Carol Klein on creating single colour beds
They may seem an easy solution to your planting problems, but there are several pitfalls to avoid
It’s easy to assume planting a single colour border is an easy option. If you’re not very confident about using colour, it may seem like the solution to your planting dilemmas.
In fact, it may be more difficult than it first appears, and there are several pitfalls to avoid if it’s going to be a success. It can be exceptional when it works, though.
Why consider a single coloured planting or bed in the first place? There’s no doubt that colour has a subconscious effect on our mood and emotions. We can choose to engineer the creation of a planting with the deliberate use of colour to create a specific effect, be it restful – perhaps by using pale lavender, blue or white – or stimulating – by using fiery reds or dramatic magenta.
A rose is a rose is a rose, but a red is not a red is not a red – or not necessarily the same one! When we made a Gardeners’
World special about colour, we did a very simple experiment in the garden here at Glebe Cottage. Most of us know what we think of as pink, so we gathered together a handful of pink flowers from around the garden – geraniums, penstemon, roses, dianthus (actually called pinks) – and every one of them was different. There are more pinks than we could imagine.
But the lesson we learned was that although we might call them by the same name, they can be vastly different, and they don’t necessarily go together. There were pink flowers with not a trace of blue
‘There are plenty of gardens with famous single colour plantings that you can visit, either in person or online’