Some Thoughts on #TheDress and Gardening

The colourful garden at Wildside, Devon
Keith Wiley's colourful garden at Wildside on a rainy day in July.
It's here I learned the importance of how green can provide balance in a colour scheme. 

A photograph of blue and black dress which looked gold and white to some caused a storm of controversy and a top trending #TheDress hashtag across social media last week. It even made the national news.

I put my thoughts to one side on how camera and computer settings, plus viewing angles can alter what we see, and had a think about the use of colour in our gardens.

My interest in this subject started not long after I'd met Threadspider. We were looking at a piece of turquoise cloth one day, which she clearly saw as green and I as blue. In that instant I realised how a simple difference in our eyes could alter our perception of the world. This was also discussed in relation to #TheDress, particularly how the number of cones * in the eye's structure can alter the range of colours we can see.

Apparently Christopher Lloyd was colour blind ** and he was often criticised for his combination of particular shades of pink and yellow at Great Dixter. I wonder how much his colour blindness altered what he saw in that combination. I hope it wasn't as drastic as it was for my red-green colour blind colleague, who always saw my pink and yellow checked dress as a muddy brown.

Over the years I've learned to keep any criticism at bay whenever I flinch at what I see as a particularly gaudy colour scheme, or the use of a colour I don't particularly like. After all, who's to say I'm right?

* = if anyone has a better written article on this subject, let me know. For example, the remarks about bees aren't accurate, and the accuracy of the online test shown can be affected by computer settings, but the general points made in this article are valid.

** = thanks to Catherine Horwood for the information.

You may also like:

I wrote about Colour Theory in Garden Design for BBC Gardening many moons ago. I realised then just how vast this subject is and how many factors affect what each of us sees. They include: our education; what's in fashion; our cultural background; the impact of light, the weather and seasons; where we are in the world; our mood and other psychological factors; our experiences; our age; and a whole host of other things. It's endlessly fascinating and I'd love to make a full study of it sometime.

Comments

  1. Ecossistemas4 March 2015 at 08:55

    great

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sue Garrett4 March 2015 at 09:23

    I've long wondered whether we all process colours in the same way. As a young child we are taught the names of colours by being shown a colour and repeating its name, but do we all see the same colour when we point and say blue? Is what I see as blue what someone else sees as red. I always thought a table of green at school must be so confusing as the tints and shades of greens are vastly different.

    By the way I saw blue and gold.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. VP4 March 2015 at 10:43

      Isn't it interesting? The role of education plays is tremendous - who's to say that the object you saw really was red and it was the teacher's eyes only which saw it as green? Colours are so variable, so many of them can be seen with hues from other colours - the turquoise in my example is notorious for that. Artists understand the concept well as they are used to mixing colours made from others.

      I wonder if it's possible to make a garden which clashes in colour, just from green plants? Perhaps that's one of the reasons why some people dislike variegated plants?

      Delete
    2. Diana Studer7 April 2015 at 09:45

      without a doubt of a shadow. There'd never be any relief ... as the 'flowers' faded!

      Delete
  3. Garden girl Meryl4 March 2015 at 12:56

    Yes as an artist I agree about mixing colours and colour perception or learning a colour by a name, the result is very varied, we don't all see the same things, try asking a bunch of artists or designers to describe' terracotta' , almost impossible.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. VP4 March 2015 at 16:03

      Thanks Meryl - since writing this post I've tried to imagine describing colours to someone for the first time and failed!

      Delete
  4. Anonymous4 March 2015 at 13:28

    What fascinates me is, if you saw something as blue, and Threadspider saw it as green, how did you know it was turquoise? And was it turquoise? I'm sure we're not all seeing the same thing.

    However, it's also down to language. Did you see a TV programme not so long ago which looked at language and colour? They visited a tribe somewhere in Africa who could see differences in colours (greens, I think, but might have been browns) that, to most of us, looked all the same, and, crucially, had names for them. Equally, as far as I remember, we had words for colours that to them looked no different. If you can't describe something, to an extent it doesn't exist.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. VP4 March 2015 at 16:05

      I wish I'd seen that programme Helen, it sounds fascinating. I seem to remember a similar story about a people who didn't see a sailing ship when it weighed anchor in a bay because they hadn't seen one before and therefore didn't have the means to comprehend what they saw.

