Coffee Colour Inspiration

Latte-coloured planting bed: powdery hues and a soft, gentle feel!

To get straight to the point, how about giving pride of place to one of the loveliest representatives of cafe-au-lait flowers, namely the Giant Dahlia ‘Café au Lait’? This superb Dahlia, with a colour range between pink, pale lilac at its heart and cream, will be the centrepiece of our sunny border, given its stature (in good conditions it reaches up to 1.2 m in height). It will therefore be planted at the back of the border.

As it will only begin flowering from July, surround it with a few earlier-blooming perennials such as Iris ‘Champagne Frost’ and its chamois tones and the Paeonia lactiflora ‘King’s Day’ or ‘Madame Calot’. From July onwards, our Dahlia will be accompanied by very soft blooms, in vanilla to pale salmon tones, such as avens ‘Pretticoats Peach’, a Kniphofia ‘Ice Queen’, as well as a peach Linaria and a woolly foxglove (Digitalis lanata) perfectly in café-tones, and reaching as tall as the Dahlia.
Incorporate some caramel colours or slightly deeper towards purple such as Eucomis ‘Vandermerwei’, with its pretty speckled foliage. Choose two or three Heuchera to complete this soft scene, and invite, for example, Heuchera ‘Birkin’ whose airy flowering will respond to the Linaria inflorescences.

Dahlia ‘Café au Lait’, Eucomis ‘Vandermerwei’, Iris ‘Champagne Frost’, Kniphofia ‘Ice Queen’, decorative Dahlia ‘Caramel Antique’, Digitalis ‘lanata’ and Linaria ‘Peachy’.

Black Coffee: an exotic, high-contrast border.

Coffee-colour can, on the other hand, take on a much darker note when you favour espresso! In these dark, intense tones, we imagine an exotic border balanced by soft-green foliage: a coffee-and-pistachio duo, defined by broad leaves and sporadic flowering for a jungle-inspired look.

Here, we have assembled in a well-lit display a Phormium tenax ‘Chocomint’, very graphic, chocolate-striated with green, a hardy banana plant such as Musa ‘Basjoo’ for the verdant splash, a Colocasia ‘Kona Coffee’ almost black, which will be considered only if the soil stays cool enough in summer. Two Antipodean plants, Coprosma ‘Evening Glow’, compact, with small variegated leaves changing colour through the months, and Leptospermum ‘Nanum Tui’, which will be cloaked in pale pink flowers in spring and will, year-round, also retain its bronze foliage, will complete this ambience from elsewhere. In favoured regions, you may dare to include a Strelitzia augusta ‘Alba’ or a Strelitzia Nicolai, sculptural, for summer flowering.

We can tuck in here and there as groundcover a few perennials with tender, anise-green leaves like Heuchera ‘Green Ivory’, whose small white flowers in early summer will add a great deal of lightness, or hostas with large leaves such as ‘Wu La La’, blue-green with lime-green margins to emphasise the luxuriant effect.

Phormium ‘Chocomint’, Leptospermum, banana plant, Colocasia ‘Kona Coffee’, Strelitzia ‘Nicolai’ and Coprosma ‘Evening Glow’.

Cappuccino: beautiful foliage and Iris

There’s a beautiful palette of foliage that evokes caramel-brown tones, nuanced with vanilla and hazelnut: a very indulgent cappuccino for our inspiration! They are also often changeable, promising a lovely spring surprise when they unfurl their fresh shoots, and in autumn, when they again surprise. So here is a shrub border that will be based on the extraordinary foliage of two or three fine bushes.

Here, it is a Staphylea colchica ‘Black Beauty’ that dominates the border with its chocolate-coloured foliage, accompanied by a caramel tree, chosen for its spectacular colouring in spring and autumn, and a purple-leaved Weigela for a lovely spring flowering that complements the Staphylea. At their base, plant a substantial mass of Carex ‘Comans Bronze’, and a few irises chosen in their two-tone colours such as the Iris ‘Coffee Whisper’, the Iris ‘Coffee Trader’ or the Iris ‘Burnt Toffee’ paired with apricot irises.

