Fashion-Inspired Garden Design: Fire and Ice

Color Schemes Borrowed from Retail Display

Wendy Foster, owner of four Santa Barbara clothing stores, designs her garden like a seasonal collection. For her sunny border, she chose sizzling yellow and reddish-orange as the "fire" foundation: butter yellow hibiscus, blood red trumpet vine, orange marmalade bush, golden coulter bush. Then she added "ice" to temper the heat: silver-leafed agave, blue-flowered Echium pininana, blue-gray Senecio mandraliscae, frosty purple 'Midnight' penstemon, and chartreuse Euphorbia characias wulfenii to bridge the gap. The Mediterranean-style garden is reasonably drought-tolerant with weekly watering (hibiscus twice weekly).