Specialty Gardening: Adding some zing, pop & pizzazz to a color scheme?, 0 by gemini_sage

gemini_sage wrote:
tabasco, what is that little white filler flower I'm seeing among the iris? Very pretty with them! Looks like you've got lots of nice splashes of white! Sometimes using the color wheel helps when looking for complimentary tones. Yellow is directly opposite purple on the color wheel, so is considered its complimentary color (along with blue/orange and red/green). However most of your purples are soft tints that I don't think would be accented well with yellows. Hmmmm...an idea comes to my mind inspired by cactuspatch's gorgeous pics we were ga ga over on another thread. Did you notice how her big splashes of color came from plants in similar tones as the house (some brighter, some softer or darker, but all in peachy-pink tones), and the other colors served as accents for contrast? I'm wondering if taking samples of your brick and trim color and looking for blooms in that chroma for some bigger splashes would do the trick? I'm thinking your brick and trim have a mauve tint to them, can you see any peachy or slightly orange tone in them? I keep coming back to the color of that rose cactuspatch was using, and what a nice contrast that would be with your colors- seemed to have enough pink to look good with the brick, but enough orange overtone for really nice contrast. Some pinkish blooms with yellow centers take on that tone from a distance, seems like the eye blends them. My logic here is considering mauve is a blended tint of blue, purple, and red, and looking at what's across the color wheel from those tones.

A thought just came to me on experimenting with these ideas; potting up some planters with considered combinations of colors is a good way to get a real sense of whatever idea you're considering, without investing a lot only to find it doesn't work. You can carry it around the garden and look from different angles.

Here's a shocking contrast of 'Lime Ricky' heuchera and purple pansies. I like the chartreuse with deep purple, but it washes out softer shades.