I think it's nice and interesting to read everyone's thoughts about this as it tells a story not only of the garden but of the gardener. I do recognize myself a little in most of the comments so far.
I have gardens that I have for beauty, but it's not only about the beauty, it's also about the plant, about its
individual beauty, about what it likes and also ultimately about my own desire to grow it. I have a lot of lilies planted in the kitchen garden in neat rows, which I think is suitable there. These are for cutting, propagation, evaluation and sometimes just a place for a lily to rest until I find a suitable place for it. Which as you all understand, just is another way of saying that I buy lilies that I don't really know where to plant. In the other gardens straight lines aren't welcome and it gets wilder and wilder the further away from the house it gets. I enjoy both the "kitchen garden" lilies and the ornamental garden lilies very much, although for a visitor and non lily enthusiast, I'm sure the ornamental gardens would be much preferred!
As for color coordination, my taste changes constantly. However, anything goes as every combination ultimately has its own beauty. Gardening isn't about fashion to me. Some combinations that was once considered ugly are now beautiful and vice versa. How can that be? The colors themselves didn't change...
In truth I like any garden look that displays the gardeners love for plants, but I can't enjoy it as much when gardening merely becomes a hunt for plastic perfection that looks the same all season long. That isn't for me. Gardens need to change over the season. Sometimes imperfection just is the forerunner for something fantastic, so there needs to be a little space for yellow leaves and the wilting of lily stems in the autumn too. Somehow there is always beauty.
A long time ago one of my aunts (she is too old to do much traveling now) visited our garden and she loved to walk through it and take photographs of it. However she said that she wished her friend, that was good at painting, could have been there to paint it as it was hard to make it justice with photos. I think this often is true as a photo can show every little imperfection, weed or faded flower, yet can be very bad at showing all the love that goes into that garden. However I hope and think that the following pictures at least gives an idea of my gardening style and that they are "filtered" through the photographic lens in such a way that they give a good impression of how the garden feels like for me.
My "secret" Martagon garden. First bloom 2016. This wasn't perfect in any way, but it was perfect to me and a new garden adventure. Beautiful weeds in the background and they are allowed to grow there. I cut them down once in a while
I will mix almost anything. From 2015. All the rain made everything lush, so more "picture perfect" than usual. Pre-weeded before taking the image
A garden is always changing. From 2008. This is the same bed as the one in front in the above picture from a different angle. No lilies here at this time. But now they are "everywhere".
