Thinking Of Spring Colors My Autumn Thoughts

Next Spring Fashion Colors Are Bright Pastels

Let it never be said that Gardeners are not forward thinking people.

Sure, we are slower on the uptake on the trendy and fad-driven, we like “slow” this and “slow” that, but we are quite forward thinking …perhaps even avant garde in other ways. Not all of us, there is never a 100% unwavering stereotype, but collectively we are a breed, a tribe, and our love of the garden helps form us.

For those reasons the fashion color trends affect our gardens, if not individually in the color schemes we choose for our landscape, those trends rule the centers and companies that supply much of the plant material that will be available for planting next spring. Will next spring find us planting our front yards with bright reds and white? Monochromatic pinks? Not if the color trend forecasts are right.

Fall Is The Planting Bed for My Spring

For us, the fall choices can dictate the spring effects.

As designers and creators of our landscape and its gardens, we are not immune from the influence of color trends elsewhere- and why should we be, when the emotional impact of color and its resulting reflection of our state of mind colors how we construct our surroundings?

So, each year finds us selecting bulbs to brighten next spring’s flower beds, and this color planning only escalates during bleak winter months when we pore over the garden catalogs and draw gridded plans with color harmonies and contrasts.

Like my photo? I posted it through Instagram.

Pantone gives a color report that governs what many of the design industries will be presenting by way of clothing and household goods, and those will determine paint and media hues, which will both shape and be in turn influenced by our moods as a group of people.

• Placid Blue
• Violet Tulip
• Radiant Orchid 
• Magenta Purple 
• Hemlock 
• Comfrey 
• Cayenne
•  Freesia 
• Celosia Orange 
• Dazzling Blue

I found it interesting that so many of the colors represent garden plant colors (at least in name) for the coming seasons. Some years it is all about food, or even the elements, but the report for next spring? Freesia yellow, Violet Tulip, Celosia orange, Hemlock green. Very garden oriented.

So, this fall I am already thinking of next spring, and next summer, and almost without realizing it, next fall, too. Extending to the autumn of 2014, it is wise to be taking notes, now, on what plants give a pleasing effect in the color of their foliage, producing bright berries, and their frost resistance.

Yes, we most definitely are forward thinkers, and though understated by those who notice such things, I might imagine that the colors we choose for our gardens, give to our photos of our favorite blooms, and in creating flower arrangements in our homes, somehow filters into the way others view what harmonies they choose out of the spectrum to give feeling and expression to the whole of our society. Does that seem over reaching to you?

I think the old way of viewing trend, the dictates of mavens and gurus, is the inverted way of seeing such waves of emotional or intellectual movement. I think the groundswell of many individual choices and views collects together to create our culture and expression, and ultimately the way we decide to mold our bigger view and our future.

So the next time you are holding a tulip bulb in your hand, ready to pop it into the eight inch deep hole you have carved out of the soil, think about that. One by one our choices are creating expression, and giving form to what we, and those around us, will see in the coming seasons.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ // ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Visit Ilona’s Garden Journal on facebook: Click here
© 2013 written for Ilona’s Garden Journal by Ilona E. An excellent blog.