The wrong colour

How do you feel when the wrong coloured flower suddenly pops up in your carefully orchestrated colour scheme? Do you rip it out? Do you admire its brazenness? Personally they make me laugh and I feel reminded that after all it is nature who is in charge and not us little dictators. It is this forth dimension which exists in garden and landscape design which fascinates me. It does not exist in architecture where men designs and executes. Once a building is finished it is truly finished and there are no more surprise in store (apart when the roof starts leaking). Yet after planting is finished a garden only starts to come into its own and develop.

I mostly let the wrong coloured flowers remain where they pop up and only rip them out when they are too vulgar. My colour scheme ranges from white, silver to purple and includes some pink and blue shades. Today this bright red rose suddenly opened up. It is nearly the only plant which survived our extensive building works. It grew where the dining table stands now. The builders ripped it out and it survived for months just sitting soil less and sad in a corner of the garden. I did not know what colour it was and did not have the heart to throw out this survivor plant. So I planted it near the back wall and it rewarded me two years later with a single vibrant bright red flower. Another colour interloper are the yellow Welsh poppies which appear wherever they find a suitable spot. Generally I am not to keen on yellow flowers, but this cheeky opportunist makes me smile. What about flowering brassicas? Vulgar or fun? I eat them as they taste spicy and crunchy. I brought a white foxglove from my old garden: a chance seedling with beautiful white flowers with purple speckles. I took the seeds and scattered in the shaded areas of the garden. They did not come up where I wanted them to grow. In the sunny border amongst the statuesque purple alliums an apricot coloured proudly erected its candle like stem. What did I do? I admired its beauty.