Interesting question. I do not coordinate in regards to color. My roses all OGRs and the pinks, whites and yellows seem to work well together, at least to my eye. I plant more in relation to size, as one can easily over shadow the other.

However, I can see how you would need to pay close attention in planting modern roses. With all the bright
hues, you can end up with a clash-fest, easy.

I used to take all the fun out of planting with my agonizing over placement. I've found that roses transplant quite well if where they are doesn't suit me.

I have all kinds of roses, OGRs , Moderns, etc. and love lots of bright colors.... after all, that's the way in Nature, and every color harmonizes... the only thing I try and do is graduate height... and I put lots of companion plants especially along the front of the beds, lilies, blue-veronica pentas, caladiums, purslane.... any and all colors, and folks love it.... sally

I give a great deal of thought to color. Sometimes I make mistakes. The worst, I think, is to mix cool reds with warm reds. Neutral reds are tricky with either.

Rosefolly

I also don't worry about it with OGRs - pale yellow, pale pink, buff, creamy white, soft lavender - they all look good together. Some of their colors are more complex and mutalbe than modern roses - but they stay within a range that is soft and pleasing, and never harsh.

I have a few modern roses, and am very careful with them. I tend to put primary colors next to each other - the yellows, reds, & whites. They look great with dark purple clematis growing on them. I do not like the oranges much at all.

Jackie

I do color coordinate, and fill in with different colored companions. But I think some of the prettiest gardens are those that have lots of different colored roses in them. I'm just not so brave (yet)!

Look at pictures of gardens you absolutely love, and then determine if there is a connection to the color scheme. Usually there is, and that can give you a good starting point.

No color coordinating of roses here.

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Musings blog

I'm very careful about colors since the background to my garden areas are mostly wilderness (or at least you can't see the neighbors)and I want my garden to coordinate with that background. I don't ever plant bright red, orange or deep yellow roses since I don't care for the first two and all three would stand out too much. I also have mostly old garden roses with some Austins and they range from purple through cerise, lighter pink, pale pink to pale yellow and white. I find this color scheme to be soothing and natural-looking and just right for me and my environment. If well done, I do admire more exuberant plantings in other gardens.

Ingrid

Virginiamomma,
I thought combining colors would be simple. It has turned out to be my biggest problem after my zone of course. I've limited my colors but, still I struggle. I look at other people's gardens and think they are pretty but not what I'm aiming for. The problem is, I don't know what I'm aiming for. I'll think o.k. I'll do a pinkish/purple garden with some darker pinkish/purple splashes of color and my husband will say that I should use white instead. Then I think, well maybe he's right. Maybe white would make the lighter pinks stand out more. Then I think why can't both the colors stand out together?

In my back garden, which is purples, I just pulled out the few reds that were there. From the house, which is a bit of a distance, only the reds showed up. From up close, they looked o.k. but, I made that garden to be viewed from the house. Is it possible for the roses to look good from a distance and up close? Do my lighter pinks only have to be surrounded by whites to look their best? It's driving me crazy. Sorry to vent.
Kitty

I do think quite a bit about how to combine colors harmoniously in my own garden and enjoy "designing with colors" a lot. From the very beginning on I decided that I will stick to a color scheme which contains mainly cool and muted colored plants in the range of white, all shades of pink, lavender and similar colors (these are the colors of the roses) and blue (mostly companion plants), simply because I like these colors the most and they go very well together in my opinion. I happen to find that if you stick to the rule to only plant cool colors together you are "safe".

As others have stated usually OGRs fit together, but it becomes tricky when I try to fit in modern roses, because their colors are often bold and they can clash with the OGRs.

Sometimes breaking my own rules can create a surprisingly interesting color combination, but more often it doesn't work out. I have one beautiful bold unidentified organge yellow rose, which really produces gorgeous blooms if you see them just for themselves, but I simply can't integrate this rose into my garden so that is blends with the other roses. I think I might have to give it away.

Just recently I discovered that I don't like to plant in strong color contrasts. It seems to be the case that I am aiming for a very soothing garden right now.

Christina

I color coordinate in a limited fashion, having seen what awful results can happen if I just throw plants together. "In a limited fashion" means that I don't always put together optimum combinations, but that I do avoid screaming mistakes, or at least try to. There are generally valid rules about color, but unfortunately personal tastes are so important, as is the local environment, that each gardener has to work out a personal set of principles.
Melissa

Like others have said, the OGRs all seem to coordinate together. And so do the Austins, even the orange Pat Austin blends well with the pink/peach/white/reds.

I found with this palette to stay away from bright reds, oranges, yellows. Magenta red (cool red) works, fire-engine red sticks out like a store thumb. The clump of black-eyed Susans that seeded themselves somehow have to go. Pale yellow like Moonbeam coreopsis is ok.

For companion plants, I stick to blue, pink, purple, or white. That makes it easy.

