Shades Of Pink In The Garden

Pale Pinks to Vibrant Tones ... Every Shade Of Pink Is Available In The Garden

new pink flowers in bloom in the garden

Red To Pink

Do you remember at school learning to make different colours by mixing paints together? I felt so clever mixing red and yellow to make orange, less inventive when mixing loads of colours together to make sludgy brown ... but do you also recall making shades of colour by adding white or black to coloured paint?

Basically, pink is a light shade of red … so in paint terms you can mix red and white together to make a shade of pink. This means there are loads of different shades of pink ... and I think you’ll find a plant or flower in every single shade!

pink rhododendron in public gardens

Pink Is A New Colour

It’s odd to think that ‘pink’ wouldn’t have been known by William Shakespeare ... in fact the word ‘pink’ was first used back in the 17th century to describe the light red flowers of Dianthus plants, or ‘pinks’ which have a distinctive ‘pinked’ edge to their petals that look as if they have been cut using pinking shears.

I’ve let you down here, as I haven’t got any Pinks growing in my garden ... although my parents have got some carnations growing in their garden which were grown from some cuttings taken from flowers I received when I was sweet sixteen … so you could call these ‘mine’.

I’ve also seen some show stopping pinks at the Hampton Court Flower Show this year. The British National Carnation Society had a stand in one of the flower marquees displaying a range of pinks including border carnations, malmaisons and perpetual flowering carnations. If you’re a pink enthusiast why not visit carnations.org.uk where you’ll find a wealth of information about all aspects of the flowers.

new pink flowers in bloom in the garden

Pink Psychology

OK ... like most everything these days, colours have their meanings as well ... and pink is no exception. Closely related to red (the colour of love), pink is the most romantic colour.

However, unlike red which is a stimulating colour, pink has a calming or ‘tranquilizing’ effect. So for a relaxing, romantic garden, plants and flowers in pale shades of pink would be perfect.

pink tree mallow in my backgarden

This means the Tree Mallows (lavatera / malvaceae) in my garden could be the perfect shrub in a romantic garden. Growing very quickly, for new gardens they are a quick way of introducing a lot of colour into the garden year after year.

I added these Tree Mallows into my garden over 7 years ago – with the plants being a single, weak looking stem of about 12” high. They are now ‘giants’ in the garden towering well over 5’ in height and add a burst of colour from around June.

Lets Talk Pink

Are you ‘tickled pink’ by my weblog? Hopefully you are ‘cause then you’re happy ... bit of an old fashioned phrase I think? Another term I’ve come across is ‘in the pink’ meaning healthy ... but I’d never heard of that before.

new pink flowers in bloom in the garden

In regards to words which we use to describe different shades of pink ... here are a few I’m sure you’ll recognise ...

Hot pink
This certainly applies to some of the petunias (petunia hybrida) we’ve got filling our hanging baskets this year ... you could also call them shocking pink!

Fuschia
Goes without saying we all know about this shade of pink ... and the plants of the same name.

Rose
I don’t know why we associate rose with pink, especially with so many colours of roses available to choose from ... but apparently we do! As you can see I’ve got a red rose which has massive blooms ... I’ve also got a white rose which I bought at the same time but this has smaller blooms and seems to suffer from more disease.

red roses in bloom in the garden

I bought both rose bushes at half price about 5 years ago ... bargain plants can often be real little troopers in the garden if you make sure they are healthy before you buy them!

My reason for buying one red and one white rose ... the story of ‘Rose Red and Rose White’ ... I remember reading my Ladybird book of this story over and over and over again (must be a romantic at heart then!).