Yellow
Yellow may be one of my favourite colours! It first came into my life in a meaningful way when I was very young, many decades ago. My mum was decorating my new bedroom and she offered me a choice of coloured wallpapers. One was mostly bright yellow and this was my instinctive first choice (and her choice too). Once decorated, the room felt warm and bright, as if there was always sunshine outside my window.
Fields of yellow rape flowers bring sunshine to the landscape
For me, all gardens should have some yellows, especially in springtime and early summer. Some of my favourite yellow-flowering plants are Kerria japonica, Welsh poppies and of course daffodils. I also love Alchemilla mollis, with its acid yellow flowers and verdant foliage. It was great to see this growing so abundantly recently during a visit to Delgatie Castle in Aberdeenshire.
Alchemilla mollis growing in the gardens at Delgatie Castle
But plants offer more than just flowers. They each have an annual cycle and understanding this is the purpose of SeeHow, which shows how long each plant will be in a garden. This visual information can be used to easily plan for year-round colour and structure. In our new south-facing ‘gravel garden’ in northern Scotland – previously just an empty gravel patch about 3m x 6m – we have created a central area where yellow Achilleas, Geums. Welsh poppies, marigolds and a few others, provide the central dominant yellow / orange colours on slender stems above green foliage. We are experimenting with a few Hostas too, for additional green ground cover. These are now also flowering pale mauve, to add to the colour mix. It is great to see the area slowly filling out as we add more plants, using SeeHow as our flowering and growing guide.
Our newly planted gravel flowerbed - work in progress
Blues, mauves and soft purples sit well with yellows and oranges, each colour visually promoting the other and we are building on this theme with a Geranium hedge separating the footpath from the gravel. Up here in the north of Scotland, all of these plants grow wonderfully. The temperature is just right, but wind is a constant issue as we are on the coast, so shelter and microclimate are as important plant choices.
Yellow loosestrife and geraniums make a beautiful combination
Some plants thrive even in exposed coastal conditions. One of these is the Sedum acre (Stonecrop). I came across this plant when out walking – low mounds of bright yellow star-shaped flowers growing amongst the rocks and boulders along the base of one of the local beach cliffs. Give them the right circumstances and they thrive!
Sedum acre - doesn’t it look superb!
Another such plant is tough Brachyglottis. In the the middle of my local supermarket carpark, I was surprised to find a tiny flowerbed measuring 3m x 1m. In this unlikely, wind-swept spot, there is actually only one plant growing – a Brachyglottis. And right now it is a large mound of bright-yellow daisy-like flowers, attracting lots of bees – as well as me with my camera! The splash of colour reawakened nice memories of my yellow-wallpapered bedroom, because just under my windowsill grew a Brachyglottis tucked against the side of the house. This is the power of yellow!
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.