Spring Color Harmonies

Yellow is the key color of spring in our gardens, with lavender running a close second. And what lovely effects can be achieved by using them in combination to bring out by contrast their varying tones!

Nothing is more heart-lifting after a long cold winter than the forsythias and daffodils as they sing out their color song. Nothing is more refreshing than their bright persistence during the few bleak days that winter invariably demands of fickle April.

Try massing pansies in all their purple, yellow and lavender shades at the feet of the daffodils and you will make a picture to remember. As the long leaves of the daffodils wither, they may be hidden among the pansies. Moreover, if you pick off the dead flowers each day the little funny-faces will carry on well into the heat of summer. Then, their duty done, they can be pulled out and replaced by annuals brought near their flowering stage, ready for transplanting, in some corner of the garden or purchased at a nursery.

Hard on the heels of that first glorious outburst of color comes the well-known hardy Alyssum saxatile compactum, sometimes called Basket of Gold. Not nearly so familiar, but even more deserving, is her lemon-colored sister, Alyssum saxatile citrinum. A carpet of these anywhere in the sun – and they are great spreaders – if planted in well-drained soil interspersed with clumps of the lavender Phlox divaricata is another breath-taking spectacle, particularly if you can contrive as background a lilac in full bloom.

Phlox divaricata, the wild Sweet William or Blue Phlox as it is sometimes called, is native from Quebec to Florida and Texas and has taken in a most kindly way to cultivation. The foot-high sprays of graceful flowers, blooming for some four or five weeks through late April and May, rise above the ground-hugging shiny leaved foliage.

Divisions are easily made, or the stock may be increased by stem cuttings, taken as soon as the new growth is well started after the flowers fade. A lover of rich soil and partial shade, it makes there a perfect foil for pale yellow primroses, while in the sun, associated with the alyssum, it is most attractive facing down deep purple, lavender, and yellow tulips and that tallest of the early perennials, Doronicum (Leopards-Bane).

Doronicum, not too well known, is a treasure which deserves wider use in our herbaceous borders. The shiny, bright green heart-shaped leaves appear very early in the season, and by late April the two-to-four-inch yellow daisies open on two-foot-high wiry stems. By clipping the flower heads as they fade, they may be kept in bloom for over a month, but in our garden this is a task that never waits since we find them almost indispensable for spring bouquets. The plants disappear during their dormant period in July and August, but by September new growth begins and it is then that division may best be made, usually every third year.

And columbines! No late spring picture would be complete without their airy grace. A group of yellow columbines near tall lavender iris, with masses of pale purple Nepeta mussini, is another picture. Yet another, the “blue” columbines, which are really lavender or orchid-shaded, beside the lovely fragrant Hemerocallis flava, the common early yellow daylily, growing only about thirty inches high and flowering in June.

by Marjorie Schnizer

Related Articles Of Interest:

• Extending the Iris Season with Dwarfs and Intermediates
• How To Have Better Spring Bulbs
• Iris Wonderful for Landscape Color
• Don’t be Misled… Biennials are Easy