i6o 



LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



Effects of 



Foliage 



Color 



Contrast of 

 Color in 

 Differentiation 

 of Units in 

 Design 



shall be restful and peaceful in its effect on the beholder; frequently 

 indeed, he is concerned to make his planting look as much as may be 

 like the undisturbed work of nature. All these large considerations 

 should make him in his choice of summer foliage very chary of departing 

 far from his gamut of greens. In a formal planting, in an obviously 

 artificial inclosed shrub garden, it may be legitimate and desirable to 

 deal in golden and purple and silver summer foliage, but in the wider 

 landscape such foliage, except for a small and carefully chosen spot of 

 brilliance which accents a point in the composition, is likely to prove an 

 incongruity. 



Within his range of greens, however, the designer has a very powerful 

 means of accomplishing the effects which he may desire. The heavier 

 darker colors give a plant a certain effect of solidity and weight which 

 enables it, as would striking form or close texture, to strengthen a 

 projection in a naturalistic plantation, or to mark a designated point 

 in a formal composition. The darker colors, particularly of course 

 those of evergreens, will tend to give an effect of soberness, solemnity, 

 or even gloom to a considerable plantation of such trees, while, on the 

 other hand, the gayety of a sunny glade would be much enhanced if 

 the sunlight fell on the foliage of some tree of a light and sparkling 

 green. 



A judicious contrast of dark green against light green or of a warm 

 green against a cold one will enhance the apparent effect of both colors 

 and differentiate the foliage masses. A promontory of foliage will be 

 relieved against the background of planting behind it and given more 

 definiteness and force in the design if it tells for instance as a yellow- 

 green mass against distant foliage of gray green. The same thing is, 

 of course, true of contrast of foliage with the brown of plowed ground, 

 or contrast with the purples and grays of rock. The possibility of 

 choice of color in this way gives the designer an effective means of 

 unifying areas and masses within his design and of contrasting one mass 

 with another. He can thus make plain the composition which he has 

 in mind, avoiding, on the one hand, a deadly sameness of color in which 

 the different units of his composition can hardly be distinguished, and, 

 on the other hand, a restless diversity of color-units so small that they 

 produce merely confusion and monotony of another kind. 



