Tip of the Week: Vegetables and the Color Palette

Posted in Exhibitions, The Edible Garden on July 6 2010, by Sonia Uyterhoeven

Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education. Join her each weekend for home gardening demonstrations on a variety of topics in the Home Gardening Center.

Garden writer Sydney Edison studies how great art masters combine color on their canvas and uses those lessons as inspiration for the color combinations in her patio displays. Color in the vegetable garden is equally important. It can transform an ordinary or utilitarian space into a work of art.

Design your vegetable garden with color in mind by paying attention to the color of fruit, flowers, and foliage. A bed of yellow and red peppers can be accentuated by repeating the color with a surrounding edge of marigolds. Scarlet runner beans can climb up vertical structures that will pick up the hot color theme.

Repeating color themes is one of the simplest and most effective ways to both literally and figuratively soup-up your vegetable garden. This can be done with vegetables but also enhanced by colorful herbs and summer annuals that can find their way into a vase on the kitchen table.

Several years ago I designed a vegetable garden with silver foliage as a theme. The anchor plants in the bed were ‘Imperial Star’ artichokes, with their large architectural foliage. Lavender ‘Fred Boutin’, with its strong silver foliage, wove through the border of the bed. The heirloom leek ‘Blue Solaize’ and cabbage ‘Copenhagen Market’ completed the silvery display.

Had I left it as just a conglomerate of silvery foliage vegetables and herbs, the display would have looked flat. Silver sparkles in the vegetable garden, because it contrasts and highlights other colors so beautifully.

The deep-purple basil ‘Red Rubin’ was splattered in drifts throughout the bed as a dramatic contrast to the silvers. The summer snapdragon Angelonia Angelmist ‘Lavender Bicolor’ complemented the planting. Summer snapdragon is a low-maintenance annual that needs minimal deadheading and looks good all summer long. The white in this bi-color cultivar played off beautifully with the silver foliage vegetables while the lavender picked up on the purple theme.

Bronze fennel and Cosmos ‘Psyche White’ created a frothy backdrop. The duo was brightened up by the ever-blooming Lavatera ‘Silver Cups’ with its glowing pink hibiscus-shaped flowers. The pink was cheerful and demure while a hot orange would have jumped out as a dramatic addition. Calendula ‘Flashback’ has rusty red and purple overtones that make it a good choice without being too brassy.

As well as considering color, I pay close attention to the texture of the foliage when I design a vegetable garden. The classic looseleaf lettuce ‘Lolla Rossa’ with its frilly red leaves will contrast beautifully with a smooth-leaved green butterhead lettuce. If you place it next to the lime-green ‘Gold Rush’ you will get a nice color contrast but will end up with a frilly mess. Remember that distinguishing features – whether color or texture- are best accentuated by contrast.