Hot Colours in the Country Garden


© Jane Hollis
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Mar 12, 1999


What is your mental picture of the colours of a typical English country garden. Is it soft pastel colours - sugar pinks, baby blues and Sissinghurst whites - or hot flaming reds, oranges and yellows? I'd dare to guess that the majority of you magine the former, but there is a place for hot, exciting colours in the country garden, best illustrated by Christopher Lloyd's planting schemes at his famous Great Dixter garden in East Sussex.

When I first started gardening I had a distinct distaste for orange-coloured flowers, prefering to play safe with the afore-mentioned pastel shades. I think my judgement in this respect was influenced by the sight of regimented rows of stiff African marigolds bedded out in front gardens on my way to school as a child.

These days, however, I have realised that orange, and its harmonising colours red and yellow can be used to great effect in the garden. One important factor, when planning such a colour scheme, is the use of foliage as a buffer between the vibrant tones. Strong foliage shapes such as spiky phormiums or large-leafed Vitis coignetiae also add dynamism to the planting, whilst purple and golden foliage add depth and highlights respectively.

Soft yellow is a useful colour to employ in a hot border, adding little pools of coolness between the fiery shades. Alchemilla mollis and Anthemis 'E C Buxton' are good plants to use in this respect.

A hot border likes this needs to be positioned with care in a country garden - it may look rather odd set against a naturalised woodland planting or in front of a views of rolling hills. The best setting is in a more humanised part of the garden, perhaps adjoining a patio, terrace or summer house, or backed by a dark evergreen hedge or brick wall. The scheme shown in the photo above, and detailed in the planting plan, is situated in a corner of my garden between the neighbour's garage and our entrance gate. Incidentally, the border only really becomes hot in colour from May onwards, before that colour comes from the pink flowers of the Malus and Rhododendron, bluebells and cream daffodils.

The picture top left shows the border four years after planting, whilst the right hand photo shows it in its first summer.

Planting Plan Key 1. Spirea japonica 'Goldflame', 2. Coreopsis 'Mahogany Midget', 3. Euonymus fortunei 'Emerald 'n' Gold, 4. Escholzia californica, 5. Phormium tenax 'Purpureum', 6. Iris germanica (un-named bronze and gold forms), 7. Ilex x meservae 'Blue Angel', 8. Passiflora caerulea, 9. Lychnis chalcedonica, 10. Rosa 'L D Braithwaite', 11. Geum Mrs Bradshaw', 12. Sedum telephium 'Munstead Red', 13. Phygelius 'Winchester Fanfare', 14. Penstemon 'King George V', 15

   

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Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: View all related messages
2.   Mar 16, 1999 10:07 AM
Carol,
Thanks for your message. I think daylilies are great for using in hot schemes, especially those mahogany coloured forms, which help anchor the fieriness of the other tones. I must admit to b ...

-- posted by JaneHollis
1.   Mar 13, 1999 10:05 AM
In fact, I had planned to keep my garden sort of all white, with the occasional pale pink, silver and hints of deep blue. But then, my first garden was in totally full sun, and the very idea of a hot ...

-- posted by CarolWallace



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