Crimson
#DC143C
Navy
#001F5B
Lavender
#B57EDC
Crimson & Navy & Lavender
Crimson, Navy and Lavender Color Trio — Meaning, Palette, Style & Design
Split-ComplementaryCrimson, Navy and Lavender Color Meaning
Navy (very deep, dark — the deep shadow cast by English yew topiary and the darkest box hedges) and Lavender (pale, medium purple — the English lavender — Lavandula angustifolia — of the most celebrated English cottage and walled garden tradition) create the most specifically English garden and the most botanically traditional cool pair — the formal hedge and the fragrant lavender. Against Crimson's passionate climbing rose warm, this creates the most quintessentially English walled garden palette.
The palette is the visual world of the English walled garden — the most celebrated and the most internationally influential garden tradition in the world (the English garden — particularly the Arts and Crafts-influenced country house garden tradition of the late 19th and early 20th centuries — associated most powerfully with the partnership of garden designer Gertrude Jekyll and architect Edwin Lutyens — the most important and the most enduringly influential collaboration in English garden history). The English walled garden palette: the deep vivid crimson of the climbing rose (the characteristic vivid crimson of Rosa 'Crimson Glory' or Rosa 'Tuscany Superb' — the most dramatic of the English climbing and pillar roses — trained against the south-facing warm stone wall of the traditional English walled garden — producing the most immediately beautiful and the most evocatively English summer garden color combination); the very deep dark navy of the English topiary (the specific very deep, almost absolute dark blue-black of the mature English yew — Taxus baccata — topiary in deep shadow — the most immediately formal and the most architecturally imposing element of the English formal garden); and the pale medium lavender of English garden lavender (the specific pale medium purple of Lavandula angustifolia — English lavender — 'Hidcote' or 'Munstead' — the two most planted cultivars in English cottage gardens — blooming from June through August with the most characteristic pale medium lavender flowers and the most intensely aromatic fragrance of any hardy garden plant).
Crimson, Navy and Lavender in Design
Deep passionate Crimson, very deep dark Navy, and pale medium Lavender create the most English walled garden and most botanically traditional split-complementary palette. English walled garden palette — passionate crimson English climbing-rose Rosa-Crimson-Glory warm-stone-wall, very deep dark navy English yew-topiary shadow formal hedge, and pale medium lavender English Lavandula-angustifolia Hidcote-Munstead cottage-garden.
Crimson, Navy and Lavender Color Style
English walled garden and Arts-and-Crafts botanical tradition — deep Crimson passionate English-climbing-rose Rosa-Crimson-Glory, very deep dark Navy English-yew-topiary-shadow-formal, and pale medium Lavender English-lavender-Lavandula-angustifolia Hidcote-Munstead. The palette of the most internationally celebrated English garden tradition and the most enduringly influential English botanical aesthetic.
What Crimson, Navy and Lavender Mean Together
Crimson is the English climbing rose — the deep vivid crimson of the most traditional English wall rose. Rosa in English gardens: the rose (Rosa — the most culturally significant genus of flowering plants in Western civilization — the national flower of England since the 15th-century Wars of the Roses — the symbol of the Tudor dynasty — the most widely cultivated ornamental plant in the world) has been the central and the most non-negotiable element of the English garden since the medieval period. The climbing rose tradition: the most characteristic application of roses in the English walled garden is as climbers and ramblers trained against the south-facing warm brick or stone walls — the specific combination of the most vivid crimson-to-scarlet rose flowers against the warm honey-to-pink brick wall being the most immediately beautiful and the most classically English summer garden color combination. Gertrude Jekyll: the most important single figure in the English cottage garden and Arts-and-Crafts garden tradition — Gertrude Jekyll (November 29, 1843 – December 8, 1932 — the most influential English garden designer and the most extensively published garden writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries) designed approximately 400 gardens, of which Hestercombe (Somerset — in collaboration with Edwin Lutyens — 1906-1909 — now meticulously restored) is the most perfectly preserved. Jekyll's color theory: Jekyll developed the most sophisticated and the most systematically considered color theory in the history of English garden design — grouping plants by color into the most deliberately composed and the most painterly border arrangements — with the most typical progression from the most vivid crimson-to-scarlet reds at the center of the longest border through orange, yellow, white, blue-lavender, and back to crimson at the other end — creating the most color-theoretically sophisticated and the most visually harmonious planting scheme in English garden history. Navy is the topiary — the very deep dark navy of the English yew topiary hedge. English yew topiary: the English yew (Taxus baccata — the most important topiary plant in the English formal garden tradition — used in the most elaborate topiary gardens for more than 400 years) is the most architecturally versatile and the most formally impressive of all topiary subjects — capable of being clipped into the most precise geometric