Dan's Papers - July 18, 2008 - Earthly Delights by April Gonzales

Although not the color to wear in China right now, orange is the color to don on Queens day in the Netherlands. Orange is in. It's been making its way through the fashion world and and the garden color palette. More plant material is now available if you're ready to switch from pastels, white and blue to something infinitely brighter and cheerier.

Salmon, indigo, coral and yellows of all kinds go with orange. Non-stop begonias mixed in a swale with blue browallia in front of a bank of blue-leaved hostas make a great a sophisticated color scheme. Or try blue salvias and orange lantanas in front of daylilies and some of the new incredibly fantastic orange Echinaceas, like "Twilight." This is a hybrid that has been out on the market for a few years now, and may decide to throw out all of the other purple cone flower varieties.

Eremurus "Cleopatra" is a peachy orange as is one variety of Trumpet vine. Dahlia "Poeme," various Asiatic lilies, Geum "Mrs. Bradshaw," Trollius and Crocosmia are all strong warm colors that vary from the red to yellow spectrum in the orange hues. If planted with annuals, like Tithonia, Crossandra or flowering maples, you can extend the bloom season through October without any daylilies. We are experimenting with Phlox Orange "Perfection" this year to see how it performs and whether the color matches the photos in the catalogue. Numerous roses come in tangerine to vermillion, take your pick and plant with a lavender border to cool things down.

Perhaps the most bodacious of all orange flowers is the climbing nasturtium "Spit fire." This can be a virtual ground cover. The leaves are up to six inches across, 18" high and they grow off long grasping tendrils that can reach out or up. We have seeded these in, in front of a planting of Buddleia "Royal Red," Vitex "Adonis," Lagerstromea Tuscarora, Perovskia and Caryopteris for bold contrast. The size combination seems incongruous at first, but the nasturtiums will not only cover any empty space, but they will also use the shrubs as a trellis, eventually creating a bank of color. It's, perhaps, only rivaled by Calabricoa "Terra cotta," which is like a tiny, brilliant petunia that cascades down from planters and hanging baskets or creates a billowy mound in the garden. It's difficult for retailers to keep this one stocked.

For a more toned down, but still warm, palette, venture into corals and salmons with some peaches thrown in. There's a fantastic peach verbena that goes well with the soft yellow of cascading petunias, which can underplant the topiary form of coral carpet roses for an elegant display in an urn. Peach non-stop begonias and salvia coral nymph go with just about any color that you have in the garden and are great fillers for the edges and the mid border. Salmon-colored rose bud imps are a great single statement in a planter and there are a number of salmon colored

Everything is looking great right? So start deadheading and cutting back to keep it that way. The best way to maintain garden annuals like verbenas and petunias, which need some pinching to branch out and continue flowering, is to cut them back by one third over a period of three weeks. It seems a shame to lose a little color when they are so robust, but this keeps them going strong in the long run.

For more than 20 years, April Gonzales has been involved in garden design, installation and maintenance on the East End, as well as specimen plant scouting and site supervision for landscape architects.