I’m not an artist. I can’t draw a stick man, never could.  Never progressed further than finger painting. My proclivity for mud pies didn’t extend to sculpting even with play doh, and I’m downright dangerous with a camera, heads and appendages lopped off photographs in unfortunate ways. In short, my artistic endeavors are confined to gardens and the written word.

Our daughter, India, is majoring in Early Childhood and Art, and while we can converse on educational topics, acronyms and all, when she discusses her art assignments, she’s speaking a foreign language. However, she’s currently taking a course on color theory and is somewhat shocked that I can speak to this subject. Terms such as primary, complimentary, analogous, saturation, value and hue are not lost on me. This is because color is usually the first word on gardening. It’s what attracts gardeners to gardening, and non-gardeners to gardens.  There are volumes devoted solely to the subject, and books on gardening always provide at least one chapter on color, and usually several. I’ve written an article on every color, as well as columns on color “Compositions”, “Echoes” and “Links”.  I’ve never penned anything on the topic of the colors of wildflowers versus those of cultivars and considered that such an article could encourage their growth. When it comes to color, there’s nothing comparable to nature, nothing as blue as a blue bird, as scarlet as a robin’s throat, as red as the wing of a cardinal. This is true for wildflowers as well.

Saturated reds are rare in the garden, and since a single stroke claims center stage, rarity is a good thing; too much red is fatiguing. Cardinal flower is a pure red; the only perennial close to its degree of saturation is bee balm.  Its blooms are vibrant but not brash.  Frequently found along rivers, it can be cultivated where there’s partial shade and plenty of moisture. An infusion of blue results in the subtler crimson, and the subtlest of these is trillium, three wine-colored petals splayed across three greenish sepals to form delicate stars on the woodland floor. “Trinity flower” requires soil rich in nutrients and shade. Infuse a little yellow and you have scarlet, as in the eastern columbine, its court jester cap successfully pairing an impossible combination of red spurs and petals with prominent yellow stamens. In spite of their striking colors, they are a gentle presence in the garden.

Yellow wildflowers are the most plentiful, and provide the greatest range of color, from palest primrose to deepest gold. Though I haven’t found a space sufficiently moist for marsh marigolds, they’re worth the search, an arresting sight in early spring where they glow in swamps veiled in pale green leaves and cloaked in emerald mosses.  Other saturated yellows – spring’s buttercups, summer’s black-eyed Susans, and fall’s goldenrod – all common in fields, self-sow easily, yet not invasively, in gardens. While the palest yellow familiar to most gardeners is found in “Moonbeam” coreopsis, the wildflower ‘cinquefoil’ is an even softer hue. Other gentle yellows are trout lily, a woodland dweller named for the mottled foliage resembling the markings of the fish, and mullein, a native biennial with buttery blossoms rising on five foot stalks over velvety, silver rosettes of foliage. These transplant from inhospitable ditches to the garden where they’ll self-sow if the soil is sufficiently sandy.

Blue is more elusive in the wild than the other primary colors. A clear blue is found in “corn flower”. Though common along gravely roadsides, I’ve never seen it cultivated, however the perennial “bachelor button”, belonging to the same family, a fringe of saturated blue petals circling a crimson center, is a lovely alternative. While violets are too invasive for the garden, the pale bluets, those sprinklings on spring lawns, and the subtle blue-eyed grass, are always welcome. Lupine, a saturated indigo, from the spires of coastal Maine to the “blue bonnets” carpeting Texas, has naturalized here as well, as have the “lady’s bells” which have adapted to the wild to provide our late summer fields with a milder blue. One of fall’s last flowers, the wild blue aster, is a personal favorite. Completely unfussy, it self-sows profusely, softening like a cloud the stiff stalks, and more vibrant colors, of New England asters with billowing blossoms from palest to deepest blue.

Wildflowers of secondary shades are also gentler than those of most cultivars. Gardener’s purple is neither the pale lavender of stokesia nor the deep violet of salvias, which are considered “blue”, but rather the color of chinacea’s petals and liatris’s stalks, both native to other regions of the country. The spiny, purple flower of the native thistle is a wonderful discovery rising four feet in the garden where foot traffic is safe from its prickly leaves. Gold finches visit frequently for seeds and down for nests. Joe Pye Weed impresses with its mauve blossoms on six foot stalks, a favorite of butterflies. Native geraniums, purple petals veined and tinged pink, form pastel cushions, though this plant offers a range of mellow cultivars, from palest pink to periwinkle. And lastly, the lady’s slipper. Is there a gentler plant?  Its hue is dependent on its placement, though we are fortunate in the soft mauve of this wild orchid in our shade garden.

The lily “Stella de Oro” rims city streets, its orange trumpets providing color for months all on its own, a good thing as it complements few flowers.  Conversely, several bright orange wildflowers blend easily with perennials. Butterfly weed bears clusters of red-orange and yellow-orange flowers, attractive to butterflies and to children when their pods open to scatter seeds on fluffy parachutes. Another childhood favorite, jewel weed, is also attractive to pollinators with its orange petals and sepals with bittersweet flecks. Its pods explode into curlicues to reveal the gem, the turquoise seed, inside. The tiger lily, a five foot plant with re-curved orange flowers with brown freckles, is stunning through the mahogany foliage of ninebark or smoke tree, its rhizomes spreading in moist, well-drained, soil. Blanket flower is a less prevalent native, a composite with red centers and red-orange petals with yellow tips, its fiery array partnering with other fiery hues in the garden.

I’m a proponent of growing wildflowers in the garden, as pollinators and partners of perennials. They contribute structure, as in a stalk of black cohosh, or another layer as in a veil of Queen Anne’s lace, or a familiar cheeriness, as in a spurt of daisies. Their unique colors are another reason to grow them. Their saturated shades are, miraculously, never flashy, their gentlest hues are magically luminous, and the most ephemeral of them still leave a lasting impression.

Dayna McDermott