Red, Orange, Yellow

For years I banned red and orange from my gardens then I met my friend Sue http://idyllhaven.blogspot.com/ who is a genius with container plantings and especially using tropicals in her pots. I gradually began experimenting with hotter colors and bold tropical plantings and over the last eight years have created a thirty foot border of containter plantings. A couple years ago I started arranging them in color wheel order so no the border segues from red through oranges then yellow. Red and orange are still strictly banned from the perennial/shrub borders but I'm having so much fun playing with these hot colors in my tropical container border.

The red section

This dwarf canna is a terrific true red

I've had this great dahlia for four years now. I just throw the pot in the basement for the winter after the frost has taken the top off

Another great find this year was these red sunpatiens

Abutilon 'Voodoo' is a fantastic clean red

And this pentas is a gorgeous red too.  I wish I could save this one for next year but have no more room for wintering over plants.

Musa 'Siam Ruby' - It's veering toward red-violet but it looks good in the red section so it stays

Orange section - the variegated Brugmansia is the star of this section but won't be blooming for a couple more weeks yet. A couple highlights are the Achemea 'Blanchetiana' and Euphorbia 'Sticks on Fire' in the foreground. 

Lantana

Coreopsis 'Tropical Lemonade'

Euphorbia

Got to love the hot, hot, hot color of Tithonia. The Canna 'Pretoria' in the background of this image has orange flowers that will start blooming in a week or so.

The bees and hummingbirds love the Tithonia also

Cuphea ignea

Acalypha

Yellow section, again the Brugmansia, this one is 'Charles Grimaldi', is the key plant in this vignette but the brug won't be showing off it's fabulous yellow flowers for another few weeks.

Love the Coleus 'Swallowtail' in the lower right of the container with the Cuphea

Cuphea micropetala

The Hummingbirds really love all the cupheas

Lantana again, can't beat them for clean primary colors

And a variegated lantana

Abutilon

I'll have to update this when the Brugmansias and large Cannas begin blooming. The color is out of this world!