Dreaming of colour

I’ve finally got all our feedback down in a document and back across to the designers. The big job was going through the planting plan, googling all the unfamiliar names and printing out images of each plant so I could build a picture of each bed. As I was doing it, the colour scheme started to emerge. 

We had talked about emerald as the colour of the pool – partly influenced by my kitchen, which is a brilliant colour called ‘Poison’ by Zoffany (so-called because it was apparently inspired by the colour of oxidised copper – Verdigris – which was  a popular paint colour in the 18th Century but also, unluckily, highly toxic). And also because a bright neon blue might be a bit Miami for a Warwickshire garden, but then anything too dark would look a bit murky under grey skies. And I realise that the orangey reds I’m drawn to anyway will look great with this. Emerald and coral. Teal and tomato. Forest and flame. The mood boards make themselves.

The designer has also thrown in some purples – quite a lot of purples in fact, and at first I’m not sure about some of them. But then I imagine the greens and oranges punctuated with occasional deep bluey-violets, and in my mind’s eye it works. They’re complementary colours, no?