It's funny, I've just been reevaluating my color scheme and moving things around.

My original plan was pastels (pale pinks, creams, very pale yellows, apricots) + fuchsia (La Reine, byzantine gladiolus, etc) and dark raspberry (William Shakespeare 2000).... and then companion plants are purple, blue, pink or white.

Intentionally avoiding strong yellows, any orange and any hot-red.

But then hummingbirds came to my yard. And I know they like the white and purple ok, but prefer the red, so I bought a couple reddish salvia greggii. And then I kinda liked that speckling of red.

And then I read Bloom's Best Perennials book... and I totally fell in love with the drifts of crocosmia (Lucifer) in his gardens. And then a nice lady on Gardensweb said she'd mail me her extra crocosmia.

So I'm leaving most of my roses where they are, and I don't think I'll be adding any Mr. Lincoln red roses,... but I am going to have a drift of crocosmia. I'll surround it with lavender and pale purples and whites and the red of the crocosmia won't be right up against William Shakespeare.

pure orange can still stay away from my garden, please. ;)

Also, I decided to keep the area closest to my kitchen mostly the palest pastels, and white in some cases. Because I think eventually I may put a little table and chair there and sit there in the evening. So I have SDLM there, Sombrieul and Tipsy Imperial Concubine. For a little more color, La France CL and Larry Daniels.

My front yard has a little more hot color, more hot pink basically. (and things like Mon Cheri and Archduke Charles) But still the same basic idea (mostly pastels with spots of hot pink... mostly purple and white for companion plants)

My back garden to the south is an OGR garden with roses in white, pink, rose and purple and a little pale yellow here and there. But my westfacing sunset garden is a riot of bright yellows, oranges, reds and brown, from roses like Brown Velvet, Princesse and Sutter's Gold but mostly from perennials like poppies and rudbeckias. The next bed is all white including a giant Madame Plantier, so there is no colour clash. I love this cheerful bed that I can see from the window above the kitchen sink. It's backed by the sombre woodland of pines, oaks and junipers and a few species roses on the edge, a yellow spinosissima, R. moyesii Geranum, Persian Yellow, and Austrian Copper. I am very happy that I had the courage to make this bed that's so different from the rest of the garden. It makes washing the dishes a pleasure.

The major criteria for me is size and then color. The only colors I try to be careful about are the really bright,deep colors like buttercup yellow or orange next to reds or burgundy.

If I were into color coordinating I would have to turn away all the homeless roses which do keep arriving on my doorstep, not to mention the opporutnistic shopping cart jumpers I always seem to have acquired when I reach checkout.

Nastarana- LOL! I have those same opportunistic shopping cart jumpers in the annual clearance area of Lowe's. Every time I wander back there, it happens :)

I like OGRs and all my roses are shades of white, cream, pinks and lavender/pinks...so with lots of purple and blue (and sometimes a little pale yellow) everything looks great together. I did move my John Cabot roses into a few beds, but being a dark pink they still look very nice.

In the kitchen garden, I change it up and go with reds, golds, oranges, white and a little blue and purple. It's a lot more vibrant, but I want a color scheme that is cheerful and will break up all the green of the veggies. It's also planned for the visiting nieces and nephews, so I didn't want it to look too pastel and girly...LOL

I feel so much better now. Here I ve been thinking to much.

Thank u all..

Yep feel much better after reading everyones experiences.

Than you again for sharing.
Xoxo

I agonize over color, but it's a fun agony. I am taste-impaired, as well as being just downright contrarian. Since all of my local gardening buddies prefer pastels and/or Barbie colors, I had to have oranges and scarlets and bright screaming yellows.

I'm starting a new bed, though... a place for blues and pinks and cerise?

Renee

Kitty, I personally find that lighter pinks look great with deeper pinks and purples so it's not necessary to have only white. Especially from a distance that just becomes too monochromatic (I might even say boring), which leaves no reason to come closer and investigate that area. Deeper colors, as long as they're not in the "hot" range look very good with the lighter ones since the tones are not dissimilar.

Ingrid

Um yes, afraid I am insanely colour conscious and have a number of different areas in my allotment which are little miniature gardens with many different plants and lots of colour combinations, some intentional, some more accidental. I love opulent colours at this time of year especially so the late summer border is all reds (salvias, crocosmias) oranges (heleniums, gaillardias, R.moyesii) plum (smokebush, cercis,) blues and purples (campanula, asters, salvia guaranitica) All the areas of my garden are continually evolving and look quite different at certain times of year. I have an idea of the colours (and lots of other stuff) before I start on a new area and refine it as I go.I tend to like quite definate combinations such as acid green, purple and deep red, I sort of give the impression of being fairly laid back as a gardener but this is rubbis: I am quite manic, fanatic and fussy and faff endlessly about colour, shape, texture, theme, bla bla.

