Orchestrating color echoes--Part I

07/19/2004
Orchestrating color echoes--Part I

In some ways, composing great plant combinations isn't too different from putting together a smashing outfit. (Women, you know what I mean; men, well--you may or may not.) You know you look really good when the color of your shoes picks up a background tone in your blouse, while the scarf at your throat echoes the rosy pink of the blossoms scattered across its fabric. Meanwhile, the character of the fabrics of your slacks and blouse are similar; that is, you're not wearing a rustic linen with a shiny silk.

Orchestrating plants so that they make a harmonious garden is very similar. You learn to choose plants of a similar or at least not discordant vernacular for placement near each other. Next, you choose their colors to...to what? Just what makes a garden harmonious, when it comes to color? Do you need to simplify to the point of a monochrome palette (e.g. a white garden, a blue garden) in order to achieve effective color schemes in your landscape?
Do you make it all "match"?



To a beginning (or even intermediate) gardener, this may seem the easiest way out. And it's not an invalid principle. More or less matching flower colors between two plants is the safest and simplest way of creating color harmonies in the garden. For instance, in the photo above right, the mauvey pink of the foxglove closely matches the lilac pink of the climbing rose 'Veilchenblau'. No one can say that it's not a pretty combination.



In the photo at left, a Shirley poppy self-sowed in a clump of crimson fernleaf yarrow. I like how the poppy provides a big blob of the same crimson as the tiny, pointilliste yarrow blossoms. Similarly, below, white Shirley poppies hover over a blanket of white feverfew flowers. It's a different twist on the same principle. However, this is just the most superficial and obvious way of pairing plants in what I call a "color echo." It's nothing more than one plant echoing the color of another. In both cases, you have the flower of one herbaceous plant echoing the flower color of another.




But constructing color echoes gets progressively more interesting and more subtle. One twist consists of widening the types of plants involved in delivering the echoes. Above, we had the simplest combinations of flowering annuals and perennials. But how about a bit of miscogeny? No garden is complete without woody plants, grasses, herbs... In the photo below left, we have a bulb and a shrub working in concert. The pale lavender flowers of an early flowering rhododendron (R. campanulatus) are perfectly echoed in their color by those of a Spanish bluebell (Hyacinthoides hispanicus) at its feet.



Creating color echoes is an endlessly stimulating process. And the more creative you are, the more satisfying your results will be. If you don't believe me, next time you visit a beautiful garden--public or private--take the time to note the combinations that catch your eye, that give you the clear message that you're in a garden--and not just in an assemblage of plants. In that vein, I love the combination in the photo at right. Here (photo below right), the iridescent rosy inflorescences of Miscanthus sinensis--that most pedestrian of ornamental grasses--is perfectly echoed by the conical flower of annual amaranth of the elephant nose variety. This unusual combination elevates the commonplace to the sublime.



Sometimes a strong color echo can serve to bind together two plants which would otherwise be somewhat odd bedfellows. "Not at all," would be my reaction if you asked me whether Russell lupines and azaleas would make a good combination. For me, azaleas are delicate, refined plants best seen in a woodland setting, while Russell lupines are for me the somewhat stodgy stalwarts of an overly floriferous English border. Yet, in the photo below left, the pink and yellow florets of the lupine so effectively echo the coral of the azalea blossoms that the effect is harmonious.



You enter a new degree of subtlety when you use one plant to "concentrate" the color of another. This happens when you combine two plants with different saturations of the same color. The plant with the more intense color will seem to concentrate the paler tone of its companion. The overall result is satisfying and often too subtle to be recognized for what it is. For example, in the photo below right, the intense blue-violet of the balloonflower appears to concentrate the paler tone of the bellflower (Campanula rotundifolia).



A good color concentration echo will wake you up to color notes that you may never have noticed existed. For example, if you've grown valerian (Valeriana officinalis), you may have perceived its lacy umbels of fragrant flowers as simply white. But in fact, the entire plant--flowers and leaves--is suffused with shades of lavender and rose. These tones are brought out in the pairing in the photo at left with Malva sylvestris, whose forthright lavender-rose is like the quintessence of the color that the valerian only hints at (photo below left).



Color echoes can work to make you notice things about a plant that you would otherwise fade into the background. For instance, when you look at the aster 'Lady in Black', you tend to focus on the internal color harmony between the purple tones of the foliage and the raspberry centers which dominate the blossoms. But the juxtaposition (below right) of the glowingly pure white grapeleaf anemone blossoms over the clouds of aster flowers picks up the white of the asters' diminuitive petals.



Even more subtle color echoes can serve to harmonize color combinations that might otherwise seem clashing and jarring. When I saw the combo below of bright pink aster, pale pink grapeleaf anemone, and goldenrod, I couldn't figure out why it seemed to work when all my better judgment told me that golden yellow and pale pink were inhospitable companions. It was only upon reflecting on the photo (below left) I'd taken that I realized why this weird combo was effective. Several very subtle color harmonies were at work. The deep pink of the aster concentrates the pale rose of the anemone. And most important, the golden stamens of the anemones echo the golden yellow of the goldenrod.



As your gardening skill develops, your color echoes will become more and more inventive and subtle--and your gardens more and more satisfying to view. For instance, when I spotted the sublimely subtle harmony of the spirea buds and foliage with the tiny, delicately cupped calyces on the inflorescences of Briza maxima (main photo head of article), I knew I'd glimpsed the nirvana of a masterful gardener. Stay tuned for Part II of this article, where we plunge into ever more subtle and exciting color echoes.

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Products of Interest:
'Paris' border fork
Provençal flower hoe
Shade-tolerant--Tree mallow
Average to wet soils--Valerian