Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 88, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1916 — COLOR SCHEMES IN GARDENS [ARTICLE]

COLOR SCHEMES IN GARDENS

Matter in Which America Might Profit by the Example Set by English Landscape Artists. Little attention is paid to garden color schemes, less in California than elsewhere, for the reason that everything blooms so riotously here that we deem attempts at control quite unnecessary, says the Los Angeles Times. The English are the great color artists of the garden and they have garden books upon this subject alone. Sometimes colors are used for effects not necessarily allied to harmony, as when yellow is used on points thrust forward to shorten the apparent distance and blue is used to deepen the recesses and make them appear farther in the distance. Many of the good-sized local gardens have long borders where color schemes could be wrought with annuals or perennials, or with both. Remember two points which may be called fundamentals: White is the one great neutralizer or harmonizer in flowers and gray performs a similar office in foliage. Borders in which white flowers and gray foliage heavily predominate may have any and all colors in harmony so long as they do not mix, but have between them a mere touch of white. Such a peace-maker is often more necessary between shades closely allied than in marked contrasts. Thus with two shades of pink the lighter appears washed and faded in close comparison with a deeper and therefore stronger hue. Even great masses of white relieved by an occasional touch of any color never appear monotonous.