forms (balls, cones, spirals, peacocks, chess pieces) and maintained at the most exact dimensions for centuries — some of the oldest English topiary specimens at Levens Hall (Cumbria — the most complete surviving 17th-century topiary garden in England — laid out approximately 1694) are more than 300 years old. The dark shadow: the most immediately striking visual characteristic of mature English yew topiary is the specific very deep, almost absolute dark blue-black of the dense, fine-needled yew foliage in deep shadow — a darkness so complete that it creates the most dramatically effective backdrop for the most vivid flower colors. Lavender is the English lavender — the pale medium lavender of Lavandula angustifolia. English lavender tradition: Lavandula angustifolia (true English lavender — the most fragrant and the most cold-hardy of the cultivated lavender species — native to the dry rocky hillsides of the Mediterranean but naturalized in the English climate since the medieval period) is the most universally planted and the most immediately recognizable fragrant herb in the English cottage garden. The most famous English lavender cultivars: 'Hidcote' (named for Hidcote Manor Garden — the most celebrated English garden of the 20th century — created by the American horticulturist Lawrence Johnston between approximately 1907 and 1948 — now a National Trust garden — 'Hidcote' lavender is the most widely planted lavender cultivar in England) and 'Munstead' (named for Gertrude Jekyll's home garden at Munstead Wood, Surrey — the most famous English gardener's own garden — 'Munstead' lavender is the most fragrant of the common garden lavenders, with the most pronouncedly sweet and the most complex aromatic profile).
Crimson, Navy and Lavender in Branding
English walled garden and Arts-and-Crafts botanical tradition brands with the most botanically traditional split-complementary palette, English garden heritage and British botanical brands with the walled garden aesthetic, premium luxury English garden and British botanical heritage brands with crimson-navy-lavender vocabulary, luxury England garden tourism and country house brands, and any brand communicating passionate crimson English-climbing-rose, very deep dark navy yew-topiary-shadow, and pale medium lavender English-lavender — use Crimson-Navy-Lavender.
Brands
Industries
Crimson, Navy and Lavender in Fashion & Interior
In fashion, Crimson-Navy-Lavender is the English walled garden palette — deep Crimson passionate English-climbing-rose, very deep dark Navy yew-topiary-shadow, and pale medium Lavender Lavandula-angustifolia-Hidcote. In English-garden-inspired interiors, Lavender as the dominant pale medium botanical cool anchor, Navy for the very deep formal cool secondary, and Crimson for the passionate rose warm jewel.
Crimson, Navy & Lavender — Each Color Separately
Crimson
#DC143C
Deep vivid red — the English climbing rose in the most walled garden tradition trio.
Explore Crimson →Navy
#001F5B
Very deep dark blue — the English walled garden yew topiary shadow, deepest cool.
Explore Navy →Lavender
#B57EDC
Pale medium purple — English lavender Hidcote hedge, the most cottage botanical cool.
Explore Lavender →Crimson, Navy and Lavender — FAQ
- Do Crimson, Navy and Lavender work together?
- Yes — most botanically traditional English split-complementary: Navy very deep dark yew-topiary and Lavender pale medium English-lavender are the most specifically English garden cool pair (the formal architectural hedge and the fragrant botanical), Crimson passionate climbing-rose the most romantically floriferous warm. English walled garden: Crimson rose passionate, Navy topiary very deep, Lavender English-lavender pale medium.
- What is the English walled garden tradition?
- The English walled garden (the kitchen garden or physic garden enclosed by brick or stone walls — the most important and the most systematically productive garden type in the English country house tradition — dating from approximately the 17th century and reaching its most elaborate and most productive form in the 18th and 19th centuries) was originally designed to: (1) Extend the growing season by trapping heat in the masonry walls (particularly the south-facing walls — whose absorbed solar heat raised the immediate air temperature by approximately 3-5°C — allowing the most tender fruit trees — peaches, nectarines, apricots — to ripen against the most sun-exposed wall faces); (2) Protect tender plants from the most damaging winds (the enclosing walls creating a microclimate dramatically more sheltered than the open garden); (3) Exclude garden pests (deer, rabbits, hares); (4) Organize the most systematically productive vegetable and fruit production for the country house kitchen. The most celebrated walled gardens: (1) Powis Castle (Welshpool, Wales — the most dramatically preserved and the most botanically rich of all British walled gardens — with the most extraordinary lead statuary, the most elaborate yew hedges, and the most dramatic terraced formal garden design); (2) Sissinghurst Castle Garden (Kent — the most internationally famous of all 20th-century English gardens — created by Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson from 1930 — now a National Trust garden receiving approximately 200,000 visitors per year — the most influential single garden in the development of the English cottage garden style); (3) Great Dixter (East Sussex — created by Christopher Lloyd — the most opinionated and the most botanically adventurous English garden writer of the 20th century — the most dynamically planted and the most continuously evolving of all the major English gardens).
