The Citizen, 2003-05-14, Page 18PAGE 18. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 2003.
Growing trends bring garden of surprises
By Nathalie Houde
If you’re planning to re-do your
garden this year, you may be
interested to know that the trend in
2003 is colour. There are all sorts of
original ways to use colour — in
flowerbeds, hedges, shrubbery,
ground covers... and even flowering
trees.
The “stars” in your garden
Colours can produce all sorts of
different effects. It all depends on
how you use them. If you limit
annuals and perennials to one or two
favourite shades and harmonize
these with the greens of your shrubs
and ground cover plants, so that your
garden plants highlight one another,
you can create a truly dazzling
effect. Warm colours (yellow,
orange, red) produce a joyful effect.
Their stimulating appearance makes
them a good choice for use (among
other places) near your entrance, for
an effect that says, “Welcome!”
Cool colours, on the other hand
(blue, mauve, pink) are peaceful,
reassuring, romantic and softly
inviting. They fit perfectly into quiet
corners, around the edges of pools
and next to benches, where they
deepen the overall effect.
Colours and seasons...living
together in harmony
You can also try playing with
colours to match the seasons. If
lilacs have a big place in your
garden, with their lavender and
mauve spring blooms, choose
rosebushes in summer with their rich
Tips on choosing paint:
glossart if key features
With emerging paint products and
finishes on the market, the selection
of a quality paint product is turning
into a time-consuming process.
Here’s a helpful list of key
features you will need to know
before you begin your search for the
product that will best suit your
needs:
• Spatter-free paint: How does
spattering occur and how it can be
prevented? “Spattering is generally
caused by poor quality paint,”
explained Dominique Pepin, senior
brand manager of the largest
Canadian paint manufacturer.
“Usually the paint has insufficient
pigment and is too thin to adhere
properly.”
When the paint brush bristles
spring back, they literally project
paint in all directions. This is an
experience we’ve all had at one time
or another. With a spatter-free paint,
there’s less preparation, less
cleaning and less paint loss, all of
which makes your job much easier.
• Easy application: The difference
between a chore and decorating
pleasure.
There’s nothing mysterious about
the ease of application. When a paint
is easy to apply, it transfers easily
from the roller onto the painting
surface. The less resistance there is
the more freely the roller glides. One
way to measure the effectiveness of
a paint product and its ease of
application is to look at its “rate of
spreading”.
• High hiding: Are you really
getting a good deal when you buy an
inexpensive paint? If you have to
apply more paint, you are wasting
time, money and effort. That’s
because cheap paint is not high
hiding.
“High hiding refers to a paint’s
blooms that draw on pink and red,
and open the fall with yellows and
oranges of grasses.
Plants with tricolour leaves...a
garden kaleidoscope
The majority of plants have green
leaves. A few species have yellowish
or purple leaves.
Others’ leaves are variegated in
two-colour patterns. There’s no
doubt that the main trend in 2003 is
to combine a great variety of shrubs,
perennial plants and annuals with
tricolour leaves into your garden
plan.
The star among tricolour shrubs is
the Hakuro Nishiki willow. A fast
grower, its new, tender pink and
cream shoots present an attractive
contrast with the shrub’s older green
leaves and create a nice effect at the
centre of a single-colour
arrangement tending toward lime
green, a highly popular shade for the
new season, as are fuchsia and
li'ac.
Among climbers, Ornamental
Kiwi (Actinidia kolomikta) is a
highly ornamental climbing plant.
The tips of its green leaves are
tinged with white or pink when the
plant matures. The Star Showers
Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus
quinquefolia) is also an attention
getter, with its spectacular white,
pink and green mottled foliage that
turns rose red in the fall.
Several perennials offer many
surprising colour arrangements as
well as other surprises throughout
property to mask the colour of the
surface to which it is applied,” said
Pepin. “Obviously, the higher the
hiding power, the less paint needed
to cover a surface.”
• Washable: How will the upkeep
be on your inexpensive paint? Most
paints are not really washable. The
problem is when you have a mark on
your surface you inevitably remove
the paint on your wall by trying to
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the summer season. Examples are
Bugleweed (Ajuga reptans), with
leaves whose gray-green colour
disappears almost completely under
large spots of pink, purple and
cream.
Its spots are brighter in the spring
and deeper in fall, and the
Bugleweed produces handsome blue
flowers in the spring. The
“Amethystina” Tricyrtis (Tricyrtis
form. “Amethystina”) with its lilac
coloured leaf ends, and the beige “El
Desperado” Daylily (Hemerocallis)
with its blood-red and ochre heart
and the marked pink “Ruby Giant”
Purple Echinacea (Echinacea
purpurea).
Move your home decor outdoors
A garden is like another room of
your house, a special space that puts
you back in touch with all those
small things that make life really
worth living. Don’t hesitate to use
your ceramic flowerpots, outdoor
utility tables and earthworks to
recreate an outdoor corner of your
house that you’re especially fond of.
And don’t forget to install a lamp
(standard or hanging) to provide
lighting for those warm summer
nights. Living in your garden is the
ideal way to enjoy summer to the
full.
When the sun doesn’t shine,
play with shade
Most summers have their cloudy
periods, when there may be no direct
sunlight. Or stretches of partly
cloudy weather when your garden
wash off the stain. There are
washable 100 per cent acrylic paints
available today that can stand up for
years of upkeep.
“When choosing paint, try to look
for a product that will provide you
with all the features that are so
important when you paint (easy
application, spatter free, high hiding
and washable),” added P£pin.
- News Canada
gets less than five hours of direct
sunlight a day.
Here’s when shadow comes into
play, with interaction of leaves,
textures, surface contrasts and leaf
sizes. Every garden has its
characteristic shade patterns. You
can also make attractive use of
shrubs to create shapes and volumes
that will move in the wind.
This sort of movement can be
quite sensual. If you want the full
impact, work with hostas, fems and
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- News Canada
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