Design Solutions Introduce colour with flowers, foliage and a pink wall

Use bright flowers, textural foliage and bold accessories, says Louisa Gilhooly

Q How can I create a more colourful back garden?

The fundamental factor most gardeners think about when designing their own piece of paradise is colour. It creates interest and variety and is often used as a focal point. The colours of plants, flowers and garden features have properties that can affect our emotions, spatial perception, light quality and balance. Many people have at least one favourite colour they’d like to include in the garden, but are unsure what to put with it to create a pleasing colour combination. That’s where colour theory and the colour wheel can help (see box). When choosing a scheme, think about how colour affects your feelings. Ask yourself: is the garden a space for relaxation and healing, or a space for entertainment activities? Some colours are ‘introverts’ (quiet, calm and tranquil) while others are more extrovert (loud, boisterous attentiongetters) as in this example. Here I’ve created a scheme that pops with colours from the hot side of the colour wheel. It’s not for the faint-hearted, but the colours do harmonise and with its exotic, tropical, party vibe it’s a great space for entertaining on summer evenings. Bold-hued cannas, dahlias and begonias are complemented by the architectural foliage of fatsia, agave and chamaerops, with the glossy green hedge and outrageous pink walls providing different types of foil. Remember that plant size, shape and texture are more enduring than fleeting flowers, so consider how leaf textures and shapes can be combined to look good once flowers have faded. Colour is also found in plant foliage, bark and fruit. Foliage typically provides the overall background colour for your borders and green, in all its various shades, is usually the dominant colour by quantity. Yet plants such as Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’, heucheras and Cercis canadensis ‘Forest Pansy’ can still grab attention. Building materials can influence colour schemes too. Natural stone and wood typically have muted colours in variations of buff, grey, and pale yellow. For something brighter, use man-made materials such as painted furniture, sculptures, colourful ceramic containers and glass ornaments.