Planting for colour-blind people
Posted on 16th March 2025 at 15:21
This blog is more of a “curious” than an “expert” post. I am not colour-blind and the number of people I know who are colour-blind, don’t make up enough people to give any sort of consensus.
However, I do know that this is a topic of interest to many, so I shall share the knowledge I have, including sources, where they are not my own observations. I will start by saying that if you have met one colour-blind person, you have met one colour-blind person. In the same way that autistic people don’t fit into the same homogenous group, neither do colour-blind people. Each of them has their own story to tell, so rule number one, let’s listen to them!
A very typical scenario for a colour-blind person is that they can’t see a difference between red and green. This means that a powerful border full of red flowering plants with green leaves, may not be seen as such by someone colour-blind. They can see the different textures and can recognise the shapes of some of the flowers but can’t see the contrast the border was designed to highlight.
Another, perhaps more subtle, difficulty would be seeing the difference between blue and purple. If they could see the difference between green and blue/ purple, or “blurple” as it’s sometimes known in my family, not seeing which plant has blue flowers and which has purple, may not be such a challenge for a designer, unless the subtle contrast between the blue and purple was important to the overall design.
A key suggestion for designing planting for colour-blind people seems to be to concentrate on those aspects of planting design which often offer a secondary interest when a plant is not in flower. This would include the texture of the leaves (and flowers) and the contrast between textures. You might plant something with a fine, dense texture, next to something with a larger texture or more open habit.
Using seasonal changes in the size or shape of plants may make it more interesting. More herbaceous planting and bulbs will provide interest to those with and without colour-blindness.
Another suggestion is to use plants with contrasting brightness, so perhaps put a bright-leaved Choisya ternata “Sundance” (Mexican Orange Blossom “Sundance”) in front of something with dark leaves, such as Cotinus coggygria “Royal Purple” (Smoke tree “Royal Purple”)
I asked a good friend of mine, who has a degree in landscape design and is colour-blind for their thoughts on planting.
They echoed many of the above ideas but also said that as they know they are colour-blind, they don’t try to design with colour. Instead, they concentrate mainly on texture and brightness. They will also notice things like the “little faces” on pansy flowers and the specific shape of flowers, particularly those which stand out by rising above the mass of leaves, such as Heuchera (Alum root) or Astilbe chinensis (Chinese Astilbe).
Thinking about key aspects of design, he suggested that he would use plants with bright colours (be they leaves of flowers, or both) for focal points in the garden, using other features of plants besides their colour.
If you have experience of planting for or as a colour-blind person, I would encourage you to please get in touch and share your own experience.
References Hilary used for blog research.
Click here - Garden Club Salon
Click here - Strelitzia Garden Design
Click here - North Coast Gardening
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