The power of COLOUR

As the monochrome memories of midwinter fade, foliage blankets soil, leaves cloak trees and flowers put smiles back on everyone’s faces...

- NICOLA STOCKEN

Colour is very much a matter of taste, and one gardener’s hot hue-of-the-hour can be another’s nightmare. Visiting a garden jam-packed with thousands of cheerily clashing tulips is not everyone’s cup of tea but, after a lacklustre winter, a defiant blaze of colour is joyous in a way that textbook taste might not be. ‘The plants haven’t read the rule book,’ murmured the owner of the particular garden I describe. Clearly neither had he, and it mattered not a jot.

Colour plays a vital role in every corner of a garden, exciting and stimulating, calming or cheering. Gardeners have at their disposal a superb palette of flowers and foliage that can be used as a design tool to express individuality, unify, produce special effects, or to manipulate perspective. Wood stains can dramatically alter the look of structures — pergolas, arches, arbours, obelisks, benches and garden buildings — coordinating or contrasting with an existing scheme. And then spot colour can be introduced through ornaments, furniture and furnishings.

At its most powerful, though, colour influences the overall mood in garden spaces large or small. Attitudes to colour come from deep within the subconscious, a combination of primitive instincts, cultural influences and the physical reactions of the eye to different colours. Each colour has individual properties, according to its position on the spectrum. Red is the furthest wavelength but visually appears closer, demanding attention, whereas violet and blue shades appear further away than hot tones. ‘They are serene and mentally calming, but may be perceived as cold,’ points out Angela Wright, author of The Beginner’s Guide to Colour Psychology.