The garden can be an exuberant explosion of color, a refined garden of pink and lavender or a cool garden in shades of green. This is known as harmony, when everything in the garden supports one mood, even if the mood is not one that most people think of as harmonious. Unity is similar to harmony, because in order to have a unified garden, most of the elements in the garden should harmonize with each other, but unity can also include contrast. Too much contrast will destroy unity, but a garden without contrast will probably be dull. If you orchestrate the garden s moods, it is possible for a unified garden to have more than one mood.
Colors affect moods in humans.
The color wheel is divided in half. One half of the wheel is cool, the other is warm. The warm colors, such as red and orange, have a stimulating effect. Some gardeners place their hot border on one side of a path, and their cool border opposite the hot border. While this may make sense from a colorist s point of view, if you want to orchestrate moods in your garden s visitors, it is probably best to have the visitors move from a hot garden to a cool garden, or vice-versa.