      Delete
  5. Rose4 March 2015 at 14:26

    I saw all the photos of the infamous dress on Facebook, but didn't bother to read the articles explaining it. Then yesterday the woman and her daughter who posted the original photo were on "Ellen," and she was wearing the dress--which is definitely blue and black! Now I'm curious to understand why I thought it was gold and white. As for color in the garden, I plant what I like and don't worry whether it harmonizes anymore. I do gravitate toward pastels, though--I wonder what that says about me?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. VP4 March 2015 at 16:06

      Rose - I'm with you on planting what I like and worrying about it. That's all we can do with our own gardens isn't it?

      Delete
  6. Pauline4 March 2015 at 15:09

    I can remember many years ago, helping to paint the outside of our church. At the end, we cleaned our brushes, but the man next to me wiped his on the grass. We had been using brown paint and he couldn't see any difference between the green grass and the paint on his brush. I think we all see things differently.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I love hearing from you and welcome thoughtful conversations :)

Comments aiming to link back and give credence to commercial websites will be composted!

Your essential reads

That blue flower: A spring spotter's guide

Image
Spring is a prime time for blue flowers and my daily walks currently have several from the same plant family* lining the local footpaths. As I walked past the Donkey Field the other day, I overheard some children ask their parents** what the pictured blue flower was. It reminded me it's often mistaken for those other familial blues and this time was no different, as they said it was forget-me-not, instead of the green alkanet it actually is. As well as similar flowers, most of these plants are hairy in their nature, flower around the same time, and favour damp, shady places. Many of them are great for pollinators too, especially bees and this week's warm weather has certainly drawn them to these flowers. This makes it even more likely for these plants to be mistaken for each other and it's a great opportunity for me to put together a spotter's guide in case you find the same flowers on your outings. Staying with green alkanet, the key features which set it
Read more

Jack Go To Bed At Noon

Image
Last year this rather exotic looking flower appeared on mine and several other allotments for the first time. Having been stumped (again) by Mr Allotment Warden as to its identity, I rushed home to find out what it was. It's salsify, aka the marvellous Jack Go To Bed At Noon - named as such because its flowers always close by midday. Here you can see both open and closed flowers - making it seem even more exotic and alien than in the first picture. I think this must be the cultivated version because the flower in my Francis Rose Wild Flower Key looks exactly the same in form, but is bright yellow in colour and called meadow salsify . Its other common name is Goatsbeard, which must be a nod to the fantastic dandelion-like clock which forms the seed head. With 'parachutes' like those shown above, who knows how far our plotted plants came from. I rather like the photographic dissection of the seedhead found in this link . Salsify is edible: its lateral shoots and fl
Read more

Red Nose Day - Gardening Jokes Anyone?

Image
The nation goes ever so slightly bonkers on Red Nose Day - hurrah! Previously, it's been very easy to join in - usually via a dress down day at work plus lots of people up to mad things at the station and in the office. Everyone smiling for once - it's a real feel good day and all in a good cause. This year's different - every day's a dress down day for me now - my friend L suggested yesterday that perhaps I could have a dress up day instead and whilst that's a good idea, I confess that ballgowns and tiaras don't really feature in my wardrobe: scruffy student's always been my favourite look. So my Red Nose Day contribution for this year is to compile a list of gardening related jokes. For each one (clean ones only please) you leave in the comments below, I'll make a donation of 50p to the cause. Here's a few for starters just to get you warmed up: Q Why do potatoes make good detectives? A Because they keep their eyes peeled. Q What did the grape
Read more

Salad Days: Mastering Lettuce

Image
I've decided one of my salad challenges for this year is to grow as many lettuce varieties as I can, ready for the publication of my planned Factsheet* later on. The idea is to grow as many of the Tried and Trusted lettuce varieties last year's Salad Challengers helped compile, then provide a visual guide and as many lettuce facts as I can muster. So far I've found around half of those listed**. Then naturally whilst I was out searching - because such is the way with seeds - a number of other varieties found their way home too ;) A couple of weeks ago I sowed 22 varieties***. Just the simple act of sowing them has me intrigued. Why are some lettuce seeds black and others white****? They split into about half white to half black in my sample and as far as I can tell it's nothing to do with whether they're a type of cos, iceberg, or whatever. I sowed them indoors and popped them into a propagator on the windowsill. The soil's too cold outside for sowing
Read more

VPs VIPs: Derry Watkins of Special Plants

Image
Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Derry Watkins at her home, garden and nursery - the acclaimed Special Plants - just a few miles along the road from me. I first met Derry at one of her open garden days last year and was keen to find out more about her wonderful garden and running an independent nursery. She specialises in tender perennials and regularly goes on plant hunting trips to find new treasures, particularly in South Africa. As well as running Special Plants and opening her garden under the NGS scheme , Derry holds day courses at her nursery, hosts Special Tuesdays from April until September, lectures and has written a couple of books. How did you find your way from Connecticut to the UK? I'd started a biodynamic vegetable garden in Connecticut and we used to have people come along at weekends to help out. A particular young man turned up: he returned many times and at the end of the summer I married him. So it was all down to love? Isn't that the
Read more

