One of the most important consideration in garden design is color. It can be utilized to provide seasonal interest, create juxtapositions and focal points in the landscape. Dark-colored plants contrasted with light-colored plants draw one’s attention in a planting composition. For instance, unique, colorful foliage, like the red foliage of the Japanese maple (Acer palmatum), contrasts nicely with the various shades of greens in the landscape.
In the garden color includes foliage, flowers, fruit and bark. Colors can create feelings of coolness and warmth. They can also have an effect on the visual quality of a garden. Cool colors, such as blue and purple, recede and making a space seen larger than it is. Warm colors such as red, orange and yellow, have the opposite effect. They create a more intimate feeling in the garden.
While plants are generally selected for their flower color, green is the prevailing color in a garden, especially through spring and summer. A variety of greens is more visually interesting than a single shade of green. The shades of green available to the gardener is wide ranging and include light yellow green, blue green, deep green and everything in between. A frequent mistake gardeners make, however, is to use try and include too many colors. Sticking with a overall theme with your colors, whether complimentary or contrasting, will help to tie together all the elements of you garden.
A garden design can incorporate color in every season. Deciduous shrubs, small flowering trees, early perennials and bulbs can add welcome color to your garden in the spring. A flower garden and a few summer blooming shrubs, such as ‘Nikko Blue’ hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla), can provide your landscape with color lasting from spring through the fall. Deciduous trees and shrubs offer colorful fall foliage displays while fall blooming perennials offer late season flowers.. Many trees and shrubs form red, orange, white, blue or purple berries in the fall that can persist throughout the winter months. Colorful bark is an often over looked plant characteristic which can be quite striking in winter. Paper birch (Betula papyrifera) has wonderful white bark peeling which and red twig dogwood (Cornus sericea), as the name suggests produces vibrant red stems which contrast nicely with winter snow. Evergreens, such as pine, spruce, holly and arborvitae, are also a great way to add color to your landscape during the winter months.
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