The Color Lavender in the Garden

In her magnificent book Colour in Your Garden (William Collins Sons and Co. Ltd., 1985), Penelope Hobhouse explains how color works, especially how colors interact with each other in the garden.  When I first studied this book (I must have read the chapter "The Nature of Colour" ten times before I understood it), the biggest practical takeaway I got was to put paler versions of a light color, such as yellow,  next to deeper versions of a dark color,  such as purple, next to each other.  Never, never, never should you put a deep yellow next to a pale purple.

Of course, I am not always totally logical, and my memory of what I have in specific spots can fade when I am eyeing a plant at the garden center.  Hence, the combination, shown below, of deep yellow black-eyed susan, next to anise hyssop.

This particular photo is off-balance.  However, the yellow flowers on the left will fade, and the sedum autumn joy to the right will bloom an almost burgundy red - creating a pleasing scheme.

Gestalt is important in design.  It is critical to look at the whole of a border, and not condemn based on a limited view.

In this picture, there are three distinct areas of lavender-grey.  The foreground is actually lavender.  The flowers are just starting to show.  When there are more flowers, this block of color will indeed be lavender.  In the middle ground I have Russian sage flopping over a mugo pine.  In the background is the anise  hyssop.  In this view, the interlude provided by the lavender colored plants gives the design balance, movement, and repetition.  It is thus relatively easy for your eye to figure out what is going on in the garden, and to keep your eye moving.