Do it,Sherry. If you don't like it, don't do it again! Take photos, in any case -
Anita

Agree with the Anita.

Here is a link that might be useful: my page

Sherry, please don't do it. It will look like feces. Seriously, the best you could hope for would be an explosion at a French's Yellow factory.

If you really want to tie your garden together, try a couple dozen wooden stakes around the perimeter knotted together with several yards of good strong rope.

Yes, Sherry, you have been TERMINATED.

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I have a feeling that it's not going to work either. You really have to see for yourself though. I've seen photos of your garden and I know how lovely it is so I'm inclined to trust your judgement. Have you ever read about Gertrude Jekyll's use of color in the garden? I find it inspiring.

Um, well I am not too sure about this either although I think you have hit the nail on the head in one way - the need for a linking colour or theme which unifies the garden but also emphasises certain features. What I mean to point up is the use of repetition. This is a tried and trusted design idea - to pick a colour or a plant and place it at various intervals to draw the eye and create a (apologies for veering into arty-farty speak....journey). So, rather than several yellows, consider just using coreopsis....but as a thread running right through the garden. I am also wondering about the brightness of the yellow - a very warm and rich gold could work well or a paler yellow such as coreopsis verticillata 'moonlight' whereas a clear sunny yellow with pinks and lilacs could be a bit hurty. I think, with lots of pastels, you could emphasise the romantic delicacy by using very light airy plants such as any of the umbellifers (cow parsley, wild carrots, astrantia). Also tall flax, in clear blues, with larkspur (a deep blue) agrostemma (an easily sown annual) and gypsophila. Also artemisia, especially 'Powis Castle'. Rather than colour, it becaomes a symphony of movement with drifts instead of clumps.
On the other hand, to jazz it up a bit, some of the shrubby salvias such as microphylla neurepia, or S.greggii have deeply saturated crimsons and deep pinks. Also, Salvia patens has the most glorious deep blues and quite interesting foliage. So, I think, Sherry, you have come a long long way as a gardener, in a very short space of time which leads me to think that you already have an innate sense of structure, colour and proportion so why not just go ahead and try it. You have shown complerte ruthlessness in getting rid of roses which do not please you so, apart from $$$, you really do not have much to lose by going ahead with a new idea.

I tend to trust Mother Nature, as far as color in the garden goes... after all, she throws just abt. every color into the landscape and then tops it with a rainbow, pale colors next to vivid and dark next to light, etc. all the colors of nature go together and please the eye..... sally

Sherry, try taking a set of colored pencils and coloring in the colors you have in your garden beds and then adding a different color as unifier, choosing from the plants you have available to you.

Try coloring in the mustard colors and see - do you like it? If so, think about the bloom times, maintenance, aggressiveness of the plants before you choose.

I personally like white as a unifier, but it can be anything. I'm using tall white snaps, white David phlox, white roses and a white dahlia to bring some unity in garage bed. I like it, but again, I am really partial to white, and it shows up here because the sky is gray so much of the time. I think climate and latitude really affect color as well. In strong sun, white may not be as useful.

anyway, just an idea. but in the end, I am an advocate of think as much as you can and then jump off the cliff and just see what happens.

Sherri, I don't remember exactly how the saying goes, but something like it is better to try something and regret it than not to try it and regret it. Trust your gut and do it, and if it doesn't work you will have learned something.

Masha

saturated yellow isn't necessarily mustard or chrome yellow (not even mustard flowers are really mustard in color);
yellow can be sunny & still be rich & satisfying.

Try it!

Here's the coreopsis:
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Here's the mustard:
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Thanks, Anita, I'm gonna.

Pam, I have never read Gertrude Jekyll. I know I should. My problem is that I don't read plant-ese. I can not convey to you and Suzy how my brain reacts to all those plant names. It's far worse than eyes glazing over. It's more like deer-in-the-headlights panic. I started reading "A Southern Garden" by Elizabeth Lawrence because someone said she was wonderful. She was until she started mentioning the plant names - all those spring bulbs especially. How to kill a good read. BUT I will try to get into the color parts of Gertrude.

Suzy, thanks for saying, "you have hit the nail on the head in one way - the need for a linking colour or theme which unifies the garden but also emphasizes certain features." I'm going to run with that. Regarding my "complete ruthlessness in getting rid of roses", it is always a sad day and a sadder decision to rid my garden of the high hopes I had for a particular plant, but when the decision is made, it's over and done. If I had acres and acres (or lived in California), they'd all still be here even if in the intensive care ward as evidence of the $$$ I had spent. I do have pity for myself that I can't enjoy Perle d'Or (and many others) here in my garden. I don't mean to make a big thing of it (I'm not in the least offended) and sorry it's not coming out funny, but I kind of wanted to defend myself a bit. I don't yank roses willy nilly. :))

I think so, too, Sally. We'll know next spring, won't we?

Oh, Gean, your white garden sounds beautiful. Don't forget to post pictures. I fell in love with white double stock when I was seed hunting. I may try the colored pencils - at least in my mind. I have visualized the splashes of gossamer yellow, and I liked what I saw. You're the one with the cliff. he-he

Well said, Masha. I think I'll write that on a stickie.

"yellow can be sunny & still be rich & satisfying" Exactly my feelings, Sylvia. Thanks.

And thank you everybody for saying all the perfect things. One thing I've learned about my garden: there's not much room in it, so I must be wise and in my choices.

