Nobody has ever accused me of being a fashion maven. I’ve got clothes in my closet that date from the Reagan years. Still, color trends are so pervasive that they are bound to get through eventually. When brown became the new black a few years ago, I told a friend I would not be persuaded. Black looks good on me, brown doesn’t. Even so, today I’ve got a closet full of brown.
So it is with garden color trends. It’s always just a matter of time before I cave.
When I moved here from England, I brought with me an extreme prejudice against orange. Back in the 1980s, the English were enjoying a pastel phase and I’d been thoroughly indoctrinated. Soft, buttery yellows, baby pink and pale lavender were tasteful. Vulgar red and orange were not.
At my inaugural Denver Botanic Gardens Mother’s Day plant sale, I told one of the rock garden volunteers, author Gwen Moore, that I was not interested in brash-colored flowers. She retorted that if I stayed in Colorado for any length of time my attitude would change.
A couple of years later, one of my sons asked me to grow the state flower of his birthplace, the decidedly orange California poppy. My family members are not gardeners, so when they show interest in anything garden-related, I am quick to comply. Keith’s orange poppies proved a kick in the pants, demonstrating just what a bad idea a garden limited to pastels is in sunny Colorado.
Today, no color is banished from my gardening palette. I can no longer imagine my garden without orange flowers — or for that matter, scarlet, maroon, purple, or magenta, brown, green, and near black.
So it was with great interest that I learned that burnt orange (or “Tangerine Tango”) is this year’s color in fashion and housewares. This bodes well for Colorado gardeners, because flower growers will certainly be influenced by the unavoidable influx of orange. The recent “Tropicalisimo” garden fad brought us scads of orange, but thirsty, tropical flowers. Perhaps now we’ll see more selections for xeric gardens.
If you’re interested in staying au courant, the following orange flowers are already widely available. This group needs little irrigation to thrive and, as a bonus, you’ll discover that orange, like red, attracts hummingbirds.
Perennials: Sunset hyssop (Agastache rupestris); butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa); horned poppy (Glaucium corniculatum); rockrose (Helianthemum ‘Ben More’); red hot poker (Kniphofia uvaria); Spanish poppy (Papaver atlanticum); Alamo Canyon beardtongue (Penstemon alamoensis); Penstemon pinifolius ‘Shades of Mango’; globe mallow (Sphaeralcea munroana); and California fuchsia (Zauschneria garrettii ‘Orange Carpet’).
Annuals: California poppy (Eschscholzia californica); gazania, Cosmos sulphureus; Livingstone daisy; moss rose (Portulaca grandiflora).
Marcia Tatroe’s most recent book is “Cutting Edge Gardening in the Intermountain West” (Johnson Books). E-mail her at mtatroe@q.com
