This one is a little stranger than it sounds. The best way to think of complimentary colors is to think of “color echoing,” as a synonym. In other words, you choose one color that you like and then “echo” it in the other colors in the garden or the container combination.

It’s really easy to see how I have done that with this container. I took the white begonia–or the white container, for that matter–and I “echoed” the white ribs in the leaves of the alocasia and the white variagation of the creeping ficus.

It’s a little harder–but not impossible–to do in a garden.

This is some perennial begonia, growing out for the cracks in my slate steps. It’s backed by a red Japanese maple–and for some extra color, I have a couple of burgundy mums up there on the top of the slate wall.

Another container, this time with mostly perennials (the monkey grass doesn’t over winter for me but the coral bells have–for 7 years!)

So that should give you some idea of how “color echoing” works. Give it a try!

So let’s go back to our old friend the Color Wheel for a second because Contrasting Colors aren’t exactly what they sound like.

They sound like they should almost be colors that clash–but really they’re not. They’re just colors that are opposite each other–or on opposite sides of the Color Wheel.

So red is opposite from green, yellow is opposite from purple (violet on the wheel but not obviously to us gardeners!) and orange is opposite from blue–that makes each of those “contrasting” pairs.

If you’ve ever wondered why that geranium/vinca/spike combination works so well, one of the reasons is that it’s made up of contrasting colors. (There are others, but we won’t discuss them here).

The next time you see a plant combination that you like, take a good look at the colors–perhaps it will have some of these contrasting colors in it. I once decided that most of the “weeds” or wildflowers of summer and fall came in colors of blue and yellow (at least in my region), with some white and an occasional orange thrown in. But it was the contrasting colors of blue and yellow that predominate.

Obviously I like this combination and plant a lot of it myself, even in containers. But notice the torenia (the yellow flower with the purple throat). That’s a study in opposites right there in one flower!

Here’s the combination in perennials–cone flowers with black-eyed susans.

For something a little different, here’s a fall container of mums–again, same color palette.

And finally, you can see how nature herself uses this palette within a single bloom of an iris.

I hope this has got you thinking more about color. Next we’ll talk about “complimentary” or color echoing on Friday.

A week ago I talked about color and how my sense of color has evolved as I have grown and changed as a gardener. I wonder if those of you that have been gardening awhile have found that to be true?

For those of you that are beginning gardeners, this may or may not happen to you. Gardening is a life-long adventure. That’s what makes it so interesting. There’s always something new to learn and always something new to explore.

Sydney Eddison, one of the great gardeners and garden writers, who has written many books on lots of different aspects of gardening, was also an artist. She was especially sensitive to the use of color in the garden. In her “middle years” of gardening, she would change up the color of her patio furniture and even her structures like pergolas to match what she was planting in a given year. She talks about it in her book on container gardening called Gardens to Go.

While I haven’t yet gone to that extreme–and I don’t know that I ever will–I definitely have years when I prefer “hot” colors and years when I prefer “cool” colors. Luckily, because I do garden in containers, I can change it out every year without redoing my entire garden!

What do I mean by “hot” or “cool” colors?

Without making this overly complicated, in color theory there are 3 groups of colors: complimentary, harmonizing and contrasting. You can see this by looking at a Color Wheel (artists are familiar with this tool–gardeners less so.)

Both “hot” colors like reds, oranges and yellows, and “cool” colors like blues, lilacs, pinks and the purple family are in the “complimentary” category. What does that mean? It means they are next to one another on the color wheel. Look at the wheel and you can see that.

What does this look like in a “plant palette?”

Here’s a “hot” colored container using orange and yellow flowers–and leaves.

For a very different look–and a different part of the spectrum but still plants in the “comlimentary” range, try this:

This is a shrub rose and a hydrangea. Pink and red together–it’s not something I would have planted together had I been thinking about it, but it’s worked out incredibly well.

On Monday we’ll talk about–and show–some other examples of color theory. Sometimes pictures speak louder than words!