The use of colour is probably the most influential feature in gardens, creating mood, contrast, harmony and motion in the landscape.
Cool colours such as purple and blue are on opposite sides of the colour wheel and complementary to warm ones like yellow and orange.
Designers use complementary colours like purple and yellow or orange and blue to emphasize contrast, giving energy and movement to a display.
Garden designers also use colour to manipulate how the eye perceives the landscape. Cool colours are often called receding colours and appear more distant than warm ones or advancing colours because they give the illusion of being closer.
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Use of receding colours in a small landscape makes it appear more spacious, while warm colours can make it feel more crowded. Advancing colours in a flower bed viewed from a distance make it appear closer to the viewer.
Using blocks of colour adds a calming effect and gives more formality and order to a garden. Whether the blocks of colour are monochromatic or contrasting also will affect the mood.
Contrasting shades establish more movement and tension in the garden, while a monochromatic one offers little tension and creates a soothing mood.
A mixture will give the sense of informality and busyness. A garden with many colours has an informality or casualness to it that a garden with a carefully controlled colour scheme does not have.
Certain colours are used to separate disparate or conflicting blocks like pink and orange. These separator plants are often foliage plants with silver leaves like dusty miller and artemesia or flowering plants with white or blue-purple blooms.
These neutral colours help to transition from one colour to the other. If they are repeated in the border several times, they will add to a sense of harmony by providing a unifying thread running throughout the border.
Repetition is a good way to achieve harmony, so colours should be repeated in a bed or border. If yellow lilies are used, have several clumps, and if a grouping of purple monarda is present, repeat it a couple more times throughout the border.
Designers also are aware of the subtle nuances of foliage colour and create interesting effects by using plants whose leaves are different shades of green ranging from fluorescent lime green to dull, olive green.
Albert Parsons has a diploma in horticulture from Guelph University. He operates a garden design/landscape consultation business from his home in Minnedosa, Man. Contact:
