Monotony is not indicated in any garden. To break it, it is worth introducing a few interesting, contrasting combinations of plants to the discounts. According to the rule that opposites attract, it is possible to plant with little difficulty, which even the best designer of green areas would not be ashamed of. See how to combine plants with contrasting colors in your garden!
Contrasting plants - a successful combination of yellow and purple colors
When deciding on contrasting combinations of plants in the garden, we must remember that by unskillfully combining plants with each other, we can also quickly destroy the harmony of the garden, introduce confusion and make even a carefully cared for garden look like there is still a mess here.Therefore, drawing on many years of experience of gardeners, let us remember the basic principles of combining contrasting colors. For example, the strongest effect can be achieved by combining the colors red with green, blue with yellow, navy blue with orange. These connections in gardens always look attractive.
We can combine plants with different colors of flowers, but also plants of different shape, color and surface structure of leaves and shoots. The delicate, lacy foliage of garden ferns will be beautifully displayed against the blue-blue leaves of the funkia or against the background of large boulders, while the gray pearly leaves covered with fine hairs will contrast in an interesting way with the heavily cut leaves of orange-flowered marigolds.
It is worth experimenting on your own, creating new plant compositions each year with a completely different habit and varied colors of flowers and leaves. It is also worth creating larger-scale combinations of contrasts in the garden.For this purpose, plantings from low, profusely flowering, pastel-colored bedding plants planted in large numbers in front of the dark green wall of a tall hedge can be used. Original color combinations will bring a breath of freshness and a new look at the nature around us, even the smallest garden.
By skilful selection of shapes and colors of the background, you can perfectly display small rock species of plants that would otherwise disappear in the crowd of these larger neighbors on a mixed bed.
Contrasting combinations of plants are not only the intense colors of flowers. We can introduce a game of contrasts by planting only conifers of different habit and contrasting color of needles
Differently than in the case of rock plants, most perennials and bulbous plants look best in multi-species plantings composed on the basis of a contrasting combination of the size and color of flowers and varied foliage of shoots.
An excellent example here are lilies blooming with huge goblets, planted next to a cluster of paniculate gypsophila or large-flowered tulips with an intense orange color of flowers growing in the company of a magnificent pink heart. The soaring inflorescences of the blue garden delphiniums in the company of profusely blooming full pink peonies also look interesting. Also, single-species beds made of various varieties are a very interesting example of the use of contrasting colors of flowers and leaves in the garden. Here, inspiration may come from large-area plantings of white and red-blooming daylilies, and several varieties of garden cranberries arranged in terms of different color of the leaves.
One of the most interesting contrasting combinations may be a large clump of blue Siberian irises with lush green sword-shaped leaves planted against the background of a purple-leaved variety of the Podolian peru, whose dark colored leaf blades have an oval shape.
As in every area of life, when designing and arranging a garden, it is worth relying on proven ideas, but you should not forget to experiment on your own with combining different colors, shapes or textures. Each garden will be one of a kind if we allow ourselves to be carried away from time to time by fantasy, creating combinations that cannot be found elsewhere.
