To create a garden that resonates, take a cue from interior designers. Planning an eye-catching landscape that attracts attention throughout the year hinges on color choice.
In her new book, The Nonstop Color Garden, “GardenMama” Nellie Neal shares her secrets for choosing just the right hues for your garden and designing in such a way that your landscape features color throughout the year.
“I am always inspired by gardens that reveal their beauty high and low across the seasons—gardens you can enjoy whether it’s 104 degrees in July in Georgia or a frigid January day in Minnesota,” she says. “When I think about how to achieve that particular bliss, it’s the use of color that sets such gardens apart.”
Color sets a mood and works to unify gardens, says Neal, whose book walks you through the steps to designing with color in order to create an awe-inspiring landscape. “Use plants and hardscape and you can create boldly contrasting forms, emphasize particular design elements, highlight a destination in the garden or shield a view,” she says.
Though flowering plants certainly bring a kaleidoscope of color to the garden, they’re only a part of the color design process.
“I think of annual flowers as jewelry,” says Neal. “They’re the brooches and earrings that complete every look. Essential, but only effective if the larger color palette works. Every gardener has a favorite color that never fails to please. For me green is that color with its nearly endless shades, hues and intensities. The high contrast of forest green and rich red iron tones makes my personal statement and creates the perfect setting for a riot of annual flowers.”
To create a nonstop color garden of your own, start by picking a color palette and sticking with it, suggests Neal.
“Begin with the color you most want to see,” she says. “Pick two shades of that color and then add two or three other major colors you want to combine with them. For me, the color is green, the shades are lime and teal, and the two other colors are lilac and coral. Design with your chosen color palette when selecting trees, shrubs, seasonal color, accessories, and paint for hardscape.”
To ensure that you have color throughout the year, Neal suggests taking photos every season and looking for areas that require color; then fill in those spots.
She also advises ignoring color trends, which come and go. “The color(s) you use in your garden directly reflect your personal taste and style, so embrace them.”
Chock full of photos and illustrations of gardens designed with color in mind, NonStop Color Garden guides you in developing your own color style. The book also features an encyclopedia of colorful plants, including trees, shrubs, groundcovers, and flowering perennials.
Click the gallery to see some beautiful photos from the book.
Julie Bawden-Davis is a garden writer and master gardener, who since 1985 has written for publications such as Organic Gardening, Wildflower, Better Homes and Gardens and The Los Angeles Times. She is the author of seven books, including Reader’s Digest Flower Gardening, Fairy Gardening, The Strawberry Story, and Indoor Gardening the Organic Way, and is the founder of HealthyHouseplants.com.
