There are times when color is the most important element of a landscape design. This building, circa 1880, had become home to a well known and cutting edge advertising firm-Harris Marketing. Any commercial client in the design business is keen that the landscape reflect as much attention to design as possible. What you see outside is a visual reflection of what goes on inside. In this case, the architecture and materials of the building itself made the color issue a very important design issue.
Though the building was large, and several stories high, there was very little land on which to landscape. The building facade was comprised of brick of an astonishingly bright orange color, and stone. In addition, the right of way space was paved in orange brick. Any successful landscape design would need to address that color in a thoughtful way, and then create visual interest in a very tight space. My first decision was to choose one plant element that would represent that brick color-a Crimson Sentry maple. Since the right of way locusts were planted at regular intervals, and framed in brick, I planted a row of these columnar red/orange/brown leaved maples in the spaces between the locusts-this visually added the right of way trees, and the land in which they were planted, to my landscape design.
I rarely plant dark foliaged trees, as the color can be hard to work with, and muddy at any distance. This siting places these maples close to the viewers eye, backed up by that bright orange brick; the color of those leaves worked well. Large bottomless planter boxes made from corten steel served a dual purpose. The eventual orange brown of the steel would make my color references stronger. They also permitted me to make a grade change in a small space. They made a 3-D representation of the brick borders around the locust trees. This unexpected element catches the eye.
I planned to plant hydrangeas in the boxes, and Sum and Substance hostas in the ground. The greenish white flowers of the hydrangeas, and the lime green foliage of the hostas would contrast with those orange brown leaves in a sparkly way. We lined the planter boxes with sheet insulation; once the ground would freeze in the boxes, I wanted it to stay frozen. Too much freezing and thawing might hinder my chances for success with hydrangeas, whose roots would be above grade.
Making this long run in several boxes dramatically reduced the fabrication cost, and made transport much easier. The boxes and hydrangeas would also screen the basement level windows, and window air conditioners from view. Old buildings like this one a very difficult to adapt to modern air conditioning. This fact did not need to be part of the public presentation of the building.
A stripe of PJM rhododendron unexpectedly repeats the maple leaf color. I think it is a good idea to be clear in executing what you are trying to achieve. There would be no opportunity to explain to passersby what I meant. If I need to explain the intent of a design, I need to rethink the design.
It would take some time for that corten steel to orange up. Corten steel only rusts to a certain point, and then becomes stable. Once the hydrangeas matured, they completely screened the lower floor windows. Though I would not ordinarily block light to the interior of a building, there were security issues that my client decided were more important.
The finished landscape has a beat. A lively rhythm, and attention to the color relationships established by the building and environment attracts attention-any business hopes for this. I would have been happier for more evergreens given our climate, but my client reasoned that few people would be walking by in the winter. The orangy brown boxes would make a statement to people driving by. Any strong geometric statement would attract the kind of attention they were looking for.
When this project was finished, I realized the white Annabelle flowers would make much of the white trim around the windows. I have yet to have a project that did not speak back to me when it was finished about something I had not considered. I like this about what I do.
en grisaille: to paint in a limited palette, light in value, and monochromatic-usually grey
I have grown serviceable, if short lived stands of delphinium belladonna and bellamosa, but blue is brief in my garden; pansies, violas, lobelia, and phlox divaricata. My big blue garden season is the winter. The combination of snow, sky, and dark turns everything in the landscape blue. 
Our climate supports many evergreens whose green needles have a distinctively bluish cast. Frazier fir is a blue green color. The stately giant Concolor Fir is a pale blue grey. The color stands out such that I have never known how to place them in a landscape where they seemed beautiful, and not theatrical-except at a great distance from the eye. 
Blue spruce is a very popular evergreen to plant, though I have never done so. I find most properties I deal with are too small to carry that blue color convincingly. When I think blue in a landscape, I think about mountains, hazy with evergreens, very far away. These dwarf Serbian spruce are not quite as blue as the spruce in the background, but they quietly reference the color blue. 
We have the blue of the sky and the water. Michigan is home to the great, the medium, and the small lakes-all of them beautiful. Years ago I never thought about water in a garden; I would not do without the color and the sound of water now. 
I grow lots of plants that are blue green. Rosemary, curly liriope, and variegated licorice-my favorite combination this past summer. Planted in an English lead pot, set on a bluestone terrace-a modest celebration of blue.
I do have clients who like their swimming pools Florida blue. Fine. She had such a thing for that blue, we painted the inserts in her steel boxes blue, to match the frames on her windows. This may not appeal to everyone, but it doesn’t need to. I like seeing people pursue what makes them happy. 
Silver foliaged plants are a good source of blue. This cardoon makes subtle reference to blue-as do lamb’s ears, achillea Moonshine, thyme lanuginosus, silver plectranthus, and so on. Any number of non-hardy succulents make a bigger visual deal of blue-if drop dead blue pleases you. 
Our natural blues are those moody grey blues. This color is easy to work with. White is great. Red is striking. Pink is sweet. Green is a natural. Yellow is friendly and outgoing. Lime green is cool and sophisticated. Orange and blue attract attention. You get the idea.
A mass of red tulips in the spring is enough to get any gardener’s juices flowing again. That red is as densely saturated as a brand new lipstick. Lit from the front, these red tulips read vibrantly for another important reason-their companion color is green. The primary color red, and the secondary color green, are opposite each other on the color wheel. This opposition translates as maximum contrast. Red will never seem redder than when it is viewed next to green. Black/red and lime green-a great color combination.
Not that muddy can’t be pleasing; the subdued red leaves of this very old Japanese maple make for an interesting variation in this landscape. The red is mixing and relating to other greens in the landscape in a subtle, not a jarring way. What is it about a dwarf red Japanese maple that makes it de rigueur in so many suburban landscapes? If it is the red color, then I see many plantings that do not present that red in a striking or thoughtful way. 
How red reads gets a big boost from white, or gray. Pale companionship or background helps red to hold its own. This green and white variegated hibiscus is grown primarily for its foliage. I used it as a centerpiece in this pot primarily to showcase the red. A thriving planting of petunias is much more about the flowers than the foliage-not much petunia foliage showing here. The white variegation on the hibiscus similarly reduces the amount of green. The red color is the star of the show. A red Japanese maple underplanted with Lamium “White Nancy”, or a dwarf low white variegated hosta might benefit in a likewise way.
Mixing red with hot or magenta pink can add dimension, and sparkle, when the intent is to wow with red. The white of these Annabelle hydrangeas doesn’t hurt; the color all around seems lively. 
Intense or dark colors read best up close. To me, every composition has a foreground, a mid ground-and the background. These red geraniums are fiery, up close to the eye. The red dahlias in this mid ground-they seem much muted, even though they are the same red color as the geraniums. Lighting conditions and distance greatly influence the effect of color.
Dinner plate dahlias are something else-whether you love them or reach for your sunglasses, they are the most dramatic representation of red in the garden I can imagine. Were I interested in taking that red as red as I might manage, I would tuck them in between plants in a stand of arundo donax variegata. Red and white-so striking. 
Some of my clients turn their noses up and roll their eyes should I use the word geranium. I look at them at the little black dress of the annual world; they can be stunning, in an expected way-but nonetheless, stunning. What you pair with red geraniums makes all the difference in the world. Whether by way of contrast, or by way of intensifying that fiery color, the idea here is to be purposeful. Whatever effect is in your heart or mind’s eye, understanding how color works will help make your idea visual. 