Using Color in the Garden
It all began as a Cutting Garden
in a cottage-garden style
I’ve always wanted a cutting garden - one designed for harvesting large bouquets and filling the house with color year-round. But not one of those crop-style ones with rows of the same flower set perfectly spaced. My dream was cottage-garden style with a profusion of messy blooms, vines climbing over arches and lavender spilling into the walkways.
So, I designed not just one, but multiple cottage gardens, poured through seed catalogs, nurtured little seedlings through the cold late-winter and early-spring, then tucked my plant babies into the rich soil I’d spent all winter building up.
Multiple Color Goddess Gardens:
Being a girl who loves ALL color, I had to create multiple gardens with different color themes and palettes.
And of course, I named them after some of my Color Goddesses:
Bohemian Garden for deep, rich, saturated colors
Romantic Garden for the soft sorbet colors
Silver Garden for the soft cool earth-tones
Serenity Garden for soft, off-whites and greens
Earth Mama Garden for transition areas between my gardens and our forest, filled with natives as well as some of my favorite flowering shrubs and trees
What Color Goddess are you? Take my fun quiz to find out, then come on back and dive into my gardens:
Come late spring, I was rewarded for all my work – each garden area bursting into color. And the flowers were glorious! The colors working so beautifully together. their colors inspiring me to create artwork in so many color palettes. Come take a look:
Bohemian Garden
deep, rich saturated color palette
This is my original Bohemian Garden (it has since moved to give way to our fabulous pond) along with some bright, saturated bouquets.
Colors carried into my Studio
How could I resist creating paintings and Nuno felt inspired by these exotic colors?
‘Jewels Blooming In The Night Garden’ (36”H x 18”W)
‘Berry Blast’ Nuno Felt Shawl
‘Santiago’ (20”H x 18”W)
‘She Knows She’s A Goddess’ (30”H x 24”W)
Romantic Garden
Soft pastel, sorbet, dainty and feminine color palette
Carrying these gentle, sorbet colors into my artwork was pure joy! I especially love mixing a touch of green into orange for a soft, earthy undertone:
Under the Jacaranda (24”H x 24”W)
Spring Sunrise (36”H x 18”W)
Wake Up It’s A Beautiful Morning (24”H x 24”W)
Hope (30”H x 24”W)
I created both a scarf and shawl in the same colorway:
Spring Garden Scarf in the making
Silver Garden
soft earth-tone color palette with greyed-undertones
A bouquet for my aunt, who had the perfect vase for it:
I don’t normally grab these grey undertones, but am loving how they turned out in Nuno felt:
I create some paintings for a client whose colors of joy are the heathered grey undertones. She is a Master Colorist and her home feels like a very cozy, inviting art gallery. I’m honored that many of my paintings adorn her walls.
They Gather Under A Lavender Sky (24”H x 24”W)
Purple Haze (30”H x 24”W)
She Throws Seeds To The Wind (24”H x 24”W)
Dancing Into the Golden Hour (24”H x 24”W)
Copper Sky (24”H x 24”W)
Dance In The Golden Morning Mist (24”H x 24”W)
Serenity Garden
soft, off-white color palette
OK - I know I don’t normally do soft whites, but I’m loving the results
Bouquet of dahlias: Cafe au Lait, Labyrinth, My Love, Break Out, Sweet Nathalie, Henriette
This nuno felt shawl is double-sided (as all are) with whites and beige on one side and a splash of green on the other
Fawn Nuno Felt Shawl, side 1 and 2
I guess I’m too much of a saturated color girl to work with whites and beiges much. But I have to say, when I’ve leaned into creamy-whites by de-saturating my go-to colors, I do love the result:
Waterfall Bliss (20”H x 16”W)
Amazing Grey Poppy (36”H x 18”W)
White Mountain
Earth Mama Garden
transition into our forest
Our 20+ acre forest is beside and behind our gardens, and we’ve transitioned from the more cultivated to to natural in a series of gardens:
Woodland Garden
Druid Garden
Forest Edge
Some day I’ll take you on a longer tour, but for now, here are some lovely bits of color from these gardens
Woodland Garden
This area blends seamlessly into our cottage garden, so that it’s hard to see where one ends and the other begins. Gradually a pure sun garden gives way to an area dominated by dappled shade of vine maple and then deeper areas of shade under rhododendrons that were planted by my parents over 50 years ago.
Druid garden
Inside our deer fence (separating cultivated areas with the deeper forest), but beyond our Woodland garden is a deeply shaded area between mature fir, hemlock and cedar. Once the area was cleared of blackberry and ivy, some beautiful features emerged - some mossy stumps and almost perfect circle between the tall trees. Our Druid garden was born. Not a lot will grow in this dense, dry shade, other than our native sword fern, so of course I’ll be filling in the area with more ferns. For now, some whimsical pieces that don’t need water or sunlight.
Forest Edge
Further out still is the ‘Forest Edge’ This is a lovely wooded area between our orchard (Jerry’s domain) and the deer fence keeping our furry family inside and the wild furry creatures out. Though natives—sword fern, wild current, ocean spray, hazelnut, mounatin ash, elderberry—dominate, I’ve tucked in Japanese maple, rhododendron, azalea, hydrangea, camelia, and more.
Yes, there are splashes of different color, but what I truly love are that these areas celebrate all of the beautiful shades of green and brown. Here are some paintings in shades of green.
A Touch of Moss (20”H x 16”W)
Soaking Up The Rain (16”H x 20”W)
Oh, the possibilities! Greens—from moss, to olive, to chartreuse, to sage—may I dare say that IF I had a favorite color (which is totally impossible—that would be like trying to chose a favorite child) then perhaps it just might be green…
Fiber Bouquet in ‘Spring Rain’ used in my ‘Wander With Flair’ beadweaving projects
An herb posey - I bring one inside each week to have fresh herbs for cooking right at my finger tips
‘Sticks and Stones’ from my book: Artful Color in Nuno Felt
Silk Wrap in ‘Autumn Leaf’
Scrappy Shawl in ‘Moss’
Beads on Metal in ‘Green Grass’
Nature is the Master Colorist
Whether it’s paint, fiber, beads, floral bouquets or garden design, I can’t wait to dive in and play with all of the color possibilities available.
Nature of course, is the Master Colorist and I take my cue from her!
If you’d like to fill your home with some of these colors, come visit my art shop:
Read more about Using Color
Read more about our Garden
