Coloring Your Garden

Landscape designer Lynn Turner has tips for turning a ho-hum garden into a colorful and interesting display that complements your home.

• To design color in the garden, you can start with your favorite color. Get a color wheel from an art store and use it to help you determine which colors will work best with your primary color. Complimentary (opposite on the wheel) colors produce a lively look, while colors adjacent to each other on the wheel are more soothing together. The most sophisticated look is monochromatic, with varying shades of the same color.

  

  

  

  

• To get an idea of how colors will look together, make a "soil plot" with coffee grounds spread in a shallow pan. Insert crayons of different colors together to determine their effect. The crayons are nontoxic so the coffee can still be used for brewing.

• Using white in a garden really pops — even more so than red — so be careful where you place it. It is usually a focal point. Placed in the back of a bed, white pulls the eye through the front foliage.

• An important consideration in planning your garden is your home’s architecture. If you have a traditional home, consider an English garden country style that uses a lot of gray, furry, textured leaves and purple flowers. For a more modern look, choose bold colors and shapes.

• Plant foliage of different sizes, shapes and colors together for an interesting look in the garden without using flowers.