rainbow garden -- red

I had a request for more information about our Rainbow Garden. (Yipee, I've been wanting to talk about it!) This is the flower garden in the children's play yard, and is planted along the front edge (towards the front yard) starting with a section of red flowers and plants (the first in the row is a medium-sized Japanese maple tree -- which has red leaves -- which is out of this photo to the left, you can see some of it's shade), then a section of orange, then yellow, then just greenery in the corner (at the far right side of this photo).


Around that corner is a gate, and beyond it and towards the house is a section of blue, and then a section of purple.

I started the garden several years ago, and it's just starting to really take off this year -- I've finally got colors blooming in each section during all 3 seasons (these first two photos were taken in May, and my gardens area almost always in desperate need of a weeding...).

Since we are on "vacation" this week (although we're not actually going anywhere, it's more of a "staycation"), I thought it would be fun to showcase some of the plants in each section, taking a color a day. Here's a few of my "red" plants -- it's a section that needs more work, I'm having problems finding red plants that can tolerate the partial to deep shade the maple provides in that section of the garden. If anyone has any suggestions of shade-tolerant red plants, feel free to leave me an idea in the comments! Meanwhile, enjoy a couple of azaleas from earlier this spring, and a festive Gaillardia which has been blooming like gangbusters ever since then: