Garden Day: Colors We Like To Plant

​Here are the colors that the Sacred Chickens team likes to plant! What are your favorite colors of flowers? 

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Julie 

I am a sucker for pictures of beautiful English cottage gardens, pink roses, clematis, with occasional spikes of blue delphinium to set off the delicate pastels. All this should be set against the soft fresh greens of mown grass, with a few white lilies thrown in for scent and serenity.  If I could choose any colors at all, it would be these…however, I live in the Atlanta area where the summer sun is bright and hot and it has a tendency to wash all those colors out.
 
So, I try to get my pastel fix in spring, setting off pink blooming peach trees, pale yellow jonquils, white Thalia daffodils and grape hyacinth with brightly colored tulips. In my current garden I have bright red camellias and deep pink ruffled azaleas in the background, and I find that these colors pop better than pale pastels would. I can then add my usual pastel early bloomers.
 
If I do go with a pastel, I prefer one that spends some time absolutely covered in blooms, like my yellow lady banks or the sweetheart rose I had at the old house. Those plants are about as “in your face” as pastels are likely to get and I set them off with bright or dark purples, yellows and pinks.
 
 
For the summer, I have planted a wall of peach drift roses which shift from pastel pink to peach as they age. I find that this little bit of peach is complemented the purples of clematis or annuals. I also plant zinnias in my summer garden because they love the sun and the colors pop, even in the sea of hot sunshine that washes over them every day.
 
I love the golds, browns and reds of autumn and I try to have at least a few trees and shrubs that turn brightly colored in the fall.
 
Colors are a matter of taste, but also location and you have to take that into account when you are planting.
 

Jarad

Every now and then, people will ask me what my favorite color is. My response is always that I enjoy almost any color except barbie pink and neon, and it depends on the week what color I’m focused on at the moment. That is basically how my taste in plants is. Like Julie, I love a cottage garden. I will plant anything, literally anything, but the plants I tend to buy fall into three categories. I love any white or cream-colored flower (the peace garden in the Atlantic Botanical Garden was my favorite part of the entire garden. It was dedicated to white and light blue flowers and we posted some pictures here)- roses, lilies, jasmine, hydrangeas and tulips are ones I gravitate towards. Especially with roses, I usually only like the light-colored ones. Red roses are not my thing. I could have an entire section of my garden dedicated to white, apricot and peach plants. I also tend to plant a lot of yellow- I have yellow Carolina jessamine, honeysuckle, Agastache, sunflowers and black-eyed Susan vine. I don’t wear a lot of yellow, but in the garden, I can’t get enough. I also like light blue and lavender colored plants- catmint, wisteria and cosmos come to mind. So, any light neutral color draws my eye, but the other colors I like are the dark ones, just like my nail polish- dark blue, burgundy and dark purple- there are gorgeous varieties of salvia, clematis, and tulip look fabulous in those darker shades. However, I also like colors that are a little more bright- magenta, amaranth, deep pink or even orange can look gorgeous, but those I tend to use as more of an accent. I even like red plants- not roses, of course, but red zinnias or asters can be really pretty and draw the eye amongst the light and dark colored flowers. So I like most colors, and I will try almost anything, it just has to be the right plant. It's all a balancing act for me, and at the end of the day like a little of everything. I’m just happy to have plants growing and things that I can tend to. 

Morty 

I like pale, dusty foliage like ghost lavender and lamb’s ear. I love white flowers as well, like stately white iris and lilies. I tend to choose either very pale white or very dark varieties of flowering plants, reveling in a garden of light and shadows, drawing the eye to the restful darkness of flowers like “Queen of the Night” tulips during the day, or allowing the pale flowers, like moonflowers, to haunt the garden with captured light in the evening.  I find that an occasional blossom in a nice scarlet does not go amiss as an accent.  I love pale gray and dark sculptural bark of defoliated deciduous plants against a pale winter sky or lying in a puddle of moonlight. All my gardens are a tribute to the nether gardens that I left behind, though they assuage my homesickness but little.