Composing for Color
Red is your landscape's percussion, clamoring for attention like the crash of cymbals. The color of blood, heat, and love, red will alert, arouse, and energize. Just a bit of red packs a wallop in the yard -- a whole bed of it lands a real knockout blow.
Red Recital
(Japanese maple)
- Red stimulates appetite, so plant it near outdoor dining areas.
- Because red encourages activity, it's a smart choice around decks, patios, and outdoor play spaces.
- Red warms its surroundings. It can overheat sunny spots and make shady spots feel less cool.
- Red shrinks spaces visually, a drawback in tight quarters, but a boon in wide-open landscapes.
- Bring out the red in plantings with clay pots, sandstone, brick, and other reddish hardscaping.
Front of Garden:
- Astilbe 'Aphrodite':16-24 inches tall. Zones 4-8.
- Blanket flower (Gillardia pulchella) Plume series: Up to 12 inches tall. Zones 3-8.
- China Pink (Dianthus chinensis) Carpet Series: Up to 8 inches tall. Zones 7-10.
- Creeping phlox (Phlox subulata) 'Red Wings': 2-6 inches tall. Zones 3-8.
- Fuchsia 'Golden Marnka': 6-12 inches tall. Zones 8-10.
- Impatiens valleriana Super Elfin Series: Up to 10 inches tall. Grow as an annual in all Zones.
- Penstemon 'Chester Scarlet': Up to 24 inches tall. Zones 6-9.
- Petunia Carpet Series: 8-10 inches tall. Grow as an annual in all Zones.
- Scarlet sage (Salvia spendens): Up to 16 inches tall. Grow as annual in all Zones.
- Snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus) Tahiti Series: Up to 8 inches tall. Zones 5-9.
- Texas sage (Salvia coccinea) 'Lady in Red': Up to 16 inches tall. Grow as an annual in all Zones.
- Verbena x hybridum 'Blaze': Up to 9 inches tall. Grow as an annual in all Zones.
Middle of Garden:
(Baja fairy duster)
- Amaranth (Gomphrena) 'Strawberry Fields': 30-32 inches tall. Grow as annual in all Zones.
- Bee Balm (Monarda) 'Cambridge Scarlet,' 'Adam': Up to 36 inches tall. Zones 4-9.
- Cardinal flower (Lobelia carinalis): Up to 36 inches tall. Zones 3-9.
- Daylily (Hemerocallis) 'Red Joy,' 'Red Rum': 16-34 inches tall. Zones 3-10.
- Peony (Paeonia) 'America': 3-3-1/2 feet tall. Zones 3-8.
- Primrose (Primula) 'Inverewe': Up to 30 inches tall. Zones 4-8.
- Yarrow (Achillea) 'Fanal': Up to 30 inches tall. Zones 4-8.
Back of Garden:
- Bleeding-heart (Dicentra spectabilis): Up to 4 feet tall. Zones 3-9.
- Clematis 'Rouge Cardinal': 6-10 feet tall. Zones 4-9.
- Crimson glory vine (Vitis coignetiae): Up to 50 feet tall. Zones 5-9.
- Crocosmia 'Lucifer': 3-4 feet tall. Zones 6-9.
- Flame nasturtium (Tropaeolum speciosum): Up to 10 feet tall. Zones 8-10.
- Flowering quince (Chaenomeles x superba): 4-5 feet tall. Zones 5-9.
- Hibiscus moscheutos 'Lord Baltimore': Up to 4 feet tall. Zones 5-10.
- Scarlet firethorn (Pyracantha coccinea): Up to 12 feet tall. Zones 6-9.
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