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Entry tags: | planting combinations |
Week 5 - Planting Combinations
Our main topic for this week is planting combinations.
Here's the handout:
GARDENING FOR PLEASURE
Planting Combinations
For a plant combination to work, the arrangement of the colours, shapes, sizes, and textures must add up to a complete and satisfying unit. As with all good design, it’s a matter of blending similarities and differences in pleasing proportion to one another.
Harmony is the product of likeness—of shared qualities. Contrast, on the other hand, depends for its effect on differences, which produce drama. The secret of combining disparate ingredients is to preserve the peace but not at the cost of excitement.
In terms of colours, an inexpensive colour wheel can guide you in choosing combinations that sing by virtue of their differences or that soothe with calming likeness. Pairing opposites always works, hence the success of combinations like blue and orange, yellow and violet, or red and green. Another safe bet is to group colours that share a common pigment and a strong kinship, like violet, red-violet, and blue-violet. These principles also relate to plant shapes, sizes, and textures.
Here are some of the many ways to make harmony and contrast work within a planting:
Opposite colours—like blue and orange, yellow and purple, and red and green—make good companions.
Similar colours with different shapes
Matching the colours of two or more flowers, while varying their shapes, is another way to guarantee a winning combination.
Contrasting leaf patterns
Nothing is more restful than a skilfully assembled group of foliage plants.
Soft tones and strong shapes
Juxtaposing industrial-strength blue and caution-sign yellow creates a sharp, rather harsh contrast because the two hues have no common bond and are at considerable distance from each other on the colour wheel. They are just too different. But soften the one to a frosty steel blue and the other to primrose yellow and you have a marriage made in heaven. Set them both against a deep, low-intensity tone of red and you have a plant combination that boasts tonal harmonies enlivened with contrasting shapes.
Variations in height and texture
The heart of this sort of design is difference. For example, a clump of yucca with its rigid, swordlike leaves furnishes an authoritative vertical shape to contrast with the prevailing softness and low profiles of chamaecyparis pisifera, juniper squamata, and lambs’ ears. A suitable garden ornament, such as a ceramic ball, elevates an attractive group of plants to an eye-catching garden centrepiece.
Three harmonious hues
A trio of colours, such as violet, blue-violet, and red-violet, give a pleasing harmony. As a rule, the closer the colours are to each other, the better.
Trying it out with annuals
Planted alone, annuals go a long way in sprucing up flower beds or in containers throughout an outdoor space. But when planted in the right combination with other annuals, the results can be stunning. Pairing annuals is an easy way to add additional colour or texture to what may otherwise be a monotone planting.
Soft, Subtle Colours
Pair soft shades of pink with muted whites for an airy, delicate plant combination. Try pairing pink begonia with white nicotiana, or white petunias with rose-pink geraniums. A combination of pink vinca and white snapdragon is yet one other possibility. Coincidentally, these plant combinations do well in full sun.
Annual Combinations for a Shady Spot
Make a more showy combination of annuals with pink and blue flowers. Pink and violet impatiens work well together, as do pink begonia and dusty miller. If you prefer purple tones, try adding purple alyssum for a medium shade of lavender.
Mix Gardening Staples with the Unexpected
Complement swan river daisy, whose flowers come in a range of colours from purple, white to pink and blue, with marigolds. For extra interest, try French yellow gold marigolds, which can produce multiple colours on one flower head.
Good Trailing Combinations
Torenia, a bushy annual with deep blue flowers, is an ideal choice for a trailing plant in an annual combination. Pair it with terracotta or yellow trailing petunias
Sources
http://www.finegardening.com/design/art
http://www.cleevenursery.co.uk/page.p
http://www.gardenguides.com/87494-annua
Jo Hanslip
February 2010
Images are here:
Planting combinations
Jo