UNDERSTANDING THE COLOUR SPECTRUM
According to the garden designer’s colour wheel, adjacent colours always look good together, so you can mix your reds with abandon. Scarlet, vermilion, tangerine and crimson team up perfectly. Red is a colour that excites us; nature has programmed us to be attracted to reds. It’s the colour that tells us that fruits are ripe and sweet to eat, and it’s no coincidence that we blush when excited! Red attracts our eye, so we should be careful not to dot them around too much, but concentrate them in distinct areas. If you place them at the far end of the garden it gives the effect that the garden is shorter – the colour ‘comes forward’. If you place your reds near the house and paler colours and blues at the far end it will make the garden look longer and bigger. Red is a colour that creates visual heat and it also looks best in sunshine. Reds, especially the darker shades and crimsons that veer towards purple, disappear in dull light and on cloudy days so consider leavening them with other colours.
Colour companions
The colours adjacent to red on the colour wheel are purple and orange, and these work well together, adding to the visual heat. Opposite on the wheel is green and it’s fortunate that green foliage is the best colour to set off scarlet flowers. Purple will add to the richness of the planting, like glowing embers, while yellow and gold lightens and brightens – like adding some licking flames to the fire. Red and white always appeals, so whitevariegated foliage cools down and refreshes the effect. Be careful not to add too many white flowers or it can look ‘bitty’, with too much contrast – it’s like pouring water on the fire!
Follow up with foliage
Use colourful foliage as a backdrop to your bright flowers. In containers and the front of borders, fiery coleus is the most useful of all summer plants; no wonder its common name is flame nettle. Purple foliage stokes up the heat and many of these plants are traditional components of the ‘subtropical’ border. Dark-leaved cannas, castor oil plants and dark-leaved dahlias are all essentials. Hardy shrubs are useful too and form the permanent bones of a border which is augmented with seasonal plants. The orange foliage of spiraea ‘Goldflame’, purple physocarpus ‘Diabolo’ and smoky Rosa rubrifolia are the basis of the perfect backdrop to a fiery red border.