To bring some colour back to this border once all the flowering has passed, sow in spring a few California poppy seeds or, in milder climates, plant a few Cyrtanthus falcatus bulbs, magnificent amaryllises.

Staphylea ‘Black Beauty’, Iris ‘Coffee Whisper’, Carex ‘Comans Bronze’, Cercidiphyllum japonicum, Iris ‘Cinnamon’ and Weigela

Frappé coffee: freshness and originality in the shade.

Among the enveloping coffee-coloured tones worn by some plants, many appreciate the freshness of borders shaded or semi-shaded by a shrub cover. There is very handsome foliage, ranging from bronze to chocolate, on which to rely. In this low-light exposure, they should be paired with a few pale flowering displays, from white and yellow to orange or pink, to avoid darkening the whole. These few flowering accents will bring in the light needed and create a beautiful harmony in the shade.

On the foliage side, an Acer palmatum ‘Mystic Jewel’ with foliage blending violet and purple, or the striking ‘Manyo No Sato’, brown-purple and lime-green, will be the main plant, planted in acidic soil and in partial shade. All the other plants in this scene are selected for their originality and the beauty of their laminae, like the Podophyllum ‘Spotty dotty’, spattered with brown spots, or the Cyrtomium fortunei var. Clivicola, forming over the years a superb fern with pale tones.

In this example, a handsome mass of Rodgersia pinnata (‘Irish Bronze’ or ‘Dark Pokers’ for its mid-tone leaves) brightens the border with its white or pink flowering for many weeks in summer. Just like Digitalis ‘Stutton’s Apricot’ which will stand out with its apricot-coloured flower spikes. In the flowering, add the very beautiful hydrangea hydrangea ‘Miss Saori’ with double-moss blooms, enchanting, white and pink, with purple-tinged leaves evolving in response to those of the Japanese maple. A few Impatiens tinctoria will also thrive in this semi-shaded context, revealing their graceful white flowering.

Actaea could also join them, such as Cimicifuga Cimicifuga ‘Carbonella’, a pistachio-coloured Heuchera or an Astilbe arendsii ‘Cappuccino’.

Rodgersia, Acer palmatum, Balsamina tinctoria, Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Miss Saori’, Cyrtomium fortunei var. Clivicola, Digitalis ‘Stutton’s Apricot’, and Podophyllum ‘Spotty Dotty’.

Moka: a golden rockery

In a rock garden or dry garden, coffee-coloured tones also look striking! This is, of course, a very sunny scene, in a climate that is fairly mild if you include a few cacti. There is scope for a multitude of plants whose foliage nods to the boldness of coffee, with blooms in pastel tones to harmoniously balance this chromatic intensity.

Think of succulents, graphic as you please, such as Mangave ‘Spotty Dotty’ and its pretty leaves speckled brown, and Graptosedum ‘Bronze’, contrasting its tiny leaves with a velvety bronze that is very soft, washed with green. A few Aeoniums, green or purple to black, are replaced in less-favoured areas by a handsome agave that stands up to the cold, such as Agave ovatifolia, bluish-green, which will add to the dry rockery.

By drawing from the lovely blooms that flourish in dry soil from spring to autumn and tolerate drought well, the overall effect is enhanced in a pretty way: low-growing flowers such as Pulsatilla vulgaris violet or blue Iris pumila; a few Iris pumila ‘Volts’ delightful, bringing a touch of apricot and lavender; Eremurus ‘Cleopatra’ with their enormous orange flower spikes for verticality; blue Echiums (in a mild climate) for the spring period; Sedum ‘Matrona’ for the end of summer…

Complete on large swathes with a few spreading shrubs such as purple Berberis, for example Berberis ‘Atropurpurea Nana’, or an arborescent heath such as Corsican heath to add a long pale-pink summer flowering and a handsome presence.

Sedum ‘Matrona’, Eremurus ‘Cleopatra’, Graptosedum ‘Bronze’, Iris pumila, Mangave ‘Spotty Dotty’, Pulsatilla vulgaris with plume-like flowers in seed-head, and Aeonium green.