Shapes and patterns can dramatically enhance the colours you use in your garden. Nick Bailey shows how
Part 5 Playing with patterns and effects
Lots of us can be a bit reserved when it comes to colour choice in our homes and clothes, but gardens are a great place to throw caution to the wind and really experiment. The placement of colour in a garden can radically change the way it feels, from setting a mood or atmosphere to changing the sense of scale, direction and focus. It even has the capacity to affect our mood, concentration and direction of travel!
Go for a load of pastels and your plot will have an old-fashioned romantic, cottagey charm. Go for a mix of white, lime and purple, and you’ll have a thoroughly modern vibe. Or, go for a load of rich reds, purples and oranges, you’ll have something approaching the exotic. But the way we place and choose colour in our gardens doesn’t just create a theme or sense of unity; it also changes the whole dynamics of the space – how we feel, move, think and perceive the environment.
Change a space with colour
When we move into a new space, our eyes make a rapid involuntary movement in the shape of a number 7. It’s a quick initial overview. We do it with rooms, gardens and even people’s faces. But you can slow that speedy movement and get your, or another viewer’s, eyes to see more detail in a space by punctuating it with strong colour. For example, if you place a series of golden shrubs in a zig-zag pattern through a garden, your eyes will slow down and follow the colour, thus allowing you or your visitor to take in more of the space. But, more impressively, you can change the sense of your garden’s scale and proportion with colour – if you have a narrow garden, then place hot colours at the end to make the plot feel wider; conversely, if you have a plot with lots of width but little depth, plant watery pastels at its end and you’ll find that the whole space will feel deeper. What this essentially means is that hot colours feel closer to us than they really are and pale colours feel further away.
Colour can also be used to highlight or hide things. If you have an ugly shed or object that you’d rather not see, don’t paint it black but rather use a deep emerald green. This colour acts as a neutraliser in the garden, thanks to its shadowy hues. But if you want to highlight
