Today’s Garden Ideas

If you want a flower that will really stand out in your garden and form a nice contrast to your other paler blossoms consider red flowers. You can use red flowers to draw attention to a part of your home like your entranceway or run red flowers up your walkway giving your visitors the feeling that the red carpet has been rolled out just for them. Red flowers can also be used as effective outlines drawing attention to a flowerbed, birdbath, or gazebo that you might want to stand out amongst your garden landscaping. Try small red flowers around the base of a pink flowering dogwood. The small red flowers compliment the pink blooms of the dogwood and draw attention to a beautiful tree whose pale blossoms might otherwise be lost against the more vibrant blue of the sky.

Varieties of Red Flowers

Red flowers come in all shapes, sizes, textures and blooming seasons. There are red flowers for sun and red flowers for the shade, red spring flowers and red autumn flowers, deep red flowers and light red flowers and just about any red flower in between.

Using Red Flowers Effectively

Red as a color represents excitement, movement, and vitality. It makes one think of fire and the heat of passion. Red flowers can sometimes dominate a flower garden and overwhelm softer pastels so it might be best to keep red flowers away from the lighter color blooms. Small red flowers will work well with softer colors as they will draw the eye to the pastel garden blooms but the small red flowers will not overwhelm the lighter colored flowers.

Red flowers do work well with white or vibrant yellow blooms. They contrast wonderfully against each other. Red flowers and purple flowers also compliment each other most effectively. An all red flower garden can seem a bit monotonous so it is best to add some plants with white, yellow or purple bloom to your red flower garden. Green shrubbery is another effective background for your red flower garden. Deep red flowers show up very well against a dark green evergreen shrub. And for those of you that have snow in the winter holly plants with their deep red berries are a wonderful festive addition to the winter red flower garden.

Shades of Red

Before you begin to plant your red flower garden remember there are varying shades of red flowers. Red flowers can range from an orange-red all the way to a purple-red. Planning a red flower garden with all of these various shades can be quite dramatic, especially if all you have, as a complimentary color is dark evergreen shrubs. For example, the Clary Sage Oxford Blue has a reddish purple flower while the Impatiens Novette is more red pink. Both are considered red flowers and make a nice addition to any garden.

Some other red flowers that you might want to consider are of course the ever popular rose, which can range from deep red flower to a light red-orange hue. Clematis, a large red flower of a deep ruby color grows on a vine and makes a great background to a white and yellow flower garden. If you want to go beyond the red flower try Imperata Red Baron a blood red ornamental grass that grows about 15 inches tall or Coleus whose leaves are a striking red and grows effectively in all zone.

Remember a red flowerbed has many uses. It can decorate a garden pond, fence, or front walk. Red flowers can be used to draw attention to a garden structure like a gazebo or a part of your home like your entranceway. The red flower’s vibrancy is and effective way to spice up and garden or home.

PLANTS FOR A RED SUMMER BORDER
TYPE	PLANT	DESCRIPTION
	Scarlet Sage	H and S: 1ft; bushy plants with oval, green leaves and dense spikes of red, orange, violet, or white flowers; thrives in sun or light shade; annual; all zones
	Impatiens	H and S: 6in; red flowers; tolerates sun, but best in light to full shade; annual; all zones
	Coleus	H: 1.5ft., S: 1ft; foliage plant with oval, serrated, bright red leaves; tolerates sun, but shows best color in light shade; remove flower stalks all summer; all zones
	Clary Sage	H: 1.5ft., S: 1ft; reddish purple, heat-loving flowers; prefers sun or light shade; annual; all zones