Pastel Paradise

Pastels and primary colors aren’t meant for each other. I like to think My Love and I are, but then he questioned why my flowers are so darn pink. I’m not a pink person (not that there’s anything wrong with that). My kitchen is a shade of green, my dining room a shade of orange.  The clothes I wear are either earth or jewel tones. How did my garden get so pink? I blame my zone.  Take windflowers, I have Anemone sylvestris, a lovely little white for the spring, and hardy as can be. My Love bought A. coronaria in red red and blue blue. Sadly, even with mulch I’d have to be in zone 7 to hope to overwinter it.

My camassia is barely blue, as is my wild sweet william, Phlox divaricata. Would I like to grow Meconopsis? Absolutely, but my continental climate is too extreme for it. There are few true blue flowers to be had in any climate. My old-fashioned iris is a pale blue with transparent petals and a grape soda scent. Soon there will be Siberian iris in a bluer shade, maybe not with the intensity of the aforementioned anemone, but definitely blue.  Should we get a Heavenly Blue morning glory or Crystal Fountain clematis? Too pale for My Love. In time we’ll have Japanese balloon flowers. Now those are a blue he can approve of.

Peonies are hardy here, and I even have a couple true reds and yellows, but the shades of pink to white outnumber them by far. White can stand with the pastels and the primaries, making us very fortunate so many flowers come in white. “Hold on a second,” I hear you interject, “what about all the red tulips and yellow daffodils?” You caught me. Yes, I love those, too, but they just can’t share the same bed. My Love may feel overwhelmed by spring’s pastel haze, but by summer there will be beds of red and yellow daylilies, and come fall golden yellow rudbeckia and leaves ablaze everywhere you turn.

In this instant, just in this tender spring when everything is fresh and new, leave me a moment to savor my pastel paradise.