I pay attention to which colors I place next to each other, sometimes devoting entire beds or spots in the garden to a color scheme, i.e. darker foliage and/or blooms in quiet or shady areas with a single contrasting color for punch; or pastels grouped together. For instance in one corner of the garden there is a sunken garden with a stone bench. Here there are burgundies, grey, sage green, blue (but not just any blue - has to be a certain shade). These go well with the stone and dark green foliage of the boxwood.

Bright green Irish moss has begun to cover the dirt floor of the garden, too; I'm encouraging it, hopefully I don't regret it. For years I struggled with the decision of what type of floor to create, really preferred the beaten earth to pavers or even a mosaic tile (lofty idea, huh?ha).Now the moss may be just the thing if it holds up. But I'm off topic.

To answer, I guess I don't just mix colors. That makes me uneasy when I look at reds, yellows, oranges, blues all together - except in a less formal garden, like large annual borders or cutting gardens. Then, it's joyful!

Interesting! Im putting beds at the house we are building.
Do you buy these plants at the same time or do you make a plan ahead of time.
I usually buy plants then land up moving stuff after its planted because I dont seem to be able to plan ahead.

Most of the time I've decided on the color scheme ahead of time and search out plants for the colors I'll need. Sometimes, it happens over time - I'll find that a certain blue or green works here and not there. I take in account the surrounding shrubs, trees or even the paint color of a fence or gate. If you have a hefty garden allowance every season, you could buy all the plants at one time, but still I think it's best to see what compliments what over time.

Here is a photo of the sunken garden I referred to. The bottom pic is early in the season when I planted blue bacopa in the center bed. (It was rather disappointing, didn't bloom nearly as much as I'd hoped). In the top pic you can see the Irish moss growing on the floor. That cement border was a temporary solution until I could lay a stone one, but temp has turned into permanent unfortunately. Sorry my scans are not the greatest.

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I used Rosey Glow barbary at the top of the garden and also a dwarf red barbary around my little Pompiean statue in the photo in my first set of pics. In the urn behind the bench (top photo this post), I planted variegated sage.

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I have sections of my garden where I mix yellow, blue, red, purple, orange...that's the butterfly garden. It's more about feeding/hosting butterflies, bees and birds rather than design.

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I have sections based on analagous colors and some sections are monochromatic. Guess I have a lot of everything.

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Of course, it can be seasonal. In April, my cottage garden is based on cottage pinks and lavender.

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Cameron

Here is a link that might be useful: my gardening blog

Exactly! It's like painting a picture isn't it? And I'm in love with your cottage garden.

Schoolhouse and Cameron

OMG your gardens are beautiful.

Schoolhouse I love your sunken garden.The choice of textures and colors are beautiful

Cameron your cottage garden LOOKS like a monet painting!

Both of you have absolutely gorgeous gardens.
"Sigh"

Thanks for sharing, now if I could just figure out how to accomplish a garden half as beautiful.
cindy

Cameron, that last photo is GORGEOUS!! Wow! Like Cindy said, it looks like a Monet painting!

And schoolhouse, that sunken garden is beautiful. It looks like such a restful retreat. Did you have a natural depression, or did you dig it out?

You guys are way too organized for me, lol. My main plan is to keep the reds and the oranges separate from the pinks. I tend to like pinks and purples the best, but I find lately I'm starting to add more reds and oranges to my gardens. I'm planning a new bed where most of my oranges and reds will go next year.

I am pretty much a plopper, putting stuff wherever I have a spot. Therefore, this year, several reds and oranges have gotten mixed in with the pinks, so there is a bit of clashing going on. In some spots it makes me cringe, lol, but hey, the darn plant is in the ground. In my garden, that's more than most plants can say, lol. So it may be clashing next year, too, until I can get to it.

:)
Dee

Beautiful photos! I'm impressed!

See for me I have awide range of olors in my gardens. But I do have to admit I do have more of my favorite colors pink and purple than any other colors. I try and not have the same color of roses next to each other. I like it more when each plant stands out on its own and I can marvel at the plant and then the garden as a whole. I have pics up on the winter sown section but here are some links if anyone cares to check them out.

