You just have to find the right tie or jewelry to make the pieces work together

I feel your pain Jennifer!

We've had a crazy spring here too SSG--early, hot, and dry blasted my spring bulbs, then we finally had winter in April just in time to wreck my stone fruits and the wettest May ever. Sometimes stuff gets confused. I don't have echies blooming yet, but I have an aster that thinks it is September

@dirtdorphins - There must be something wrong with me, because I really don't see a color disaster in your front garden. Not with the plants, anyway.... (The sandstone color is not my favorite for rocks, but you have to work with what you have.)

Returning to the subject of pink and yellow being a disaster (or so some people see it), I took this photo yesterday, looking down the side yard garden along one of my raised beds. It has 3 yellow daylilies, a peachy daylily, and the pink rose 'Carefree Wonder' in the middle of it all. (Also present but not seen is lavender lantana at either end of the bed.) I don't really consider it a color disaster (though some here may ). Maybe I am prejudiced because I like lemon yellow daylilies, and the daylily 'Osterized' in particular?

Here's my cringeworthy combo. The Maltese Cross was supposed to be white. The seed said white.

Thanks Polymerous--there must be something wrong with you --No, really I think we all see color with an individual perspective and preference, so one person's disaster is thankfully not everyone's. And it is funny how my color preferences have changed over the years. I used to hate everything orange (my mother's favorite color was orange; growing up, we had a hideous orange shag carpet--and a black couch--I was traumatized by that and many of her other orange indulgences!) but in the last few years I've been liking orange. I need to learn how to work with it better though.

I like pink and yellow--no objection here

I remember the old orange shag carpeting...ack!
I think orange is a fine color, but not easy to do really well in a garden. I have butterfly weed planted here and there but that's about the only bright orange. Pink and yellow is okay with me most of the time, though I am not a big fan of bright yellow in general. I absolutely love Swan Pink and Yellow columbine. I have more softer colors with intermittent bright colors...if I have color disasters, maybe others see them, but I do not. Color is so subjective, as is gardening style in general.
I didn't think Dirt's colors were that bad either.
And I have decided I might be a thug gardener, now that I know what it is. Things are getting rather overgrown and out of control. I see a weekend ahead of a lot of shovel pruning etc.

Orange goes well with silver foliage, imo. It also plays nicely with certain shades of blues. (Yellows, I am not so sure about... unless you want a really "hot" feeling garden area.)

I know that this thread is about "color" disasters, but sometimes I see "shape" disasters long before the colors bug me. For example, that penstemon of Dirt's is really obscuring a neat, angled focal point of that garden. And its shape is on the wrong side of amorphous and really distracting to my eyes. After I take all that in, maybe I'll notice that it's a hotpinkmagenta mess in context. But, to be fair, I've got a little of the xy, red-green thing going on, so...

dirtdorphins said:Thanks Polymerous--there must be something wrong with you --No, really I think we all see color with an individual perspective and preference, so one person's disaster is thankfully not everyone's. And it is funny how my color preferences have changed over the years. I used to hate everything orange (my mother's favorite color was orange; growing up, we had a hideous orange shag carpet--and a black couch--I was traumatized by that and many of her other orange indulgences!) but in the last few years I've been liking orange. I need to learn how to work with it better though.

I like pink and yellow--no objection here

One of my Facebook friends loved the combo, too. She wanted me to save seed of the Maltese Cross for her. I'm going to relocate it next to some Russian sage, I think that color combination will be less eyeball-splitting.

Okay, I agree that this is maybe, or even probably, a color disaster. It is the Clematis 'Etoille Violette' underplanted with Gaillardia 'Oranges and Lemons', both of which are just off our master patio. (Click on the image to see the Gaillardia. Please excuse the remnants of the mini pot ghetto, which I am still picking up. )



I love the clematis (whose color is perhaps more of a blue violet than it appears in this image).

I love the Gaillardia; it provides a long season of cheerful and colorful bloom.

While the clematis is in bloom, though, the color combination is, um... (The clematis was resident there before I planted the Gaillardia, out of clematis bloom season (of course), to try it out.)

Earlier this year I bought some seeds for the hybrid Gaillardia 'Punch Bowl', which supposedly produces blooms that are pink or lavender with a (near) white edge. (I put posts on that seed on three forums here, and it seems that YMMV with what you actually get, seedling wise.) If I actually get around to planting the seed (I need to rethink and redo my indoor plant starting space (part of the problem is that I have no permanent space )), and get plants with the desired bloom colors, and if said plants turn out to be perennial here, then they might make a better pairing with the clematis than 'Oranges and Lemons' does.

I see the combo as two bold colors and think it's nice.

Blue

Oops...starting over
Blue and orange/violet and yellow are complementary colors, so in theory they should work together. I agree with Arlene that it looks nice. However, if you don't care for it, move the gaillardia and put something else there.
I have to research Punch Bowl ..did not know gaillardia could come in those colors!

well, blue/purple and orange/yellow together is one of my favorites so I like it too

I'm having trouble combining penstemon 'Dark Towers' with anything else.

Here the light pink blooms of the penstemon are clashing with the fiery gaillardia and the dark pink blooms of sedum Fireglow.

White flowers or more pink flowers... or some purple-y foliage plant, like Heuchera? Maybe that would work.... though I wouldn't go for anything too dark, like 'Obsidian', but one that is more silvery-purple. 'Frosted Violet' is a very nice Heuchera; maybe that might work.



Another possibility is something with shocking lime or chartreuse foliage...



'Lime Rickey' will fry in the sun, though...ask me how I know. (That reminds me... I need to get out there and dig and move a few plants of it.)

This part of the yard is very hot, very sunny, and very dry, and doesn't get any irrigation even during drought. It sounds like the penstemon is the one that needs to be moved since the other plants here are perfect for the site and it'd be too sunny for a Heuchera. I'll see if I can find a better spot for the penstemon and a neighbor that doesn't clash.

try something silvery like artemesia which loves hot sun.
Parilla is a dark purple/black foliage and loves sun, it gets about 2 ft tall for me.

I like pink and yellow together. I never thought of that as a color disaster. Maybe the orange tinted yellow like those Stella d'Oro daylilies would be a disaster with pink, but not lemony yellow. However, if your personal preference is not to have them together, I could see how that's a disaster for you. I'm trying not to be so critical of my combinations. I see odd ball combinations all the time in nature. I like the whimsy and carefree aspect of it.

I think I'm going to beat you all when my plants start blooming! I was looking at two beds yesterday with dahlias, phlox, Echinacea, and hibiscus. Red phlox combined with light pink hibiscus and hot pink cone flowers will definitely be an eyesore, but the assortment of Dahlias (which I didn't bother to look up before I planted them) should be the icing on the cake! I've already decided that the dahlias will be treated as annuals and heuchera will be planted throughout these two beds next year. But I will have to move the Echinacea to a more friendly spot, too.