Ok, I should never say never (because you just NEVER know)
but I think I can kind of, sort of, safely say that winter is behind us. I know
this because John Miller has put out his annual flowers, and that’s a true sign
of warmer weather. They guy knows his plants and he knows his weather! So it’s
time to hit the greenhouses, and if you’re like me, you already have. I have
vowed that I’m not buying any annuals this year because we are going to be
building in our yard and I just won’t have the opportunity to spend my time
dead heading. Plus, I’m Ukrainian and I like to eat, so I’m more likely to grow
plants that I can graze on while roaming around in my yard. But at least I can share some thoughts with
you about annuals and how you can play with colour theory from an artist’s
perspective to help come up with ideas on making arrangements for your outdoor
flower pots.
Let’s start with the basics; our primary colours. You can’t
go wrong with a brilliant shot of red, blue and yellow in a flower pot. Just
keep in mind that the eye will go to the yellow flowers first, (because our
eyes tend to look at warm colours first) so either evenly place them throughout
the flower pot, or put them as the highest or most central flowers. I am
picturing a cluster of yellow marigolds in the center of a pot, surrounded by
red million bells and finished with trailing blue lobelia to soften everything.
It’s like Ernie’s (from Sesame Street) shirt transformed into a bouquet of
flowers!
If you want your planter to have a unique edge, then go with
the secondary colours, that being orange, green, and purple. The colours will
vibrate like a Norval Morrisseau painting! Stick with lime greens such as Creeping
Jenny vines, for extra “pop”.
If you want your flower pots to be a bit more subtle, and
focus more on the form and texture of the flower, then think monochromatically.
Monochromatic colour is based on selecting one colour and tints and shades of
that same colour. So, if you pick red flowers, then you can also add deep red
flowers and different shades of pink flowers as well, remembering that pink is
just red with white added to it. This really makes your planter look unified.
For colours that just look like they were meant to be
together, think of complementary colour theory. Complementary colours are made
of one primary and one secondary colour that are opposite each other on the
colour wheel. So team up any red flowers with green, team up orange flowers
with blue, and team up yellow flowers with purple. Now when I say blue, it’s
actually really difficult to find a true blue flower, but there are some that
are pretty close. The bluest flower I’ve ever seen was in Phil Vinet’s garden.
He’s the only person in the whole world that has been able to actually grow a
Tibetan blue poppy from seed, and they are a marvel to look at. The thought of
blue poppies beside wild, orange tiger lilies is quite the vision!
Finally, if you really don’t care, then go for the Crayola crayon
box effect, (which by the way is called polychromatic colour theory) and just
throw a mish-mash of flowers of different colours, textures and sizes together.
After all, they’re flowers and you really can’t mess up a pot of flowers
because, well….it’s a pot of flowers! And who doesn’t love flowers!? But if you
want to be fancy-shmancy then think about your arrangements from an artist’s
perspective, and play with the amazing colours that Mother Nature has shared
with you. I would love to see pictures of your planters! Feel free to email me
at funkydoodad@hotmail.com
Originally posted in the Northern Sun News on May 28th, 2014.
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