Spring in primary colours

Isn't this an amazing hedge? It is like a blast of sunshine, right on your face. It is such an unusual thing to plant (well, at least in my experience), a bold move that demands your attention, shouting "look at me - the spring is here!". I walk past this hedge quite often and hadn't even thought about it earlier, but when in flower, how could you not notice it?

K

K

Don't get me wrong, I really like the unusual Forsythia hedge, but I couldn't help wondering if they chose the colour after the fire hydrant at the other end of it... or maybe the school buses driving past the house every morning? Or the yellow lines on the road or the yellow cabs... all these things shouting for your attention. Yellow is a colour that evokes feelings, in a different way that for example white or light blue, which are so much more neutral. As I asked my clients for their colour preferences for their gardens in Sweden, many of them answered that yellow was not to be considered at all, they did not like the colour as it was so unstylish. Funnily, the Swedish flag is blue and yellow, and the same people happily decorated their cakes with these colours while celebrating birthdays and exams. And I've myself often thought that the Australian colours of green and yellow are so ill-looking, especially then applied to the uniforms worn at the Olympic games...

K

At the same time, a Citrus tree full of juicy lemons has exactly the same colours and is a sight that never fails to please me. And who would not be happy when looking at a field full of sun flowers? So I definitely wouldn't rule yellow out from my garden. The planting above with bright daffodils and flowering Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas) is not really a stylish one, but it still looks naively happy, especially together with the kids scooters and the wagon on the side.

Chionodoxa forbesii - not a true blue, but beautiful anyway...

Viburnum davidii with true blue fruits

Blue on the other hand is one of the most unusual colours to be found in a garden. If you think of it, most "blues" are actually more mauves or purples. "True" blues are very rare, but can be found in the wonderfully dark, porcelain blue fruits of Viburnum davidii, which is one the most commonly grown evergreens here. It has strongly veined, dark, glossy green leaves on reddish stems that complement beautifully the strongly blue fruits. Interestingly, most Viburnum davidii plants grown in the "Western" countries are derived from a single Chinese population collected by Ernest Wilson in the early 1900s. Meconopsis betonicifolia with a couple of it's relatives, and Salvia patens are the only other "true" blue plants that I can think of for the moment.

Beautiful little bird's nest in a Japanese maple, Acer palmatum 'Red wood'.

Red flowers are not that usual in the spring, besides red tulips and the odd rhododendron or primroses sold by the dozen at the garden centres. Maybe there is something biological behind this; bees have a difficulty seeing red, so most of the spring flowers are white, yellow or blue to help them find food after the long winter when not much is to be found yet? Otherwise, I love trees and shrubs with red bark, as the elegant Japanese maple above, but otherwise I really don't mind the lack of red flowers this time of the year. Maybe in spring, Christmas is still too near so that when I see Camellias blooming with their bright red flowers, I just hear "jingle bells...", and can't help thinking that they would be beautiful if they only would be white.