Scarlett and Darkness
If I was a cat, I would sleep in a garden store like like this grey girl.
In spite of lead-grey skies and shiver-inducing winds, I decided to check out City People’s Garden Store yesterday morning. I didn’t know what I was looking for exactly, even though I spent a couple of hours in the morning trying to figure out a theme for this year’s front yard flower garden. Browsing through my copy of the Sunset Western Garden book did at least give me the idea to put some focus on feeding some of the songbirds and hummingbirds in the neighborhood.
Once I got into the store, my thoughts on a color theme really started to solidify. It all started with some intense red dahlia photos, which promptly made me drop a package of bulbs into my basket. After that, I saw that Renee’s Garden seeds has a special entice-the-hummindbirds packet. While I wasn’t wild about the seeds that were included in that mix, I realized how much red entices hummingbirds, and how scarletts and reds are a color group I’ve unintentionally left out of my garden up until now. Time to experiment.
As for the darks, I decided on anything ranging from black to deep dark purple as an unusual compliment to all the red. I came across some “black” hollyhocks first (I have no idea how black these flowers will really look in real life). Once I started looking, there were many more possibilities than I’d thought!
Here are some of the plant life that will contribute to my Scarlett & Dark theme.
- Scarletts:
Dahlia ‘Night Queen’
Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’
Nasturtium ‘Empress of India’, ‘Mahogany’, and ‘Cherries Jubilee’
Poppy ‘Legion of Honor’
- Darks:
Hollyhock ‘Black Watchman’
Sunflower ‘Chocolate Cherry’
Nasturtium ‘Black Velvet’
Bachelor Button ‘Black Magic’
- Lime green:
Zinnia ‘Envy’
(more to come..)
Posting your comment
jenmaicha | March 30, 2009 @ 4:09 pm
You found a “chocolate cherry” sunflower variety? Interesting…
Lorraine | March 30, 2009 @ 4:49 pm
Sounds delicious no? Dessert for the birds!