Pink is a hot color, you got lucky!

Ann--

I can't wait to hear what colors DO show up! I like blue and yellow together. I had an orange-ey rose show up--and I swear I didn't plan to plant a rose that color in THAT bed. Since its tag is gone, don't know if I planted it in the wrong place (since I do HAVE a bed for oranges and apricots) or if I got a mis-tagged bush. It got planted in late March, when I was still in major thyroid-brain-fog--so either scenario is possible. I'll be moving it in the fall!

melanie

Ah.. serendipity.Pitiful planning & marvelous mistakes seldom make great gardens, but they can make great gardeners. My motto: Revel in the mistakes, good & bad... but admit nothing.

Your garden color scheme is a perfect example of color echo effect, and sounds quite nice. I am a firm believer in the motto that there are really no colors that can't be made to work together, especially if they can be found together in nature. It is often a case of proper proportions of each color, rather than their not working together at all. I would generally tend to think that orange and pink are not colors that blend well, but have a beautiful succulent Echeveria that combines the two nicely.

I also love the pink, fuchsia/magenta, lavender color scheme, but in my own garden, this is more of a late summer into fall color combo, and would not be without my neon pink Nerine bowdenii in bloom for Thanksgiving each year, the magenta flowers of Calandrinia grandiflora and Odontonema callistachyum, neon pink of Sedum spectabile 'Brilliant' and Schizostylis coccinea, the sizzling magentas of Spanish Shawl/Heterocentron elegans and Mandevillea 'Red Riding Hood' and soft lavenders of the towering Dahlia imperialis and two toned lavender flowers of Tibouchina organensis as fall becomes winter and the rains begin here...

Catkim, I did indeed get lucky!

Melanie, I also like blue and yellow. My apprehension is that the transition from pink and lilac to blue and yellow may have a few odd pairings. I think I probably need to watch for any yellows that show up too early, while the pinks are still going, and move them elsewhere. The blues will work with the pinks. In fact, I forgot to mention I also have had brunnera blooming and it works well with all the pink.

Gweirdo, yes, serendipitiy is a marvelous thing, is it not?

Bahia, "color echoes" - I didn't know the term, but it sounds like what I am seeing. I have enjoyed it so much that I will look for it more.

The things I have learned this spring are these:

First, I have learned to pay closer attention to places that colors work together in addition to just the bloom itself. As I said, I notice the heuchera leaves working with the stalk of the bergenia flowers. I never would have looked at that detail before, but it is jumping out at me now.

Second, maybe I am starting to be able to see a bigger picture or maybe this just worked out well, but this spring I have been able to stand back and really notice how one plant in one location compliments another plant in a different location and how the colors were flowing from one to another. I was very pleased (I tried to get pictures, but they really don't show the effects. Besides, it IS still a work in progress, I am just pleased with the progress so far).

Third, I learned to not write off a particular color. I truly thought I didn't want pink flowers. Like Bahia, I don't care for pink and orange together (I would love to see the combo that works) and became so turned off by some I had that I have avoided both pink and orange ever since! I thought I wanted the "cool" scheme of blues and whites and grays. Well, fortunately for me I had all this pink and it turned out so lovely that now I have learned that I really can like these colors.

Fourth, I am beginning to see how repeating a certain plant or color or look will have an impact. I don't have enough of the bergenias (they are my new very favorite perennial) and the heucheras need to be moved to set off the stems better, and the tulips need to be moved, but the point is I am envisioning these changes far better than I have ever been able to before. It's really very encouraging to me.

Bahia, your fall scheme sounds gorgeous.

ahhh...yes...the stuff that is hard to learn from books and that you won't get from no stinking software!! Like the peonies that I planted near my door thinking that my mother said they were lily-of-the-valley. Sure they are planted too close and could use some more sun but they greet me every spring with their huge fragrant blossoms.

I have a lot of purple flowers, because my wife likes purple. I have quite a few yellows and I have been adding more whites. Last year I grew some 4 o'clocks from seed and they were a wonderful red. I had been avoiding red because I thought it would clash with purple, but it look great.

While we are talking about color...I had two bad color clashes in my garden last year. The deep purple of Salvia 'May Night' booms looked bad next to the softer pinkish/purple of a Rhododendron 'Lee's Dark Purple'. The other color clash was the robust yellow of Coreposis 'Early Sunrise' next to light lavender Phlox 'Franz Schubert' blooms. Ugly! Oh well...the Rhododendron is now dead and the Phlox has been barely hanging on for the past few years.

- Brent

I plan. Oh man, do I plan. I have few flowers in my garden and I want them to follow a strict color scheme of coral (you know, that intense or pale pinky-peachy color) and purples ranging from violet to periwinkle. I have a lot of chartreuse foliage and some blue and purple foliage plants as well. Well, I'm going to be so glad to move from this house and leave all the color mistakes behind. Shopping from catalogs DOES NOT CUT IT when you really need to know what color blooms will be. I have more "road cone red" and Crayola orange in my garden--colors I would never have chosen if I'd had any idea...So, I tried to fix things and tie it all together by adding two-toned flowers having both pinks and oranges like bicolor Asiatic lilies and also pale butter-yellow flowers. Still a big disaster. Fixing it would mean wholesale plantacide and I can't face it. So, next time around, I'll try to buy plants in bloom OR I'll keep everything in a trial bed until I can see what color it blooms before putting it out in the general population. Maybe other perople are thinking I should lighten up with the whole color thing?

Ooohhh, Sammie, these are probably not plants you'd choose, but you are making me miss my old peach & dark blue garden with roses 'Abraham Darby' and 'Kathleen' the hybrid musk, pale peach single peonies and Princess-somebody-or-other peach Oriental Poppies, the Clematis durandii and 'Ramona', dark blue salvias, Iris 'Schiaparelli', pale blue forget-me-nots, Alchemilla & catmint, 'August Moon' hostas, 'Peaches and Cream' verbena and 'Antique Shades' pansies. I was a tyrant back then - if the color wasn't right - off with their heads!

Down here it isn't even guessing wrong about the color - the sun is so intense that it bleaches the flowers out fast. A perfect combination at 10 AM can be a whole 'nuther garden by 4 in the afternoon.

Annie