It is likely the aging process as much as the monochromatic design schemes trending on social media designer accounts, but I have a long overdue apology to make to Beige and Cream, as I’ve maligned and bad-mouthed them for years, when all along they haven’t been nearly as offensive as Maroon or that ghastly Hunter Green. In fact, I’ve embraced the white and cream look for the attic loft, reveling in the calm and tranquility such a color design evokes – something I never really took into account in all the years I favored walls of lime green and curtains of fuchsia and pillows of teal and turquoise.
When I first moved into the Boston condo my Uncle rolled on a striking shade of scarlet, which I ragged off for a mottled effect that just read deep bordello red in all photographs. Juxtaposed against this in the adjoining kitchen was an equally strong shade of Kelly green. The bedroom was a deep but bright blue, while the bathroom would cycle through peach and lavender and pink over the years. In other words, I loved color – and I still do – but I’ve come around to appreciate a more nuanced and subtle use of it in my advancing years.
That goes for the garden as well. I never had an overall design in my mind, with the exception of a long row of carefully plotted out Thuja ‘Steeplechase’ infants that now form a living privacy wall thirty feet tall. The gardens themselves would be haphazardly filled with whatever perennials or shrubs caught my fancy through the years. Somehow, it all worked, and even when it didn’t, I managed to find joy and appreciation in everything I planted because I only planted that which I genuinely enjoyed. There’s a method in that sort of madness I suppose, but looking back at the cacophony of color that explodes and recedes at various weeks of the summer, party of me wishes I’d gone with a more cohesive design plan.
Where once I scoffed at monochromatic garden designs, I now find myself drawn to them, and I appreciate the unifying sense of connectedness and the ease it brings to the eyes. Maybe I’m getting boring in my older age, or maybe I’m simply refining my taste. Either way, I’m a tree and I can bend. The evolution continues. The growth doesn’t stop. And there’s always room for more.
(As for you, Hunter Green, you still suck and you always will.)