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/wtrsow/msg081910317422.html?10

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/wtrsow/msg0819021632382.html?14

Paula

Me too Dee!! Thats the term "plopper" LOL

I have several beautiful spaces, I just cant seem to "plan"
I think its because I have to see them all at once to place them and I never have the money to do it that way.

Oh my! What beautiful gardens! You both should be proud of yourselves. My butterfly garden only aspires to look like that! And the cottage garden...simply gorgeous.

Tracey

diggerdee, I have two sunken gardens. This is the first one I created. On the other side of the wall is the one with the bench which is only six or seven years old, so it has alot of growing still to do. Also, photos are a bit deceiving, each of them are small, not an English sunken garden proper which I would LOVE to have the room for.

If I told you the depressions were made by the crawlspace of an ancient trailer that sat in this spot when I moved in 30yrs. ago, (and had dragged out the same year),would you believe me?? ha. It's true, plus quite a bit of digging over the years to deepen and expand the sides.

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If you care to indulge me once more! This is a photo from last month of the phlox in bloom, for some reason I don't have any photos of the other perennials bordering the garden. Right now,dry dry weather and Jap.Beetles have made them less than photogenic! And I have a very simple camera.

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schoolhouse, your garden looks like a scene from longwood gardens. Thats a big public garden in South PA.

cynandjon, that's quite a compliment; and I thank you so very much.

Lovely photos!

I find is too chaotic for me to have multiple gardens without sticking to somewhat of a color theme. I have a monochramatic theme (pinky corals) around my front foundation and front door which is dusky coral. I have red-yellow-oranges in the sunny area. It is mostly a summer garden, but I have started to introduce a little pink and purple in the spring. The others beds are primarily pinks and purples and whites.

One thing about color I noticed this year in my shade garden. I always used to throw in a few white impatiens to brighten things up. It always worked great and was very satisfying. But this year, it seems my shade garden has evolved to have a lot of cream and gold foliage. THats a good thing, but it makes the white impatiens seem out of place. Hope I remember next year not to do that.

If I start a thread with my garden as a blank would you please give me suggestions?

you are welcome and it is much deserved.

Oh absolutely, I mix colors together, though they still need to follow a "theme". I also try to mix textures, and put shrubs and perennials together too:

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The large shrubs at the front is a Limelight hydrangea and it is doing great now!

beautiful ostrich, what do you consider constitutes a "theme"

Nice edges, ostrich! LOL! And a beautiful garden. What is that pretty daylily?

:)
Dee

Thanks, cynandjon and Dee!

cynandjon, in my humble opinion, even mixed colors need to follow a "theme" so that there is harmony. For instance, you will notice that I am using a lot of purple and pink there, and they go well together with the large amount of white there (with the paniculata hydrangeas). Then I used a splash of yellow, which is a complimentary color for purple, so that it added some extra life to the picture. I avoided the orangey tones in there.

Also, I think that different plants have different "looks". Some are more formal looking, and some are more casual and relaxed. I think that I have chosen plants which are more relaxed and one may even say, cottagey, here. Also, these are all plants that love water (OK, with the exception of the Little Spires Russian Sage which I love, so I have to have it there regardless!!! LOL!).

So in my mind, these all follow a "theme". I hope I am making sense...

Dee, the tall daylilies are Cherry Cheeks. Aren't they just gorgeous? The shorter one between the Dianthus First Love are Rosy Returns - these guys just bloom and bloom and bloom and I love them! They were not in full bloom when I took the photo last month.

Thanks again for looking! :-)

Hey! I have Cherry Cheeks! And they don't look like that! They were beautiful in this, their first year, but yours look much more pink.

:)
Dee

Seeing edging like that gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. Wow, nice job. I like your choice of plantings, too.

Just to show that not everything is under strict control. These are the borders in the orchard or "wild" garden.