- Who was Gertrude Jekyll and what was her influence on garden design?
- Gertrude Jekyll (November 29, 1843, London – December 8, 1932, Munstead, Surrey — at age 89) was the most influential English garden designer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the most extensively published garden writer in British horticultural history — with 15 books, approximately 2,000 articles in the most important British gardening publications, and approximately 400 garden designs to her credit. Early career: Jekyll trained as an artist (studying at the South Kensington School of Art — the most important Victorian art school — the direct ancestor of the Royal College of Art) and was profoundly influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement (particularly by William Morris — whose insistence on the most honest use of traditional craft materials and the most organically regional design vocabulary was directly translated by Jekyll into the most botanically honest and the most regionally specific garden design). The Lutyens partnership: Jekyll's most productive and the most architecturally distinguished collaboration was with the architect Edwin Lutyens (Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens — 1869-1944 — the most important English architect of the Arts-and-Crafts tradition — later the designer of the Viceroy's House in New Delhi — the most impressive English Classicist building in India). Jekyll designed approximately 100 gardens for Lutyens buildings — the most celebrated being Hestercombe (Somerset), Munstead Wood (Surrey — Jekyll's own garden), and Orchards (Surrey). The color border: Jekyll's most important single design innovation was the herbaceous color border — the most systematically organized and the most painterly large-scale planting of perennials, bulbs, and annuals in a specific color progression — at Munstead Wood, her home garden in Surrey (now a National Trust property, but not open to the public), Jekyll developed the most extensively and the most laboriously thought-through 200-foot herbaceous border — a continuous planting that progressed from warm crimson-to-scarlet reds through orange-yellows through white to cool blue-lavenders and back to warm crimson — creating the most color-theoretically sophisticated and the most visually harmonious garden planting in English history.
- What is the significance of the English rose in British culture?
- The rose (Rosa — from Latin: rosa — from Ancient Greek: ῥόδον — rhodon — from Old Iranian: wrda — the most ancient and the most universally cultivated ornamental plant in Western civilization — cultivated for more than 5,000 years in the Middle East, the Mediterranean, China, and Europe) has the most comprehensively rich and the most deeply embedded cultural significance in English tradition of any plant in British botany. The Tudor rose: the most immediately politically significant English use of the rose is the Tudor rose (the stylized five-petaled heraldic rose combining the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster — the two competing royal dynasties of the Wars of the Roses — 1455-1487 CE — whose bloody conflict for the English throne was the most dynastic and the most destructive civil conflict of medieval England) — adopted as the personal badge of Henry VII (the founder of the Tudor dynasty — 1485-1509 CE) as the most immediately symbolic combination of the two warring houses. The national flower: the rose was declared the national flower of England in 1986 — though its symbolic association with England is far older — the specific crimson of the red rose of Lancaster (a garden rose — probably Rosa gallica var. officinalis — the Apothecary's Rose — the most historically documented medieval English garden rose) was the most specifically and the most permanently English floral color long before the formal declaration. Shakespeare and the rose: the rose appears more frequently than any other plant in the works of William Shakespeare — in approximately 70 of the 37 Shakespeare plays — most famously in A Midsummer Night's Dream ('I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine') and in Romeo and Juliet ('What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet').
- What proportion creates the most English walled garden quality?
- Lavender dominant (45%) as the pale medium English-lavender botanical cool anchor; Navy at 35% as the very deep dark yew-topiary formal cool secondary; Crimson at 20% as the passionate climbing-rose warm jewel. Lavender's dominance creates the English walled garden quality — the vast, pale medium lavender of the English lavender border (typically planted along the most prominent path edges and at the base of the most important walls in the traditional English walled garden — the most characteristic and the most immediately fragrant element of the English garden in summer) is the single most botanically aromatic and the most immediately 'English garden' color element — the specific pale medium purple of the Hidcote or Munstead lavender at peak bloom creates the most instantly recognizable and the most universally beloved English garden sensory experience (the combination of the most pale medium purple color and the most intensely sweet lavender fragrance being the most immediately and the most comprehensively English garden evocation); Navy's very deep yew topiary provides the most formally architectural and the most dramatically contrasting cool secondary; and Crimson's passionate climbing rose provides the most romantically floriferous and the most classically English warm accent.