This may not be much help for you, but this is what I do.
I pick out flowers I like, some years I'm stuck on certain colors, other years I'm more about the leaf textures.
Then I just plant it, wherever, without much concern for color combinations. Ok, height needs to be considered a bit, but not as much as you think.
I'm never disappointed, although I love the cottage-hodge-podge look also.

A couple of my standard "fillers" for container gardening are: Alyssum and purple basil. I also try to ensure I have some white flowers mixed in. They seem to help make the other colors really "pop".

I love red and yellow together. This is not always easy to achieve in my small city garden. Yellow, I've got covered, from spring to frost. Heliopsis, and buddilea, both over 4 feet tall and long lasting perennials. Taller annual sunflowers too as well as
yarrow, various coreopsis, Black-eyed-susans, sun-drops, daisies, and I forget what else all in the 2 foot range.
For the reds, various roses, some carnations, peonies, cardinal vine, nasturtiums, and zinnias of course, but I never have enough red to make me happy. I have put in poppies but they haven't come back yet. I am hoping WSing this year of them and some other things can make my garden more permanently yellow and red. I forget everything I've WSed right now!
Suggestions welcome!

choose a color for one bed and stick with it or add shades of it but keep it close- always looks great.
for shade garden- think of shape, color of foliage, not flowers.
If you have plenty of space- plant in clusters/ groups/ rows- whatever fits but a lot of it.
Think of what you want to achieve- are your beds for all seasons or you want to have spring bed, summer bed, fall bed.
If for one season- figure out plants with similar time bloom, then place one focal point that will hold that bed for rest of the season if needed/ shrub, arch etc.
If mulitseason bed- you can have several focal points changing from bloom to bloom.
Some plants are architectural/ you only need one of it in the bed/ and need careful placement- think of it first- like rheum, baptisia, goatsbeard, inula magnifica, crambe cordifolia, etc

Thanks.
I have more or less decided on a few colors for some of my beds. Also one w/a mix of colors that is farther away from the house for the birds, butterflies etc.
Think the "seeing" each plant and knowing what it will look like when it is grown. For height, color, foliage etc will help a lot.
I suppose this year will be just a mess w/plants all mixed the wrong way. Then try to improve upon it each year.
Bonnie

Nice ideas! I like to pick a few colors also. Now I should have have more colors from my first year with WS'ing so I am planning to add more foliage and more white. I think Hosta and other foliage plants will help.

I have seen some purple basil and might add that too. It looks pretty. I have not seen any seeds but I will try to find them.

I have other foliage which are herbs like basil's, dill, oregano, mint and others. I love herbs and I spread them all over. Plus bunnies usually don't like herbs. Always a good thing!

karen

I like to browse the various 'gallery' sections of different forums. I was just over at the Cottage Garden forum Gallery and found this post, which has a lot of nice combinations. Other threads are just as inspirational:

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Combination pix over at the Cottage Garden Gallery