An Ode to Orange

I am SO with you on orange, Steve. In the garden, it makes me instantly happy, especially if there’s something blue or purple nearby, which I usually plan–as much as I plan anything, that is! Some of what you’ve shown here wouldn’t grow in NS except as an annual, of course–I think Lantana is a national treasure in any colour, but especially orange–but we have orange asclepias, and both true and daylilies, and an amazing fireball azalea, and oriental poppies, and lots of annuals…orange you glad this colour was invented?

Jodi–I’d like to think…orange we all glad orange was invented. I grow most of that stuff as annuals, though I certainly have some orange perennials. It’s just that the aunnuals give me a much better run for the money, color-wise. And heck, I didn’t even mention orange cosmos. Ahh, if only oriental poppies had more staying power. Orange and blue is indeed fetching. Sometimes, I think it was made to accompany salvias or agapanthus. –Steve

I love orange, and I loved this post! I need to make a trip to Walmart for some paint…

Kylee–Yes, yes go out and get some orange paint, but not to Walmart. Cheap paint is cheap paint, and it takes a lot more coats to cover something with cheap paint. Besides, the only reason Walmart seems cheap is that they don’t pay for their employee’s health care–you and I do. But, don’t get me started…let’s just say I never shop there.–Steve

Count me in on the orange love-fest. Wow, I never thought of painting the furniture orange. Last year I picked up two iron bed frames for the garden and haven’t decided yet what color to paint them. Orange would be so cool!

Hi Melanie–Go for that orange furniture! But from personal experience, it can be hard to arrive at the shade of orange that’s just right. It’s a very difficult color to judge based on those little paint sample chips. So buy a quart to experiment with before you commit to a gallon. Or if it’s canned spray paint–which is great for iron furniture with zillions of tiny openings–the choices are far, far fewer, so you’ll have to be happy with what’s available. I used a rustoleum-based canned spray called, I think, Tangerine Orange. Have fun with it.–Steve

One of my favorite plants is Senecio confusus, an easy vine with purple tinted stems and foliage and screaming orange daisy-like flowers. I grow it near purple Salvia leucantha, and the orange/purple combo at Halloween is amazing. The Salvia is marginally hardy here; not so the Senecio, but cuttings are ridiculously simple to root and carry over, even in a glass of water in the kitchen window, if need be.

Hi Jeff–I like that Senecio confusus too, though I can’t say it blooms as profusely for me as I’d like. That purple orange combo sounds vivid, guess I’m going to have to try the vine again. –Steve

Great post, Steve! Peter’s orange truck is the best–or maybe I should say that Peter’s orange truck and Felder’s attitude are the best. (But I’m still holding our for a blinding, candy-apple-red tiny truck myself.) As a native Nashvillian, I agree with Frances that Tennessee is a fabulous place to garden, though my Pennsylvania home place is a far cry from my parents’ exquisite Colonial house and landscaping…

I, too, once thought that white was the way to go for night color, but I learned otherwise when I attended a class on waterlilies at Longwood years ago, given by that lovely man, Patrick Nutt. By the end of the class, it was dark, so I went out to look at Longwood’s lily display one last time before heading home. I instantly saw, to my astonishment, that it was not the white but the purple water lilies that came into their own at night. (To that point, I’d wondered why anyone would even bother growing them, when all the other colors were so much lovelier.) My concept of a night garden has never been the same!

Love that orange truck too, Elly. Think I mentioned in response to another comment that I have a cerulean blue truck; but, unfortunately, I don’t have a strategic parking spot for it, like Peter does. I say go for that candy-apple red!

I know Patrick Nutt. you couldn’t do much better for a water lily mentor than that! And it is funny the colors that go bump in the night. Sometimes as you point out, it’s what you least expect.–Steve

Well, now, that’s a fairly brilliant idea. Some seed potatoes are on the way and I don’t have room for them in the vegetable garden. But there is a tire in the marsh that I have been meaning to retrieve for some time. I will try and extract it, paint it orange, and plant it with potatoes!

Karen–That sounds like a bold plan! Go with it! Could look great with colorful foliage vines–like that ‘Carolina Bronze’ sweet potato vine–or other spillers tumbling over the edge of that tire too. Hope you post some pix. Good luck with it.–Steve

I enjoyed the post and the comments that followed. It’s almost more fun to read this kind of writing at the end after folks have chimed in. I don’t know if I like orange or not–I’ll let you know.

Anna–I’m counting you among the few fence-sitters on orange. It’s one color people tend to be either for or against. I hope that once you give it a shot, you’ll be among the converts.–Steve

I am with you on the orange Steve. I found a new favorite last spring… Crossandra infundibuliformis ‘Orange Marmalade’. If that doesn’t whet your appetite for this spring planting nothing orange will. It performed so well during the drought and bloomed and bloomed in partial shade. Has intersting seed pods. Just can’t say enough good about it.

Hi Lisa -Just came back from Logee’s with one of those Crossandras in hand; can’t wait to try it out.–Steve

Great post on orange. I have always loved it, but especially more so now. I really enjoy the daylilyl, H. ‘Primal Scream’ for its stature in the garden. I have a large garden, and orange draws people in. I love your coleus and the Duranta repens. Your orange chairs have great interest too.~~Dee

Thanks Dee–I never knew there were so many orangophiles out there. Yep, orange is like a beacon–draws people just as effectively as it does bees and hummingbirds.–Steve