A monochromatic garden is a garden in which a single color is highlighted.
Single-color gardens
Such a garden is planted so that it overwhelms the observer with a single color. While this may seem a rather bland approach at first, such gardens were made popular by the work of famous garden designers such as
Gertrude Jekyll and Vita Sackville-West. Sackville-West, for example, created what may have been one of the most famous single-color gardens, the White Garden
Garden room of the Sissinghurst Castle Garden.
Many single-color gardens use flowers of different shades, such as light yellow and deep gold, or a range that includes dark burgundy, bright scarlet, and also pink for a red garden.
(A similar idea uses
analogous colors, such as purple, red, and orange, rather than a single color.
) Plants with colored leaves, such as silver leaves or plants with variegated foliage for a white garden, might also be included.
The color for a monochromatic garden may be chosen for any reason, including to fit a small garden, as part of a clean, contemporary design, or to highlight a favorite color.
Beyond the choice of color, single-color gardens are designed with a variety of types and sizes of flowers as well as plants of different heights, shapes and textures.
White garden
A white garden is a feature
garden composed of plants that produce white
and spathes as well as plants with a white or silvery cast to their foliage. The white garden is a variant of the color garden. The most essential feature of the white garden is its unity of color.
The white garden is an informal gardening style that is similar in design to the English cottage garden. The open and informal design creates associations with romance, peace, and elegance. The white flowers are not usually placed in clusters, but spread throughout the garden's green areas, creating a natural look and feel. The mildly dense placement of white flowers creates a luminescent sight that is especially powerful in the
twilight. Because of this effect, they are sometimes called
.
The white flowers in a white garden are not necessarily pure white; they may have hints of other colors, such as gray, blue, pink, yellow, or green.
Flowers used in white gardens may include:
Role of symbolism
The color white, and white flowers in particular, carry a vast amount of
Plant symbolism.
In parts of the US in 1915, single-color flower gardens featuring yellow flowers were used as a symbol of support for women's right to vote.
See also
