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When I am interviewing a client for whom I am designing a garden, the subject of colour is sometimes, if you'll excuse the pun, a grey area. Typically a conversation can proceed thus: Client: "I want lots of colour in the garden." Designer: "OK. What do you want the colour to do?" Client: "Look colourful."...........
As you can see, this can lead a designer to stare blankly at the client, who in turn stares blankly back at the designer, each waiting for the next move. The subject of colour is difficult simply because of a difference in the perception of what colour is. To the client, 'colour' is a range of hues from red through to blue (strangely enough, clients almost invariably disregard green as a colour) with which to excite the retinas when looking at the background of the garden. To the designer colour is an endless palette of effects that can alter spatial perception, mood, temperature & many other facets of a garden. If you take a garden, any garden & plant it with many different colours you will achieve a glorious tumble of light, shade, warmth, cool, &, overall, a vibrant plot. Plant the same garden with silver-grey or variegated green & white foliage & pure white flowered varieties of Philadelphus, Roses, Paeonies & others then you will be surrounded by a cool white oasis of calm & peacefulness. Anyone who has witnessed the White Garden at Sissinghurst in full display will understand the difference. Again the same area festooned with deep reds & oranges will glow with passion & energy, & will demonstrate another effect of colour, that of perspective. Bright colours, which are generally what clients mean when they indicate a desire for colour, shorten perspective. In other words, the red & orange garden & in some respects the white garden, will be 'in your face' & will close in the space. Blues & purples tend to draw back from the viewer, so the illusion of openness is created. If you have a small garden planted with red Pelargoniums then the space will seem smaller than if it where planted with darker blue flowers. The scale of the flower size & leaf texture & size also plays a part but that is a whole different bucket of worms. So, not only can colour affect the style of a garden, but appear to alter the dimensions as well. What else, then, can this magical ingredient add to or subtract from a garden? As mentioned earlier, green & therefore leaf colours are rarely perceived as colour. Flowers are what most people rate as colour in a garden. This can mean that less care is used in determining the suitability of a plant if the colour is in the foliage. Take for example Euonymus fortunei 'Emerald & Gold'. This attractive evergreen shrub is often picked up in nurseries & placed in many a garden where it unwittingly demonstrates another role of intense colour in the garden; it provides a focal point! If a plant has a particularly glowing habit, then it will attract your attention wherever it is. Not a welcome attribute if you plant it in front of the compost heap, but a well judged addition if it supports your new water feature. Colour is a deep & rich subject, one of my contemporaries at university wrote a thesis on the effect of colour in the garden & ended up with far more research material than the 4000 word limit could cover. So, 600 words from me can only hope to make you all aware of the potential implications of colour, rather than give you any definitive dos & don'ts on the subject. Next time you are browsing through a tray of annuals at your local plant centre, think what the colours will do to your garden rather than what they do for you. Remember, Nature never makes mistakes with colour. |
