Great gardens, bold colors!

Sunset, Spring-Summer, 1996 by Lynn Ocone, Peter O. Whiteley, Michael MacCaskey

From Colorado country to Santa Monica tropical, these gardens make a big splash with colorful flowers

Brilliant blooms bring gardens alive - whether they unfurl from the smallest pot or the broadest bed. But for greatest impact, skillful gardeners mix and match flower colors to achieve specific effects: the gentle blending of several shades of the same color - orange to golden calendula, for instance - or the riotous confetti look of many hot colors all planted together, or the striking, clean look of just two colors, such as red and white, playing off each other. The three gardens shown on these six pages are designed to dazzle: two in garden beds, one in containers.

CARPET OF GOLD

Gardeners at Blue Lake Ranch, a bed-and-breakfast inn in Hesperus (11 miles west of Durango, Colorado), harvest golden and orange calendulas and blue and pink bachelor's buttons to dry and sell for edible garnishes. But "it's the gardens that we hope draw people to us," says owner David Alford. In their cottage garden, the Alfords grow everything from sunflowers to irises - more than 4,000 plants. At right, the sunflowers and calendulas spread a dazzling carpet against the distant mountains. The Alfords save and sell seeds of some of their favorites - old-fashioned hollyhocks, petunias, Shirley poppies, and dianthus. For information on lodging and garden products, write to Blue Lake Ranch, 16919 Highway 140, Hesperus, CO 81326. - Lynn Ocone

A RIOT OF FIESTA COLORS

An overexposed front yard got a bright face-lift when owners Diane and George Mkitarian of Santa Monica, California, masked it with walls that warm the neighborhood with cheerful colors. For privacy and to cut down noise from a busy street, the owners constructed thick concrete-block walls along the sidewalk and covered them with stucco.

The taller walls near the entry were painted tawny yellow. Steps in these sculptural walls (far left) serve as perches for bowls of colorful annuals; bougainvillea drapes the tops. A low powder blue wall along one side of the property (above) has a purple planter at its base and a series of terra-cotta-colored beam ends projecting from its top. In dazzling contrast, hot-colored annuals (gold and orange nasturtiums, yellow marigolds, and purple petunias and statice) lap at its base. Inside the entry garden (bottom left), brilliant red cannas and scarlet bougainvillea stand out handsomely against the walls.

The cheerful garden has had an unexpected side benefit for the whole neighborhood: "It has been our contribution to slowing down traffic," says Mrs. Mkitarian. - Peter O. Whiteley

SYMPHONY IN RED AND WHITE

In any garden, deep red blooms played against pure white ones form a clean, crisp, eye-catching combination. In this Santa Monica garden, the combination is positively brilliant. Red kalanchoe (K. blossfeldiana) and white 'Iceberg' roses form a floral carpet beneath a stand of young king palms (Archontophoenix cunninghamiana). The bright white flowers make the red ones seem even more dazzling. Softer pastels - yellow fortnight lily (Dietes bicolor) and Santa Barbara daisy (Erigeron karvinskianus) - edge the curving entry steps.

Although the floral hues change with the season, the palms stay green year-round, giving the garden a luxuriant tropical feel. The plantings include an abundance of ground covers, such as Corsican mint (Mentha requienii), creeping thyme (Thymus praecox arcticus), and isotoma (Laurentia fluviatilis); they seem to ooze between the boulders that line the walkway.

'Iceberg' roses, pictured at right, are outstanding landscape choices. They are remarkably disease resistant, and the blooms have a delicate fragrance. Richard L. Mosbaugh designed and constructed the garden. - Michael MacCaskey