Color As Art

GARDENS ARE ALL about color. No matter how sophisticated we become in appreciating all the shades of green, we're still talking about color. Green is lime, chartreuse, forest, emerald, moss, gray-green and blue-green in glorious tints and tones. Even an all-white garden is about gradations of blush, cream, snow, frost and all the shades of pale. Color is really more a vibratory experience than a merely visual sense. Watermelon pink shimmers out an atmosphere of heat, while cool blue grasses create shivers. If we're receptive, color douses us in memory and emotion.

Does anyone want to eat a plate of beige food? And don't we always turn our heads to look at a woman in a bright red dress? No matter how modern, stylish or minimalist, we are, in our tastes and in our gardens, responsive to color in the most visceral way.

Perhaps that is why so many of us love cottage gardens, with their seemingly artless mix of vivid flowers. Perhaps that is also why there is so much talk of color artistry in gardening. I've seen such masterful manipulation of color that it takes my breath away. But that kind of skill shouldn't intimidate the rest of us. Color is subjective, personal, pliable. Now that I've based my new garden on color, playing around with darkest purple, soft yellow, chartreuse and every possible shade of orange, I'm convinced that if you pay attention to what colors you love best, you'll be a successful color gardener. You need color sensitivity, not color expertise, to make a satisfying garden.

There's no magic formula; rather, it's a matter of close observation and a willingness to mess around. Outdoors, color changes every day, depending on bloom time, plant maturation, season and especially weather. Sun, rain and clouds, morning, afternoon or evening light all change your perspective. Just wait a few minutes and the colors will look different anyway.

Now In Bloom

Dwarf umbrella palm (Cyperus alternifolius 'Gracilis') is a diminutive summer annual ideal to grow in a birdbath or pot on the patio. These little beauties are natural bog plants, so just set the palm in its nursery pot into a pond or larger, undrilled container so there's an inch to 6 inches of water over its crown. Most tropicals take up lots of space, but this little palm grows only a foot or two high.

ILLUSTRATED BY JULIE NOTARIANNI

Picasso contemplated color his entire, long life, and still believed it to be a great mystery. I've learned much about color from artists' biographies and autobiographies; they use it as the raw stuff of art, which is a useful way for gardeners to think of it, too. Most of us don't have the self-restraint of Georgia O'Keefe, who said of a particularly productive period in her life, "I began with charcoal and paper and decided not to use any color until it was impossible to do what I wanted to do in black and white. I believe it was June before I needed blue."

The French painter Rousseau was asked once why he put a naked woman on a red sofa in the middle of one of his jungle paintings. "I needed a bit of red there," he answered.

One of the most freeing things to learn about color, in addition to the idea you can dab it about anywhere you need a bit of it, is that color is all about relationships. In gardens, this means that foliage and nearby flowers exert great influence over how color is perceived. Also, the amount of color matters; a dab is very different in intensity and effect than a slab.

I've been told that charcoal gray is the ideal backdrop in a garden because it shows off all the other colors to best advantage. When pop British designer Diarmuid Gavin was in Seattle recently, he showed photos of how he used deep, rich eggplant (of course he called it aubergine) on garden walls to set off all the shades of green.

If you are willing to tap into your moods, memories and emotions to appreciate color, you'll also tap into the great color mystery that holds so much of the passion, drama, beauty and satisfaction of gardening.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer and contributing editor for Horticulture magazine. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net.