Mellow Yellow

How wonderful yellow is. It stands for the sun. -Vincent Van Gogh

Yellow is a delight in the garden...it adds spark, it adds contrast, it adds a focal point, it brightens up a dark area...the eye will always be drawn to yellow.

Yellow is cheerful, especially to anyone who has gone through a severe winter...a bunch of golden daffodils are as good as a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow...it signifies spring.

Yellow is a perfect foil for so many colors...here the yellow sweet potato vine contrasts beautifully with the Colocasia "Black Magic" elephant ears and the "Sedona" coleus. 

Abutilon (Flowering Maple) comes in various varieties but this is my favorite, "Gold Dust"...it brightens up any shady area and is constantly in bloom.

One of my very favorite plants for contrast is Hakonechloa, Japanese Forest Grass (in back). It's unusual because it's one of the few grasses that actually loves a shady area and it really shines. Moneywort, better known as "Creeping Jenny" spreads like crazy and looks great cascading down a container but beware, it is a thug, and can take over a garden if not watched.

 Heuchera (Coral Bells) comes in a wide variety of beautiful colors...this is "Lime Rickey" and I think it looks great paired with some black Mondo grass and some bright Impatiens.

 Alchemilla mollis or Lady's Mantle brightens up the front of any garden and the little yellow flowers look great in a cut bouquet too.

Is there anything as beautiful as a yellow rose...this rose has moved with me for the past 30 years, it's name lost long ago. It was one of the first plants I ever bought for a garden and at the time I knew nothing of gardening and nothing about soil...and having clay soil at the time, it promptly died, or so I thought. When I dug it up to toss I noticed about an inch of green at the bottom and not being one to toss anything that still had life in it, I stuck it in the back of the garden, in the shade, figuring it couldn't be saved but if it survived there it was meant to be. It not only survived but gave me a rose the next year and I rewarded it by moving it to the sun and improving it's soil. It has moved with me to three houses and last spring I lost count at 100 blooms at one time. There's a lesson in there somewhere I think.

I have dozens of daylilies in my gardens...and they never fail to impress...I especially love this one.

I won this Spirea a couple years ago at a local nursery which has a wheel they let their customers spin and where it lands you get whats there...that could mean giving them an hour of your time to weed, so it's a gamble...this time I won. It pairs beautifully with this Japanese Maple.

Not all Hostas are solid, there is a solid yellow Hosta called Sum and Substance that is a knock out but I love the variegated ones and I think this one is a charmer. And I've heard that deer won't touch a variegated Hosta...I wouldn't count on it, they think most Hostas are candy.

What can I say, not everything yellow in my garden is a plant...this is my new planting shovel...light as a feather and designed to cut through any type of soil...I'll be putting that to the test.