Every time I think I'm going to design an area around a color scheme, things usually go terribly wrong ... so I have abandoned that idea completely. Now, I try to design my beds along the same sort of principles as a mixed perennial border, only I use all roses. A pleasingly random (yet planned and balanced) assortment of tall roses, and small roses, a variety of colors and textures ... if it works. I'm most concerned about putting two or more of the same color roses together. My front border, designed like this, is mostly successful ... except I neglected to read the 'climbing' part of the tag on Msr. Paul Lede, and he's 10' tall and taking over the middle of the border on his end. I'm working on a garden of all David Austin roses right now, and identifying and arranging the variety of shrub forms and sizes is about to make me pull out my hair.

Connie

I don't think of it too much because I generally follow a very simple rule: if you don't plant orange, coral, bright yellow or red, especially scarlet, everything looks fine together. I'm not much on those colors anyway, so I rarely deal with it. A splash of one of these colors is fine. It's a bit of a beacon but not necessarily eye-grabbing contrast if it's blended or planted with a complementary color. For example, I have a blue and yellow garden. I grow some bright yellow species, which is fine because they are at the peripheries of the garden, tend to bloom rather early and blow out before there's much conflict. Okay. I lied. I think about it all time but it's so automatic at this point that it's not like thinking.

Virginiamomma, I'm so glad you asked this question.

Ingrid, Thank you for your input. I think you're right.
Kitty

I don't. Not enough space. And, my rose garden is in the front yard, makes quite a colorful display!

My first effort was putting all dark red roses together. The colors assigned by the ARS. It was a disaster and it was a blatent "not all dark reds ARE dark reds" moment. Leaving out the bushes that weren't the cultivars they were labeled to be, the real dark reds were not all dark red and were so variable as to clash. Also they were mostly moderns.

Now I've discovered the red chinas, and they are a finer bunch of roses to work with. Many of these are where the bloom are backlighted by fall sunlight and they are truly fine in a pair of beds together.

Then there are 'yellows'. As said above in a more general way, almost all of the 1800s yellows look good together (leave out the early, once blooming yellows) and go well with other roses.

Now pinks- are season related. And in my gardens pale pinks in summer become deeper pinks in fall and in fall have a lot of nuances that would have to be worked with, were I to try to match them. Instead, I'll just let them be with the blooms that last for weeks instead of days.

yes definitely, color is the most important aspect to me with plant form and bloom shape and size also on my radar. I always try to plant while I have blooms so I can catch the jarring of neighbors. I avoid planting the same colors adjacent, mixing up similar tones and always looking for especially interesting contrasts.

I have no fear of orange or red or bright yellow though I don't use many of these, and I rigorously control where they go. The most startling colors usually go in nooks around bends, designed to draw you to them without detracting from less powerful tones.

Color design is the heart of the garden for me.

I do color coordinate but I make it simple- no two reds together cause they may clash. No two pinks cause thats boring. No two same colors ever cause of the clashing and boredom issue. Ive never been dissappointed. Plus my perennials are blue, purple, silver, or white. I do have some of the red salvia but it stays near yellow or white roses.

I sort of pay attention to it, but for me also the texture of the plant is v. important (aka leaves, growth shape, bloom size). I avoid mixing yellow/orange with pink/magenta, because I find it to be a bit of eye sore, but the separate color areas I blend through reds and violets, as they look good with yellow and pinks. I have some whites and I do like a contrast they make with bright reds.

Very stunning pictures, Maurizio!
Thank you for sharing them,
Kitty

Maurizio, wonderful pictures and a some ideas for me, yahoo!

Questions on the Sally Holmes combo...

- How close is the yellow below Sally, spacing wise?

- How tall does your Sally get?

- I've got a few candidates for the yellow: Tall Story (florabunda), "Oneto Home Saffron" (tea, Vintage), Golden Buddha (hybrid bracteata), Sunshine (polyantha). I think the first two might be best, anyone want to chime in? I'd start a new thread, but Maurizio's pics are here.

Oh my gosh, Maurizio, your color and plant combinations are absolutely stunning! It made me really happy and excited to see these beautiful photos today in the morning. Thank you sooo... much!

And please, please post more photos for all of us to enjoy!

Christina

Maurizio, I agree! Your pictures are stunning.

I especially love 'Belle portugaise' with 'cl. cramoisi superieur'. I have been thinking of getting cramoisi, and this combination is breathtaking. I can imagine it now on my new arbor. Thanks again for sharing.

Any thread with Maurizio's photos in it is a wonderful thread.

"I don't think of it too much because I generally follow a very simple rule: if you don't plant orange, coral, bright yellow or red, especially scarlet, everything looks fine together."

The converse seems to be true as well. If you plant just orange, coral, bright yellow and scarlet, everything also looks fine together.

The places in my garden where I've been careful with color look better than the places where I have not. Both types look good, but one looks better.