Sherry

Hey Sherry! Here is a place I can actually give some help! Having a degree in design, I can say that the colored pencil idea is indeed a great one. Don't do it in your head. Seriously commit it to a piece of paper. It looks different in your head than it will on paper. Trust me on this one. Sometimes the greatest ideas in my head in design school look a little silly when I put them on paper and vice versa. I hope this once I can be of help to you since you are so so very much a help and rose friend to me :)!

Sherry, I'm in. But then I do the same thing with saturated yellows only different plants, and mostly little shorties. I love Stella d'Oro daylilies, they're sort of my signature. I like the coreopsis also. Last year I liked my small black-eyed Susan's so much I planted them again this year. If you have an area in sunset colors, gallardia may blend in (found a red one two years ago that was very pretty). Sometimes I find yellow marigolds that have unusual petals....

Since you have the same yellow idea that I use, you may find that you like the occasional blue here and there. Again, I like the little shorties, so salvia can't be beat for this purpose.

I think it will look great. Since it's a bright accent color, just remember the rule of threes for plants of any size.

But, Ken, what if my colored-pencil rendering is ugly just because I can't draw (or color), and I give up on the idea? I can't imagine anything I try to put on paper turning out well. But what the heck...I'll try. You're very sweet, rose friend!

lagomorphmom, everything you say is very encouraging. Three of everything is going to be tough to fit. Ha!

Sherry

Sherry, do you have photoshop or something like it?

You could just crudely photoshop some of your favorite yellow flowers into photos of your garden, maybe that would help you visualize it.

okay, well, here are some pics. Sherry, do you remember the gaudy colors thread last summer? I think I posted a picture like this, August in my Alabama garden. On the right I had reds, purples and pinks and tried to calm it all down with white sweet alyssum in the front and some white sage.

On the left side, though, I put in a small garden in front of the picket fence with yellow roses and a yellow marigold/basil edging around some herbs.

{{gwi:306480}}

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I think what I'm trying to say is that when I went out to the herb garden, I was blinded by all of those yellow plants, marigolds, melampodium so that I hardly could see the roses, even though they were a fairly strong yellow also. Of course, Prairie Harvest on the left up there, faded in the sun to a white. I barely saw any of the roses because my eyes just grabbed the strong yellows. Anyway, I decided that yellow is a great color, but I can't handle too much of it in annuals. But maybe that's just me.

I had a lot easier time with the reds, purples and pinks blending along with some white to tone it down.

Because of the headache that yellow gave me last year, I'm sticking with the whites/pinks/purples - but the white sticks out here because as I say, there is NOTALOTTA SUN in this part of the world.

{{gwi:302905}}

And hey, some years my unifying factor has been the weeds that were throughout the beds. So, for whatever that's worth and you'll never know until you try. Geronimooooo.....!!! Gean

oh dear, sorry sherry, i can sound like a bully, can't I? not to worry, just really wanted to say that you are not a ditherer so really, any forward looking is always a good thing. I know that no real gardener would yank plants without some regret since we all do revere life in its many variations - however, a garden is not nature, it is total artifice and, as such, we take decisions for whatever reason we see fit. And, as always, my judgement is clouded because I am a cheapskate! Onwards and upwards.

Sherry, you wont need to draw anything. Take a piece of graph paper or ruled paper, and merely scribble some rough squares of each color you have in your garden already, then take a couple different types of yellow and scribble some squares on a different paper. cut the yellow squares out with scissors, lay each one against the other colors and stand back a bit to see what it looks like as an overall pallette. it can help you choosing a more pale yellow versus a more mustardlike yellow or gold. No drawing skill necessary. Think of it like creating your own color swatches. :)

Have fun!
Ken

Aimee, I don't have PhotoShop, but I'll work on Ken's suggestion of paper and scissors - unless I don't and just wing it. he-he. (That's a good idea, Ken.)

Oh, Gean, so pretty! And I can't believe your new garden is so full. You really have a green thumb - even without sun. Being a gardening newbie, I think my preconceived notions of what gardens look like must be totally wrong. Your white flowers do look very good. The white plants I've seen here appear as dirty white in the big picture, so I haven't cared for them. One thing's for sure, companions come out easier than they go in, so mistakes are easily corrected. Geronimo is right!

Suzy, I agree with everything you said (except the bully part). We're both cheapskates, and fortunately my replacement roses were only $7 (Linda, gave me a discount for all the cuttings I gave her.) At that price I should have a driveway full!! Hmm, that's an idea.

Sherry, the non-ditherer
(except right now I should be doing my "seed thing". The first step is always hardest for me, but the flats are in the sink bleaching.)

Sherry, I like the idea of the colored pencils. Make some color blobs and put them together. Maybe it would help if you stand back a little so it's not just colored blobs that your seeing but rather the effect of the colors together.

I say do it. I've loved the garden pictures you've posted before so your gut was doing a good job. This could be even better. If not, like many have said, you will have learned something.

I tend to have green be MY unifiying color. *smiles* Jeff

Sherry, you could print out photos of your garden and the yellow plants and do it manually with scissors, too. :) :)

Jeff, I was thinking earlier that same thing about green, especially now in between blooming. It doesn't really ever seem like there are enough flowers on the bushes (yet?) to make much impact. I guess it'll be what it'll be. Maybe I'll just try different stuff every year. lol

Aimee, that's probably a good idea - in theory, but one that I probably don't have time for. :((

Sherry