Using warm colors in the garden

July 3, 10:24 PMBackyard Living ExaminerJane Gates

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Using warm colors in the garden (Photo by Jane Gates)

In general, colors are considered either warm or cool. The warmer colors have higher visual vibrations and fall into the families of reds, oranges and yellows. The cooler colors are the greens, blues, purples and many pinks. White is technically the presence of all colors, though we tend to think of it as the opposite. Still, white flowering plants offer great contrast in shaded areas where the whites really stand out. You can even design a whole area or even a whole landscape with whites and greens alone. But for now I’m going to focus on the warm or even hot colors. Really bright reds, oranges and yellows are considered “hot”. You can use them exclusively or blend them with variations like apricots, soft yellows, brick reds and the like.

There is a long list of potential inhabitants for your warm/hot colored garden, but here are some suggestions. To start off tall, you can get trees that have warm bronze or red foliage year round. The ornamental plum, with its very dark red leaves is a perfect example. The bronze loquat is another – and this one is an evergreen tree that grows to a convenient 12’ – 15’ height. Two trees that turn hot with autumn color are the Callery Pear and the Pistacia. There are many other choices, but these two color-up beautifully, though I suggest buying your Pistacia in the autumn to select the tree with the foliage colors you like best.

There are large shrubs that bloom with red leaves, bright flowers or berries. You can find red or yellow berries on the native Toyon (Heteromeles). The popular Bottle Brush (Callistemon) has bright red bottle-brush flowers and offers a much smaller and delightful cultivar called C. ‘Little John’. These can take a light frost. For a tall narrow plant or a dwarf shrub look to the adaptable heavenly bamboo (a Nandina variety) that offers bright red new-growth leaves in addition to cheery orange berries. The tough Cotoneaster or prickly Pyracantha, both of which come in versions from just a foot or two to big, sprawling bushes will also offer up bright orange-red berries perfect for making holiday decorations late in the year.

When selecting plants for your garden, don’t forget to use colorful foliage. There are some wonderfully bright foliage plants that will add texture and hue to your plantings even when everything else is out of bloom. For a large shrub or to create a living wall or barrier the Photinia grows with bold, shiny leaves and brilliant red new growth. You can even find Photinias trained to grow on a trunk like a small tree. If you want a formally clipped hedge, try a tough green shrub like the Euonomous or privet rather than the Photinia since the Photinia will loose its best asset of new red leaves when pruned regularly. The New Zealand Flax (Phormium) family offers bold strap-like foliage in reds, yellows, limes, pinks, whites, rusts and more in a number of colorfully striped patterns. Most of the brighter varieties do better with a little shade inland. The toughest – and the tallest – are the basic green and dark red varieties. Phormiums give some vertical shape to gardens where most plants tend to spread in a rounded or horizontal growth form. There are a number of small plants that offer a wide range of leaf colors as well. There is a rainbow of colorful foliage to choose from in the Coral Bells (Heuchera) family and some offer white, pink, coral or red sprays of flowers as a bonus – which is how they get their common name. Variegated grasses come in reds, pinks, creams and yellows in such families as the Carex, Miscanthus and Pennisetum, among others. A number of plants with colored variegation – especially the lighter colors – need some shade in hotter areas. In general, with colorful foliage the darker red colors seem to tolerate hotter sun better than most of the other colors. Check the needs of your favorite plants before selecting the sites to plant them.

There are a lot of annual flowers ideal for using warm colors in the garden. You can add patches of brilliant color that fill in between non-flowering areas or create seasonal interest. Shirley poppies and red cosmos brighten up springtime with color. Some annual flowers are drought-tolerant like the yellow or orange calendula or the bright yellow annual coreopsis. These last two have playful daisy shapes. If you want multiple colors in your daisies, try the annual chrysanthemum, Galiardias and Gazanias. More perennial daisies in warm colors can be found in the Black-eyed Susans (Rudbekias), and Arctotis.

Native and drought-tolerant flowering perennials offer yellows in Tagetes lemonii (Mexican Bush Marigold), Baileya multiradiata (Desert Marigold), Penstemon pinifolius 'Yellow' (Yellow Pine-Leafed Penstemon), Coreopsis, Sundrops (Calylopha) and the Yellow Mexican Primrose (Oenothera) among others. You’ll find examples of bright reds in the Penstemon eatonii (Firecracker Penstemon), Zauschneria californica, Lobelia laxiflora (Mexican Lobelia), Calliandra eriophylla (Fairy Duster), the Daylily (Hemerocallis) and Justicia (Chuparosa). Look for oranges in the Mimulus cardinalis (Monkey Flower), Asclepias tuberose (Butterfly Bush), or the Leonotis leonurus (Lion Bush). These are smart, low water choices for using warm colors in the garden.

More suggestions would include the native Chrysothamnus nauseosus (Rabbitbrush) in the sun and the Ribes aureum (Yellow Current) in the shade for great yellows. The Ratibida (Mexican Hat) has either yellow or red-with-yellow-tipped flowers. The Salvia greggii (Autumn Sage) has been hybridized to offer and assortment of colors and has a hot red available, too. This plant is an easy grower in some of our more exposed, dry areas.

You can create gardens all of one family of colors or you can use areas of one color to contrast with another. One idea is to use warm, bright colors as an accent to a garden with a lot of green or white. Another idea is to contrast the cool blues with bright hot focal points. Or you might decide to rim a garden with all one cheerful color by creating an edging. Annuals will give you the longest period of unrelenting color, but they will fade when their season is done and you will have to replace them. Perennials can bloom for short or longer periods of time depending on the kind of plant, but you can effectively extend an area’s blooming season by tucking in colorful blooming bulbs that will flower in the early spring and in the later autumn. The foliage of bulb-types need to be allowed to die down to create next years’ plant so you don’t want to cut back those leaves until they are all yellow or brown. This is where you get double-duty from the combined planting. Not only do you get the short but extremely showy extra bloom from the bulbs when the surrounding perennial is resting, but you can hide the failing bulb foliage behind the larger green perennial foliage and later perennial blooms to keep the yellowing bulb foliage from being noticeable. Some bulb or rhizome type plants that come in reds, oranges and/or yellows would be the tough Crocosmia (Monbretia), the dependable Daffodil (the bulbs are poisonous if eaten), freesias that are well worth growning in warm colors in a frost-free location for their wonderful fragrance, Sparaxis and some of the elegant irises.

There are many more choices of plants you can use in the warm or hot colored landscape.  The brightest colors show up the best in the distance where other colors would get lost and in the full sun, though they can also make an impressive statement when surrounded by contrasting colors. The softer pastels tend to punch up well in shade and semi shade whereas they can be overwhelmed by our bright sun unless they are massed sufficiently to be noticeable. Everyone has different tastes and preferences, but you can see there are lots of choices of plants for using warm colors in the garden fo an assortment of locations, styles and effects. Have fun experimenting with what you like best.