When gardeners talk about coordinating flower colors in their gardens, they don’t usually mean planting different flowers in matching colors. Rather, coordinating flower colors in your garden requires the selection of a range of flowers in complementary colors, arranged with the same sense of balance as one might find in a flower arrangement. Whether or not you have an innate sense of color and design when it comes to gardens, you can still coordinate the flower colors in your garden with the help of a color wheel and a few simple tricks.
On an average color wheel, the colors which face each other on the opposite side of the wheel are known as complementary colors. Complementary colors, such as purple and yellow, would work well together if selected as flower colors in a garden. For example, purple pansies and yellow tulips would go well together in a garden. Similarly, since orange and blue are complementary colors, orange tiger lilies and bluebells are also coordinated flower colors. Complementary flower colors can also be balanced out by planting smaller, white flowers, such as baby’s breath, daisies, or hydrangea, sporadically throughout the garden.
If you’ve already planted a garden in random flower colors and you want it to have a more pulled-together look, you can coordinate one of your garden’s main flower colors with garden accessories, such as a bench, or a rock. Just be sure to choose accessories in a solid, uniform color, such as a blue chair to bring out the blue tulips in your garden – rather than a multicolored accessory, such as a garden gnome or birdhouse featuring several competing colors. If you can’t find a garden accessory that already matches one of your flowers, find a matching shade of paint at the store and apply it an otherwise colorless garden accessory, such as a stepping stone or terra cotta pot.
Although coordinating flower colors is a popular topic amongst home and garden enthusiasts, there are also other types of gardens for which mismatched flowers are popular. These include fairy gardens and secret garden replicas, which feature overgrown wildflowers in various colors.