The flowers of Geum 'Rijnstroom'

Oranges and Peaches (Colours, not fruit!)

Posted on by Ann Mackay

It’s a Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK and that means that we have an extra day off for a bit of garden visiting or wandering around nurseries in search of whatever new plants might take our fancy. (Dangerous to the wallet – Hubby and I can always find something!)

Up until recently, I haven’t thought of planting many orange or peach/apricot-coloured flowers in the garden. That’s because there’s a lot of lilac-pink in the existing borders, which looks great with other blue-ish pinks, or crimson, purple or blue flowers, but really wouldn’t look good with the more yellowy pinks or oranges.

Now, though, I have a new opportunity to play with some different colours. For the past couple of months, I’ve been digging out a pond and clearing out the area around it. Previously, there had been massive conifers just on the other side of the fence in the neighbours’ garden and these had gradually starved almost anything I tried to plant along that side of the garden. So when the new neighbours came and promptly had these trees removed, it was time to plan a new border.

Viburnum plicatum flowers
I like the peachy-pink flowers and copper-coloured leaves of this viburnum.

Visiting other people’s gardens is always enjoyable and intriguing, but becomes even more fun when you’re on the hunt for ideas and inspiration. (And it makes the ‘plants to buy’ list a lot longer!)

I saw the geum in the top photo while on a garden visit and decided that I’d like to grow it so that I could photograph it. (The swirly shape of the petals and the mottled yellow and orange colouring makes it a really appealing subject.) At first I thought it might be ‘Totally Tangerine’, but that, it turns out, is a single-flowered plant, while this one is ‘Rijnstroom’ and has semi-double flowers. By a lucky chance, I came across it in a nursery that we visited for the first time. Plant hunting is fun…but can be addictive too!

Another plant that caught my eye while I was garden-visiting is the viburnum above. While it wouldn’t have suited the lilac-pink areas, it could look good in the new border. Hmm, well, sadly I don’t think I’ll have space for many shrubs around the pond, so I’ll have to give that one a miss.

But that doesn’t mean that we’ve missed out on orange here. The clivia in the photo below lives in our conservatory and has been making it feel quite tropical recently! Now that is what I call a bold colour, hehe!

Clivia miniata flowers
The vibrant orange of this clivia has brightened up my conservatory in recent weeks.

Published by Ann Mackay

Photographer, mixed-media art adventurer and completely daft about plants.......

15 thoughts on “Oranges and Peaches (Colours, not fruit!)”

  3. I love the orange flowers – they are very brilliant. I bought a little dead-looking plant called a fire cracker bush for 75 cents a couple years ago that had small bright orange flowers. It now would like to take over my whole flower garden – I created a monster! I just keep cutting it back and back and back and I have orange blooms all year long, but it not near as pretty as yours.

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    1. I know all about creating monsters, hehe! I encouraged a bit of yellow-flowered honeysuckle that appeared from nowhere and it’s been trying a takeover bid ever since. And then there’s the pretty, ever so innocent looking Japanese anemones that just spread and spread and spread…oops! 🙂

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      1. Orange is such a cheerful colour especially lots together. I once had a happy accident when a geum Mrs Bradshaw took up with a Lady Strathdene and I got a bi-coloured hybrid.

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  6. Such a lovely selection. I definitely go through phases in my enjoyment of colour. I always come back to the peach/apricot/orange continuum!

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