Color for Adventurous Gardeners

by Christopher Lloyd, Jonathan Buckley (Photographer)

Here, at last, is a book on gardening with color by its most adventurous exponent, Christopher Lloyd. Color for Adventurous Gardeners is about using color for maximum impact. Previous books on gardening with color have treated each color as a separate entity, but, in fact, colors work with and against each other, and must be viewed as relationships. This is the first book on gardening with color that explores how to make successful color associations with plants. Yes, there are color rules, but you have to know when and how to break them. Offering expert views based on his many years of experience, Christopher Lloyd explores each color and encourages readers to be adventurous and daring. "The limitations imposed by rules," he writes, "are a safe-haven, but the adventurous gardener will want to try something different." Color for Adventurous Gardeners includes over 200 stunning photographs throughout its 11 chapters, each followed by a recommended plant

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Christopher Hamilton Lloyd, OBE, was a British gardener and author. He was the 20th Century chronicler for the heavily planted, labour-intensive, country garden.[

Reviews

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Christopher Lloyd is my favorite garden writer. He is very down to earth- no pronouncements from the gardening gods- and humorous. So of course I really like this book, but even if he wasn’t my favorite, I’d think this was a really good book.

First, he gives us the basics- mainly, that color is one of the last things you worry about when creating a garden. Structure, good soil, and the rest come first. Color is easy to change (except for trees), but it’s a lot harder to change up hardscape. He points out that color harmonies are wonderful, and that he uses them a lot himself.. but.. he likes some excitement in the garden. So he pairs something like an intense orange dahlia with a purple verbena. Sometimes shocking color is fun. He says that you need to know the rules before you can break them, but that one should go for wild combos.

Then he give a chapter to each color, running through the spectrum and including black and brown. He gives a lot of plants that fit the chapter, including what growing conditions they like. The book is filled with gorgeous photos, as well. It’s not a coffee table book of all pictures and little info; it’s got a lot of information, provided in an informal voice, as if you were talking to him out in the garden or discussing the garden over tea. Five stars.

[romney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book. After extorting the gardener to "Go for it!", Christo tackles a colour per chapter. He talks about general challenges, planting combinations and then there's a short list of good plants in that colour. Lots of excellent photos of the plants and illustrative plantings at Great Dixter. Immensely useful and well written.

[Ruth Brumby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Useful illustrations and descriptions of plants and possible plant combinations. He knows a great deal about plants and how they grow and this comes across, together with a sense of excitement, creativity and energy.

[Carmen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Christopher Lloyd is at his wittiest again. Through clear examp, es of flowers divided by color with suggestions of how to combine them. "Large blocks of undiluted red are a mistake; indigestable as swallowing a lump of uncooked dough."