Pamela Harper, a garden writer and photographer, is considered an expert on using color in the garden.
She has written books and lectured to hundreds on the subject. Her plant photos have been used in encyclopedias, Sunset magazine and many other publications.
Yet, after 30 years of tending her Seaford, Va., garden, she still isn’t satisfied with all the color combinations. The morning I interviewed her for this story, the 78-year-old was nestling some amber-hued chrysanthemums into one of the beds in her 2-acre garden.
Years have refined her color palette she said, but she never feels completely satisfied. Even with her years of experience, she still needs to see how different color combinations work together in different parts of the garden.
Harper is one of several garden experts set to speak Saturday at a symposium, “Color, Texture and Light: Create the Wow Factor in Your Garden,” Saturday at Bastyr University in Kenmore.
She’ll be talking about color in the garden and sharing photos of some of the gardens that inspire. One of the first to awaken her senses was a garden in Cotswold, England, filled with borders in striking color combinations: everything from soft, cool pinks and blues to jarring but exhilarating reds and purples.
Many beginners make the mistake of dumping all sorts of plants into their garden willy-nilly, she said. It’s more visually appealing to limit the color palette in certain beds and borders — all those hot oranges, yellows and reds in one border, for instance. That makes it easier to know where that plant you had to buy at the nursery should go when you get home.
“It’s infinitely easier than walking round and round the garden and thinking, ‘Where will I put that in?’” she said.
Beginning gardeners don’t tend to grasp the cool and warm variations of colors. Red isn’t just red, for instance. It’s scarlet and crimson. Different variations of colors don’t always work together. Harper said she has never seen a blue border that’s worked.
If you plant to repeat the same colors, a contrast is needed to set off the colors. That contrast come in the shape of the plant, the texture of its foliage or the flower shape.
Look not only at the bloom for color but the foliage, she said. Harper visited a white-themed garden where the gardener had used gray and white variegated foliage to create impact.
In her early gardening years she tried to grow unusual plants. She’s learned it’s far better to choose plants that do well locally, meaning they’re easy to care for and suited to the climate. She loves sedum Autumn Joy, for instance, a no-fail plant that looks good nearly all year, she said. Hostas, which look tattered in her yard, are on their way out of her garden.
Harper has culled most of the plants that require too much babying from her garden, although a few sentimental favorites remain, such as her English primroses.
If a plant doesn’t provide lots of year round interest or it’s too hard to maintain, it goes.
Reporter Debra Smith: 425-339-3197 or dsmith@heraldnet.com. Visit her blog at www.heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
