© Janet Davis
If
there’s one request a garden designer hears more than any other, it’s this:
“I’d love a romantic garden in pinks and mauves, maybe with a little purple,
too…”
A well-planted pink garden is warm but not searingly
so, feminine but not vapid. If pale pink is extensively used, the scene is
enhanced by planting more intense pinks or purple-pinks nearby. For example,
the native wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) with its pale-pink color
can look insipid alone, but quite wonderful backed by the gutsier pink of
purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) or dark-pink hollyhocks. Similarly, the pink lily tulip ‘Ballade’
with its lighter edge is beautifully enhanced by the crimson foliage of a
Japanese barberry or purpleleaf sand cherry (Prunus x cistena). On the other hand, a darker monarda like
‘Marshall’s Delight’ can be paired with lighter pinks such as filipendula.
Skillful
use of foliage is needed in a pink garden – blue or grey is especially
effective. Blue spruces and junipers provide “bones”, while blue oat grass (Helictrotrichon
sempervirens), glaucous hostas such as H. tokudama or H.
sieboldiana ‘Elegans’, lambs’-ears (Stachys byzantina), rue (Ruta
graveolens) and the large family of artemisias are herbaceous possibilities.
Dark or bright green foliage works well, of course, but yellow-green is best
used near mauve or purple-pink flowers. Deep wine tones like that of
purple-leaf sand cherry (Prunus x cistena) or Rosa glauca also
enhance pink.
Think
about the background for your pink garden.
Pinks look enchanting against a grey stone wall, a dark yew hedge or a
white picket fence, but wage war in front of a red-orange brick wall or redwood
fence.
Pink
includes that palest of tints known as blush, found in the excellent climbing
rose ‘New Dawn’ or the mauve-throated blooms of Magnolia x soulangeana. A little darker is the pale-pink of
early-blooming Arabis caucasica ‘Pink Charm’, hyacinth ‘Anna Marie, tall
meadowsweet (Filipendula rubra ‘Venusta’) and the beautiful double tulip
‘Angelique’. In the same way that white flowers are visible after dark, pale
pinks illuminate the night garden too.
Good,
clear pinks are a dime-a-dozen, from primroses to old roses to rose-of-sharon (Hibiscus
syriacus). The cold-hardy
rhododendron ‘Olga Mezitt’ lends a note of unabashed cheer to May gardens, and
the ‘Orbit’ series of bedding geraniums (Pelargonium spp.) features one
called – what else? – ‘Hot Pink’. The ‘Super Elfin’ impatiens called ‘Lipstick’
is another pink sizzler, described as a hot rose-pink. There’s the feathery astilbe ‘Rheinland’,
the lovely old peony ‘Jules Elie’ and the Michaelmas daisy (Aster
novae-angliae ‘Harrington’s Pink’).
Other
pure pinks include the double-flowered Japanese cherry ‘Kanzan’ (Prunus
serrulata), many cultivars of summer phlox (Phlox paniculata),
flowering almond (Prunus triloba) and the tall grandiflora rose ‘Queen
Elizabeth’. Another delightful and
carefree pink rose is ‘The Fairy’, with sprays of small pink blossoms from June
to frost.
It sometimes
seems that seed companies and garden writers are intentionally confusing when
they interchange terms like lilac, lavender and mauve. But where the first two
correctly belong to the realm of the blues, the latter is most definitely a
pink, mixed with a little blue-violet. Mauve-pink flowers include the elegant
clematis ‘Comtesse de Bouchaud’, the French lilac ‘Belle de Nancy’ and the
lovely allium (A. christophii).
Magenta
is really red with a big helping of purple, and one of those intense colors that
gardeners either love or detest. It’s seen in the hardy rhododendron ‘P.J.M.’
and the black-centered flowers of cranesbill (Geranium psilostemon).
Although classed as pink, magenta needs careful placement in the garden; its
best used by itself with lots of buffering green or grey foliage, or to bring
out magenta highlights in neighboring flowers. (Think of placing the rugosa
rose ‘Hansa’ as a background for pale pink 
foxgloves with magenta markings.) The rosy purple of
obedient plant (Physostegia virginiana) or the lovely wildling sweet
rocket (Hesperis matronalis) is really a tinted magenta.
Other
pink shades needing careful placement cover the range from peach to salmon and
coral. While these colors are theoretically too yellow for a refined pink theme,
you may feel just fine about including a peach-pink tall bearded iris like
‘Beverly Sills’, a salmon-pink tulip like ‘Elizabeth Arden’, a coral-pink shrub
like flowering quince (Chaenomeles spp.) or a coral-pink rose like
‘Tabris’ in your pink garden.
As clear
pink deepens, it moves through the cerise-pink seen in the thornless Bourbon
climbing rose ‘Zephirine Drouhin’ and the versatile spirea ‘Anthony Waterer’ (Spiraea
x bumalda). Then comes the crimson of Japanese maple ‘Crimson Queen’ (Acer
palmatum), coleus ‘Plum Crazy’, shown here, or velvety sweet william
‘Dunnet’s Dark Crimson’ (Dianthus barbatus). At its deepest, pink
appears maroon, like the unusual hollyhock ‘Nigra’ (Alcea rosea), the
“black” tulip ‘Queen of the Night’ or the chocolate-scented perennial cosmos (C.
atrosanguineus), described as darkest garnet.
Adapted from a story that appeared
originally in Canadian Gardening magazine