Color as ‘The Great Illusionist’ in Garden Design
Use color to influence mood, temperature, and the perception of space in your gardenLike a memorable film or beautifully staged room, a well-designed garden has the power to transport us, setting the mood, evoking memories, and even altering our perception of space and temperature. One of the most effective tools for creating these subtle illusions is color.
Adjusting Your Garden’s “Temperature”
Consider the color wheel as a handy design tool. When drawn between these colors, the line separates high-energy warm colors from calm, peaceful cool tones.
As Jan Johnsen mentioned in her recent Designing with Color webinar, colors can be divided into two families: warm and cool. Warm colors include shades of red, orange, and yellow, while cool colors include shades of blue, green, and purple. And when cleverly used in the garden, these colors can have a direct physical effect on a person. Just by looking at a hot or cool-colored garden bed, the mind registers it as a few degrees warmer or cooler than it actually is.
The high-octane pink, yellow, and magenta tones of Arctotis ‘Pink Sugar’ and Linaria reticulata inject instant energy and vibrancy into a sunny border.
Warm colors create a psychological sense of heat and energy. In cooler climates, gardens filled with fiery oranges, glowing yellows, and rich reds can make outdoor spaces feel sunnier and more inviting, even on overcast days.
Plant list: Full-Sun Perennials
Warm colors are also especially effective in shady areas of the garden. A dark corner planted with golden foliage, apricot-colored flowers, or vivid reds can create the illusion of sunlight filtering through the trees.
The icy blues of Stokesia ‘Blue Frills’ and Fescue ‘Elijah Blue’, with the deep plum foliage of Hibiscus ‘Perfect Storm’, come together to cool down a scorching summer garden.
Gardeners in hotter climates can benefit from taking the opposite approach, as it’s hard to enjoy your garden when the temperatures outside are soaring. One way to counterbalance the oppressive heat is to create an illusion of refreshing coolness by choosing cooler colors of lush greens, icy blues, and rich purples. The result will be an illusion of a cooling, restful, and serene garden.
Related: Beautiful Blue Flowers
Changing the Mood of a Garden
Most gardens become reflections of the people who create them, blending personality, artistic taste, hobbies, and collections into a deeply personal space. But sometimes people inherit or purchase gardens designed by someone else, and although the garden may be objectively beautiful, it simply doesn’t feel like theirs.
Referring back to the color wheel’s temperatures, altering the colors in your garden can be an important step in realigning its mood with your own.
A warm backdrop of fiery reds, oranges, yellows, and playful pinks creates the ultimate high-octane mood for a festive gathering. Photo: Curious Flora Garden.
For example, do you want a garden that will excite, energize, and stimulate your creativity? Then consider introducing bright, saturated combinations of red, orange, and yellow into your garden to create excitement, drama, and sociability. These colors naturally draw attention and stimulate conversation.
The restorative mix of calming purple rhododendrons, deep greens, and quiet blues creates an ideal, restful haven to unplug and decompress. Photo: Linda Anderson’s garden.
In contrast, restrained palettes built around the cooler shades of green, blue, purple, and white will result in a quiet, contemplative atmosphere. These colors encourage relaxation and reflection and are especially suited to private courtyards, evening seating areas, or gardens designed for retreat and restoration.
Learn more: How to Create a Colorful Garden
Expanding a Small Space
The warm, active color of the burgundy fountain grass appears to move forward against the surrounding cool, passive colors of the green grasses and lavender. Photo: Zarcone Garden.
Deep garden beds are at the top of many gardeners’ wish lists, and for good reason. Creating beds that are lush, colorful, and varied in height is much easier when you have plenty of space to use a wide selection of plants.
Unfortunately, many gardens just don’t have the room for deep garden beds and are instead filled with small, narrow spaces.
One of the biggest challenges in a narrow bed is the inability to incorporate multiple layers of plantings. Without adequate depth, these spaces can appear visually flat and one-dimensional.
Fortunately, color can create the illusion of depth even in limited physical space.
As mentioned earlier, when divided in half, the color wheel represents both cool and warm temperatures. However, in addition to temperature, these same colors also represent movement.
Cool colors (green through purple) are visually passive and appear to recede, while warm colors (yellow through red) are visually active and appear to move forward. When the eye perceives movement, it translates that into depth.
This illusion creates a powerful design opportunity in small gardens. By placing warmer, brighter plants toward the front of a border and cooler-toned plants farther back, the eye perceives greater distance and dimension than actually exists. The result is a garden that feels deeper than it actually is!
BOOK REBECCA AS YOUR NEXT GARDEN SPEAKER!
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