Getting good colour combinations can be great fun, very satisfying, or, if it goes wrong, horribly disappointing. Your careful plan may not allow sufficiently for the fact that some plants respond to unseasonal weather conditions more obviously than others, so your pink tulips may be well over by the time your forget me nots flower.Or the rabbits may eat them, or the colours may not be as expected or.... I could go on. But us gardeners are optomists enough to keep trying, aren't we?

I love green, white, orange and blue. Forget me nots, orange tulips such as' ballerina' next to the white blossom and green foliage of our espalier pear. Or more exotically Orange Dream acers just comng into leaf next to pheasants eye daffs and brunnera (pictured). The trees are very small at the moment, but when they have grown a bit this picture can only improve - can't it?

Watch out for more colour combinations to follow through the seasons!