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Schoolhouse -- you have great examples of putting great "bones" in a garden with your incredible rock features and structures. Your use of shrubs is perfect!

Ostrich -- I wish I had your sense of perfection! You really put together a fantastic vignette with your mix of shrubs and blooms.

My gardens are fairly new and I'm challenged by deer in the outer garden -- can't use anything exotic! Inside the fence started September 2005 when we had nothing but a new house in a meadow. The gardens outside the fence began with soil, a few bulbs and transplants in fall 2006, then the majority of what you see in the analagous colors was planted in spring 2007...followed by a long drought.

My husband and our two grown sons really enjoy the gardens. The three of them are to be given credit for a lot of heavy lifting and hole digging!

There are some great examples here. I wish Gottagarden would jump in on this thread, but I know she's busy. Talk about great design with colors!

I try to use perennials that have pretty foliage, even those that bloom. This is the same crape myrtle, but a different section where the Japanese irises, Siberian irises, amsonia hubrechtii have finished blooming.

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From our meadow (and the road), you can't see all the colors that I put in the first posting. This is the same garden, photo taken the same day as the one with the crape myrtle, but it's below the meadow. Our neighborhood covenants won't let us plant closer to the road, or I would! LOL

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Cameron

Cameron, at least the style of your home and gardens are in harmony (love the fence and the crape mrytle is wonderful); I've been trying to create a formal English garden with an old wood frame schoolhouse! Not the Tudor mansion of my imagination. ha. Thanks for compliment.

I like themed beds also. While everything blooms at different times, in a smaller bed I think common colors allow a place for your eye to "rest." I have seen some really large beds with all kinds of colors, red, pink, orange, white, yellow, etc. all blooming at once and for me it is overkill, too haphazard.

But everyone likes something different. Right now I'm planning a bed with pinks apricots and salmon with underplantings in the blues and violets. I am thinking about a bed for future with "brights" like dark purple, bright pink, bright yellow, etc. with no soft colors.

Schoolhouse, I love your "wild garden"! It's so pretty! Now, you are also in Ohio? I am in NE OHio so I am ALMOST zone 6 due to the lake influence! LOL! See, I got to be optimistic here with our Cleveland weather... How about yourself?

Cameron, your gardens are BREATHTAKING. I really need to read your page careful to learn a thing or two or three or four from you! Also, I absolutely LOVE your house. It's my favorite style! Just absolutely gorgeous. My only question is, Cameron, since you have mostly perennials there, what do you do for the beds during winter? Or do the perennials just stay alive during your zone 7 winter? Ours just all die and disappear during our zone 5 winter. Do you have ways to add winter interest there?

Oh, I also forgot to say that Cameron has an excellent point about foliage too. I totally agree that foliage is probably even MORE important than the blooms! I used to focus on the blooms mostly, but these days, I pay even more attention to the foliage. After all, the blooms only last for a short duration but you get to look at the foliage for a much longer time! So, I am now using many more plants with great looking foliage to add textures and colors to the bed, even more so than the blooms at times.

Ostrich, you inspired me - last evening I went out and dug the trench of one bed again a bit deeper (lawn side) and dug on the diagonal(bed side) then filled with mulch this morning. Oooo...I like the way it looks. I'm going to do the other trenched areas the same way today.

(I'm in SE Ohio - go Cavs!)

I have some shrubs and small trees (deciduous and evergreen) mixed in with my perennials in the front garden and in the cottage garden. I also have a few ornamental grasses that look great in the winter until I cut them back in Feb/March, along with our buddleia.

Lavender is shrub-size in my garden and provides structure all winter since it's evergreen here. Other evergreen perennials/herbs include rosemary, dianthus, salvia greggii, thyme, oregano, scabiosa, stachys hummelo. My KO roses are practically evergreen (inside the cottage garden fence). Our Encore azaleas and Lady Banksia roses retain leaves all year, too.

I don't want to take up more space in this thread with photos, but I have some seasonal, including some snow photos in my gardening blog under the My Garden Topics "seasons". If you click on "seasons" you'll see how the garden changes ...and how much things grew since 2007.

