‘Contemporary Colour in the Garden’

Sandy Felton takes a look at Andrew Wilson's new book on colour.

As someone who has struggled with the concept of colour in the garden for decades, I found Andrew Wilson's 'Contemporary Colour in the Garden' inviting. That my little plot is 'colourful' is in no way due to my expertise of using colour as the 'powerful tool' Wilson suggests in the gardener's armour. Any useful colour combinations in my garden appear more by accident than design, influenced perhaps by Gertrude Jekyll yes, but competent, it is not. So, I eagerly embarked on the first chapter to see if I could be suitably enlightened.

I like the way Wilson structures this book. He charts the use of colour in the garden from Gertrude Jekyll's colour-sequenced borders to Conceptualism and describes how today's plastics, resins and painted surfaces can deliver a brilliance and saturation of colour that is successful in the right situation.

He points out that colour does not have to be vibrant and obvious to create impact and cites the artist Rothko as an example. Much of the energy of Rothko comes from the combination of colour rather than the particular colours themselves. He implores us to look at 'what is colour' and how its magic can be applied to the garden, surfaces and materials.

Colour can promote an emotional response and Wilson argues that the temptation to aim for a year-round succession of colour should be resisted in favour of an intensive burst of colour for a short period.  The colour should then slowly subside for a more dramatic effect. I am not sure if I agree with this argument but I can see the point.

Wilson looks more deeply into what colour means to us and our individual personalities. As we travel through life our colour choices start to reflect that personality, in clothes, our cars and interior décor. So it is with the garden when our sense of personality is transferred to our plot and its likely colour scheme - I liked this analytical approach as it made me think much more deeply about colour in the garden and my perception of it.

Chapters include sections on how we perceive colour; designing with colour and the drama of contrast. He also looks at the restricted palette and breaking colour rules (something I could instantly relate to). There are excellent colour plates in the book and the author reflects his ideas with illustrations and examples from a range of designers including Andy Sturgeon, Tom Stuart-Smith and Cleve West.

The book is also for the American market and so has American spellings – and just to be petty, Jekyll is spelt wrongly on the sleeve cover – but hey, this is an excellent and stimulating book and for the first time in my life I have actually started to think about colour and my approach to it.

Andrew Wilson is a garden and landscape designer and is also the founder and director of garden design studies at The London College of Garden Design. He is chair of assessors for the Royal Horticultural Society and the author of several gardening books.

'Contemporary Colour in the Garden' by Andrew Wilson is published by Timber Press – www.timberpress.co.uk - in hardback at £20.  A really good read which brings the concept of colour right into the 21st century. Purchase online at Amazon for £13 (as going to print) - click here for more details.