#mygardenrightnow: heading into summer with the Chelsea Fringe

Image
Ahhhhhh, that's better! I love walking through dewy grass in bare feet, not that there's much in the way of grass on my back lawn this weekend. My wild and woolly lawn has morphed into meadow of sorts this month, which even NAH admits looks attractive*. It's also proved a great source for my Flowers for mum project so far, yielding self-sown perennial cornflowers, lamb's ears, and lemon balm in addition to the blooms you can see. These originated from elsewhere in the garden, the ox-eye daisies must have blown in from the A350 nearby. * = he got very stroppy about the weeds aka self-sown foxgloves in the lawn one year, so he's come along a bit since then. Skimble's demanding to say hello to you too. He does enjoy the patio when it warms up. If the embedded video doesn't work try this link instead. The Nectaroscordum are a revelation. I planted the bulbs around 2 years ago, but it's only this year they've bloomed properly. The bee
Read more

The Resilient Garden

Image
  Part of Tom Massey's Resilient Garden at RHS Hampton Court I've been pondering VP Gardens a lot lately. Last year's drought conditions set me off initially, then our harsher than usual winter combined with this summer's flip and flop weather means the thinking continues. It's a huge topic which I freely admit I'm struggling to get my head around. Tom Massey's Resilient Garden  at Hampton Court recently  tackled this topic brilliantly and was a timely interlude which gave me much food for thought. There he encapsulated the detailed research he'd found which informed both his show garden and book of the same name. I think it's one of the most important show gardens I've ever seen. It's clear the way I garden needs to change so that I have my own resilient garden. I haven't worked out the exact details yet, but Tom's book plus a couple of others (see below), alongside the rainwater management handout from the show garden's  sponso
Read more

Testing Times: Tomatoes

Image
  I've run a couple of tomato trials this year. The first is a revisit of the biochar trial with Oxford University I attempted some years ago (with a different organisation this time), and the second is a trial of a water gadget called Plantsurge which I was given to try at Malvern Spring Show earlier this year. Most of you have probably heard of biochar already and the claim that this inert, carbon-rich material can help soil fertility and plant health. The RHS information in the above link says results can be mixed, with reduced effects found in alkaline soils. This may help to explain the lack of difference I found in my previous trial as VP Gardens is on a lime-rich soil. Plantsurge is a different beast altogether. It's a strong magnet which is attached to a hosepipe as shown in the photo above. It's claimed that it softens water, with the result more like watering with rainwater. The higher nitrogen found in rainwater is thought to be beneficial to plants. Gardener
Read more

Chelsea Fringe 2014: Shows of Hands - Episode I

Image
The gloves NAH used to build the raised bed . The effects are L to R, top to bottom:  Original photo, Warhol, HDR, Green tint, B&W, Posterize, Boost, Cross process and Sepia Welcome to Shows of Hands - my Chelsea Fringe project for 2014! As you can see I've been having a bit of a play around in Pic Monkey for my first contribution. You're welcome to join in between now and 8th June 2014. The idea behind this year's project is to highlight the tool most precious to a gardener: their hands. How do I take part? It's simple. All you need to do is take a photo of hand(s) in a gardening context and then share it via your blog or other social media (such as Twitter or Facebook), then make sure I know you've done so. I've set up Mr Linky below for your blog contributions. The Chelsea Fringe photo on the right sidebar links to this post, so you can easily find it again when you're ready to add your contribution. If you share your photo on Twitter,
Read more

Make Use of Mildew

Image
On my garden patrol this morning I spotted some powdery mildew on a couple of my new Verbena bonariensis plants. I suppose it was almost inevitable as I prefer to grow my plants hard - this means no water for them unless they look absolutely desperate. This approach means plants root themselves more deeply and have a better chance of survival during spells of dry weather like we've had lately. However, it also means I run the risk of problems like today's, especially with any garden newbies planted late in the season. We've had a good drop of rain overnight, so this should help my plants survive. I'll mulch them later today to help lock in the moisture as it's water stress which encourages the mildew to take hold. I've also removed the infected leaves and sprayed the rest with a milky drink.* I'm also pleased to find there's a use for my infected leaves. Oliver Ellingham at Reading University has started a PhD - sponsored by the RHS - researchi
Read more