Cameron

Here is a link that might be useful: my gardening blog

My front garden had a blue, purple, white, and yellow theme. Well, this spring my husband noticed that the garden was very purple and not so much of any other color. Since then I've added some red and pink to the garden which makes a nice accent.

The hard thing for me about this particular garden is its against my sand mound.( above ground septic system) I have to be careful about bushes with deep roots or roots that will get into the sand mound and compromise it.
The bed to the right is the one That Im not real happy with. Also I dont really want to hide all of the wall.
That garden was just added this summer so its still very sparse.
I would happily accept suggestions.

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That's such a nice idea to put the stone wall into the hill (mound); I have an area I've been planning to do that with only on a much, much smaller scale. I agree, don't hide that beautiful wall. What is planted in that bed so far? My immediate reaction would be to plant a ground cover like ivy, but that gets bad press from most gardeners. Plus, it has to be kept under control. A boxwood in a pyramid shape kept at 2 - 3' in the center, back against the wall?

Hi schoolhouse
There is actually a boxwood a Scotch Broom, and a cyprus, but they are still small. Ive been kinda plopping plants in there because my other garden isnt ready yet. So I have a mix of colors and I'm trying to figure out what to leave and what to move next year. I am color coordinated challenged. I can take a picture of just that area.
I cant remember what all is in there without looking.
Ivy is actually a no-no around sand mounds. It can get into the pipes and ruin the system.
We're building a DIY house and Ive also been working on the gardens. This is the second season. The first season for the bed on the right. havent really planned it out. I wish I would have.

Ive moved a lot of plants from my current house, thats why they got plopped there.

If it were me, I'd choose deep colors not pastels. No pink, unless it was deep magenta,ect. because you don't really want to take attention away from the rock. I was at Lowe's today snooping around and they have a dwarf crape myrtle (wonbyherwits? familiar with it?) that came in three colors, one a magenta. Now, if it would actually stay dwarf that would be pretty all along and behind that shorter wall in front of the bed on the right. Creams not white, but maybe a white to the farthest right to match the white at the very top of the bed on the far left. I like to mirror colors in large areas, and you'll be viewing this more often from a distance right?

Also, your statuary at the peak in the center, sets the mood in my opinion. Classical.

Thanks I love the bird bath. ITs a boy pouring water. I planted ground cover roses around it. BTW my door is red, so The roses are red to draw the eye toward the house.
The japanese beetles were brutal this year.

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Ostrich,

Your bed turned out to be such a success! How did you make the edge? It is so sharp and clean! What kind of mulch did you use?

Cynandjon -- don't worry, your garden will fill in more quickly than you think. Mine looked sparse after planted and only 1 year later it's full.

There are some dwarf crape myrtles, some small crape myrtles and some real "tree" crape myrtles. I have 'white chocolate' as a shrub. I don't know if those will work in your zone. If Japanese beetles were a problem for your roses, they will be for a lot of the crape myrtles. My large 'Tuscarora' trees were okay, but the 'white chocolate' had to be sprayed with a Neem Oil mix to keep the JBs away. I've had that little cm shrub for 3 years and this is the first year that it's going to get to bloom because of those beetles.

Some shallow-rooted blooms like verbena bonariensis won't invade the septic field. Dianthus is another one that seems to grow on top. Delosperma cooperi is another. I think agastache would be okay. Maybe yarrow? Petunias, though annuals, can literally root in the sidewalk. I don't know about your zone needs, so you'll have to check.

Thanks wonbyherwits I will check out crape myrtles. Theres actually a lot we can plant on the berm of the sand mound. We made it bigger so we could plant perennials. I actually did plant dianthus on top. I hope it comes back next year.
I never heard of neem oil, Ill have to check it out.

cynandjon, now when you say sand mound you mean the grassy, flat area beyond the top of the rock wall correct? behind the birdbath? If so, I don't know if I'd plant anything on the berm of that. The flat green space looks fine as is with nothing "sticking up" (for lack of a better term) or peering over the top of the wall.

