The Bottom Line
A good introduction to combining colors in the garden. Explores the relationship between colors and considerations when using them, a topic that can stymie any gardener.
- Walks you through color viewed from a painter's eye
- Good basic primer of color therory as it applies to the garden
- Great examples and nice suggestions for practical application
- Plenty of color photos illustrating her points
- Assumes some level of artistic ability
- Not always clear and succinct as to why a combination works or doesn't
Description
Understanding and using a color wheel was wonderfully illustrated with actual flowers.
The suggestion to take a color wheel to a nursery, to choose plants, is very useful.
She doesn't assume you have vast acreage to create in a vacuum.
Every point is illustrated with photographs of actual gardens or containers.
This is a primer in how to see like an artist and then translate that into a garden design.
Guide Review - Book Review - The Gardener's Palette
Ms. Eddison definitely has a painter's eye and she cleverly uses paintings as an inspiration for studying color combinations. Starting with the basics of color vocabulary (tints, shades, tones...) she strives to open our eyes to the effect colors have on one another, such as how a cool bluish-gray can mellow a hot red flower.
Citing specific paintings, she points out how the artist used color to create an effect. If you've always wanted to jump into a Monet painting, Ms. Eddison explains how he used "...a hot color harmony of brilliant red, orange, and yellow nasturtiums; red gladioli; and scarlet geraniums." to create warmth, in Garden at Sainte-Adresse
Particularly useful was her suggestion that you start experimenting with containers. Containers are much easier to correct than a garden bed and much, much easier to move about. It is Ms. Eddison's practical approach and abundance of examples that transform this book on color in the garden from theory to attainable reality.
