Orange: The Great Garden Go-Between

STORY MELANIE REKOLA 

Colour evokes emotion. Different colours lend a different look and feel to a space, and in a world where most gardeners opt for the popular pink and purple colour palette, the colour orange deserves another look. It certainly has a lot of punch and it may be just the zip and zing your garden needs. 

ORANGE POWER 

Orange is a powerful colour with lots of attention-grabbing strength and energy. Used strategically, it highlights key areas of a yard, such as an out-of-the-way seating area or hidden path. Hot colours such as orange come to the forefront of vision while cool tones recede. Use orange hues to bring cosiness to an expansive space or use a combination of hot tones in the forefront with cool tones in the back to make a small space seem larger. 

CREATE HARMONY 

A riot of different colours isn’t the best approach for a harmonious garden composition. The best arrangements offer a restrained palette of melodious colour hues blending from one to the next, but often this is easier said than done. Commonly, the missing piece to the garden colour puzzle is a moderating tone between two others to either temper or highlight one or both. The zesty colour orange in all its shades and nuances specifically has an amazing colour-moderating effect in the garden. 

PURPLE AND ORANGE 

Purple flowers abound in gardens everywhere, but too much purple can seem a bit dark and dreary. Adding orange makes cool blue and purple tones sing with vibrancy. 

PINK AND ORANGE 

Pink is another prevalent flower colour and can look tiresome on its own. Mixing in some orange transforms a pink palette into a gorgeous mix of sorbet colours that looks fresh and modern amidst green foliage. You can even see Mother Nature combining these colours in many blossoms sporting pink petals with orange centres, such as Coneflower and Cosmos. 

RED/YELLOW/ORANGE 

This is the hot colour combo for people who love vibrant colours. Red and yellow by themselves can look too “ketchup and mustard” stark for most tastes. Orange is the perfect go-between for these colours and especially because red + yellow = orange. These tones look great in full sun and add a hot, tropical vibe to any space. 

ORANGE AND WHITE 

Think of a creamsicle. I really love this fresh combination – it looks so right with the trending black, white and wood mix of outside materials. This is the colour combo for people afraid of colour. 

MONOCHROME 

Do you really, really love the colour orange? Try a mix of all kinds and shades together. By choosing just one colour in all its varieties, it will have maximum impact yet be really easy to find and achieve. 

MELANIE’S PLANT PICKS 

Geum ‘Totally Tangerine’ – Avens 

This perennial has an abundance of tangerine coloured blossoms held high on airy stems. It flowers in spring, is outstanding and underused. 

Calendula – Pot Marigold 

This beautiful, sunny-orange annual plant is really easy to grow from seed outdoors and self-seeds for subsequent years too. Its petals are edible or can be used to make skin-healing salves due to its natural antifungal and antibacterial properties. 

Hemerocallis – Daylily 

There are so many varieties of orange daylily beyond the wild ones often known as “tiger lilies.” Daylilies have evolved and are often shorter with finer foliage and longer bloom periods. The flower buds on this perennial are edible. Two of my favourites are “Ruffled Apricot” and “Tiger Kitten.” 

Cosmos sulphureus ‘Cosmic Orange’ 

Another amazing annual, Cosmos is so easy to grow from seed. This variety is covered by a profusion of two-inch carroty orange blooms that float above fresh fern-like foliage. 

Nasturtium ‘Troika Orange’ 

Nasturtium is an old garden favourite. An edible annual, it thrives in poor, dry soil and is so easy to grow. This glorious orange variety is a high-performance bloomer with stunning white-streaked leaves. It’s semi-trailing and looks great at the front of a border or in planters. 

Orange is like a breath of fresh air. From bright tangerine to soft auburn there’s an orange hue for everyone. It is said that a change is as good as a rest and now more than ever we need to look forward to the future with renewed hope and positivity. It’s time to give orange – the colour of life, vigour and vitality – a try. OH