Growing the Rainbow
Dieticians talk about ‘eating the rainbow’. By this they mean eating as wide a variety of different coloured fruit and veg as possible everyday to benefit from the phytonutrients they contain. Phytonutrients give the veg their colours. They also nourish us, contributing to our physical well-being. In a similar way, ‘growing the rainbow’ can also be beneficial, nourishing our minds and contributing to our mental well-being. Who has not stopped, without thought, to admire some freshly opened flower as it catches the sunshine, bringing a new splash of colour to a flower bed. There are many beneficial emotions tied up in such moments, when the outside world is temporarily forgotten and the flowers are all that matter – is this not what gardening is for?
Out driving, I once came across an uncultivated field full of bright red poppies, with daisies, thistles and many other wild-flowers enjoying the unusual freedom to grow everywhere. It had such an effect on me, I turned my car round at the first opportunity and drove back, managing to find a spot close to the field where I could safely park. I stayed there for some time, wandering around and taking photos - simply enjoying the amazing spectacle – a moment of sublime and unexpected beauty.
And this gets to the heart of why SeeHow was created – to help to make creating these moments easier for everyone! Seehow began as a very simple idea – a plant growing catalogue that worked visually (without words) showing the whole lives of individual plants throughout the calendar-year - with the emphasis on colour. I wanted the user to be able to easily compare and combine plants in a way that would show them when those ‘rainbow moments’ could occur. I’ve included a few photos in this blog of plants that offer ‘mass-colour’, that can be found in SeeHow.
A characteristic of Heleniums is the wide ranging colours of the large daisy-like flowers. Reds, oranges and yellows combined - colours often applied in streaks, as if by a painter – a happy plant that will go on flowering throughout the summer. It brings a smile. It can be planted in swathes or sprinkled amongst other cottage garden favourites.
Many rainbow colours combine in an eclectic mixture in the above photo, including grasses, perennials, shrubs and flowers. There are Dahlias and roses too and great billowing swathes of Heleniums softening the path edge.
The frothy acid-yellow flowers and bright green foliage of Alchemilla mollis work well almost anywhere. In the photo above, it forms the lower storey around the base of bright red flowering Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’. The associated SeeHow plantsticks are also shown.
Greens and blues - there are many plants with blue flowers, but some have shades of blue that really catch the eye. The Himalayan poppy is always a show-stopper, with its delicate petals of strikingly vivid blue, as an example. But they require a very specific climate to be at their best, growing well in parts of central Scotland, but not throughout the UK. Eryngiums however are much more forgiving. They can have electric-blue flowers that instantly catch the eye due to their star-like shape and the intensity of the colour. Unusually, their stems can be blue as well, growing from bright-green lower foliage, continuing the colour feast. They also die well, creating a robust winter structure that can be left to benefit biodiversity.
Some plants have multi-coloured flowers. Californian poppies can be planted as a colourful mixture of red, orange, pink and white flowers and they will happily spread, creating a great mass of rainbow colours year-after-year.
Knautia macedonica is a plant with a natural range of pastel colours – pinks, purples, crimsons, greens and browns, all combine to form an attractive chaotic mass, loved by butterflies too. It is best planted with room to form colourful clumps.
Vegetables also make a colourful contribution to the flowerbed. Soon we will be turning our small back garden lawn into a productive allotment - growing flowers as well as many colourful vegetables, herbs and fruit. We will be using raised beds adopting the principles of ‘no dig’ planting – and no more cutting grass! Not only will we be growing the rainbow, but we’ll be eating it too!
The above Text and all Photographs are copyright of Wincenty (Wicek) Sosna. Please contact SeeHow for permission to reproduce in any way, in part or as the complete text.