I was suggesting dwarf shrubs behind the low rock wall up front in your photograph, the perennial bed on the right.

The "berm" is the area outside of the actual drain field.(the banks) Your allowed to plant on that area as long as the plants are not water seeking or something that will take over and get into the pipes. Also its preferred that you dont have to water alot. The top (grassy area) is the actual drain field. the water is sucked up into the sand after it goes through the tanks and transpires out of the plants and evaporates into the air.
We are letting things like clover and other non invasive natives & sedums grow on top. We have done quite a bit of research so Im pretty comfortable with what is growing on the berms.

Hi Alina!

I won't quite call my bed a "success"! I kind of like it but I need to move things around the next season and to change a few things to make it better... but thanks though!

My edge? The crisp edge is nice, isn't it? But I won't take credit for it... my landscapers do it! They cut my lawn and do the edges of the beds every week. I think their success is that early in spring, they will come and do the edge manually, to make sure that there is a crisp edge there, then after that, they just use that power edger thing to maintain it every week. My neighbors also comment on that too, but I really cannot take credit for it (except for paying these landscapers!!! LOL).

Schoolhouse - you are too kind! I don't think that my yard is that inspiring and I am still learning a lot from everyone here! How's your project going? Any update? Thanks again!

Hi Alina!

I won't quite call my bed a "success"! I kind of like it but I need to move things around the next season and to change a few things to make it better... but thanks though!

My edge? The crisp edge is nice, isn't it? But I won't take credit for it... my landscapers do it! They cut my lawn and do the edges of the beds every week. I think their success is that early in spring, they will come and do the edge manually, to make sure that there is a crisp edge there, then after that, they just use that power edger thing to maintain it every week. My neighbors also comment on that too, but I really cannot take credit for it (except for paying these landscapers!!! LOL).

Schoolhouse - you are too kind! I don't think that my yard is that inspiring and I am still learning a lot from everyone here! How's your project going? Any update? Thanks again!

Ostrich, I already trench edge my beds but I decided to dig them a little deeper and also dig on the bed side which I normally don't do. Always mulched heavily, too, until last fall.

I had accumulated so much in the borders that the boxwood, which has shallow roots, was putting out roots near the top of the mulch instead of down into the soil. Not a whole lot, but in some areas it was noticeable. Then, a low stone wall seemed to be getting lower; ha, it was disappearing under mulch. Decided to remove all the old layers and did not put down any mulch at all that fall, over winter,this spring and summer. By the time I saw your flowerbed pic, the ground around mine was bone dry and I was spending time removing weeds every week. Instead of waiting for that elusive rain storm, I went ahead and laid down some hardwood mulch. Because of the way I re-dug the edges, the job went fast and looks great.

I bet I dug at least eight 5gal.buckets of dirt out of those borders. I couldn't believe it. And I use a shovel with an 8" X 6" blade, the only thing I'm comfortable with and it makes a clean cut vertically or horizontally. Except now days instead of doing these jobs all in one day, I spread it out over two or three! ha. Gettin' old.

I'm so glad it's done.

Schoolhouse, you have been working hard!!! Wow, that sounds like an amazing amount of work.

You know, I really dislike late summer - everything is bone dry. The blooms are fading. Powdery mildew is ubiquitous in the perennial beds... I guess I am going to leave my digging until next spring :-)

BTW, Schoolhouse, I think I forgot to answer you previous question. The mulch I used was a super fine blend mulch, which I believe is very nutritious, but at the same time, it does disappear quickly so it only looks great for a short time. Maybe I will try something else next year.

Think maybe alina was asking about the mulch, but that's ok. I've always used Black Medallion, a dark hardwood mulch even in the flower beds. That was until this Spring when I made my own leaf mulch and only laid that in the beds around the plants. Really happy with the leaf mulch, but I didn't make enough to keep a good layer down all summer. This fall, I'm going to make much more if I can.

The Black Medallion fades over time and disappears, too.