Hot gardens are for the adventurous, not the faint of heart. Warm, spectral hues jump at the eye, creating either a pleasant jolt or a nasty jar, depending on their placement. Because red light wavelengths are longest, every red-flowered plant you place in your border will appear closer than its neighbours. Red is also the color seen best by birds, including hummingbirds, which is why there are so many red-flowered plants in the tropics, where birds are important pollinators. It’s also why we grow red coral bells, salvias, penstemons, columbines and honeysuckle or trumpet vines if we want to attract hummingbirds to our gardens.

In spring, before the garden’s buffering green foliage has fully emerged, hot colors like those of quince and forsythia and many of the spring bulbs need careful treatment to avoid looking harsh. In fact, throughout the season, hot colors are enhanced by contrasting foliage. For example, dark green yews cool a stand of fiery salvia; the striped-green blades of an early-blooming plant like Iris pallida makes a perfect foil to the zingy, red blossoms of gomphrena ‘Strawberry Fields’; and the fresh green of hostas is a good partner to bright red-and-yellow eastern columbines (Aquilegia canadensis). Hot-colored plants also look spectacular with plants with brown foliage, such as Carex buchananii or one of the brown-leafed phormiums.

What’s Hot – and What’s Not?

So what’s hot, and what’s not? If you look at the color wheel in our Color Primer story, hot colors are those from the gold end of yellow to red before it moves into purple. The torrid orange butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) is hot, but the ‘Tropicana’ rose is not – its orange has too much pink. The tall ‘Coronation Gold’ yarrow is hot, but its paler cousin ‘Moonshine’ is not. Fernleaf coreopis ‘Golden Showers (Coreopsis verticillata) is hot but lemony ‘Moonbeam’ is not. The tawny daylily (Hemerocallis fulva) is hot; so is the Asiatic lily ‘Enchantment’. Red is hot, from the pure hues of many of spring’s Darwin Hybrid tulips to summer’s red Oriental poppies and beebalms; to the jewel-like crocosmias, cardinal flowers (Lobelia cardinalis) and sneezeweeds (Helenium autumnale) of late summer.

Hot colors encompass all the warm, bright colors that run the range from scarlet through orange and bronze into golden-yellow. Hot colors look good in front of fences or walls painted chocolate-brown, taupe or sage green.

If your garden is relentlessly bright and sunny, you’ll find hot colors bear up better than blues or pinks; this is a logical conclusion when you consider that many hot-colored plants originate in sunny spots like Mexico and South America. They blaze in the midday sun, and glow like embers in the shadows of late day. If the setting is somewhat shady, you can still choose from a range of hot-colored plants, from globeflowers (Trollius) to lush, tuberous begonias.

As well as flowers and foliage, be sure to consider warm-toned berries and fruit such as holly, crabapple, mountain ash, winterberry, pyracantha and contoneaster; they also had color and structure to the garden. And don’t overlook the importance of bright fall foliage in a hot garden, especially serviceberry (Amelanchier spp.), burning bush (Euonymus alatus), Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) and sumac (Rhus typhina).

A large garden can accommodate a sweeping border of hot colors; but owners of tiny spaces may prefer to isolate vignettes planted with warm hues, separated from other color harmonies by lots of foliage.

Hot Plants for Your Garden

Here are some “hot” plant choices for your garden:

· Bulbs, Tubers, Corms: crocosmia, begonia, gloriosa lily, dahlia, canna lily, gladiolus, foxtail lily

· Annuals: zinnia, bedding geraniums, New Guinea impatiens, marigold, lantana, nasturtium, tithonia, sunflower, cosmos ‘Cosmic Orange’, gazania, salvia, calendula, California poppy, Shirley poppy, corn poppy, strawflower, gomphrena, snapdragon, celosia, osteospermum

· Perennials: gaillardia, coral bells, potentilla, bearded iris, golden marguerite (Anthemis), heliopsis, helianthus, sundrops, euphorbia, Maltese-cross, cardinal flower, yellow loosestrife, red-hot-poker, globeflower, solidago, x solidaster

· Vines: honeysuckle, Clematis tangutica, trumpet vine

Adapted from an article that appeared originally in Canadian Gardening magazine

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