basil and rose of sharon: They sort of mimicked each other's upright form.

Four O'Clock's and hydrangea:

Catanache (Cupid's Dart) and a wine red Yarrow.

2 re-seeding annuals - Nigella & lavender Candytuft.

White evergreen Candytuft under upright Rosemary.

Tulipa chrysantha and Rosa 'Sutters Gold'. The red in the young rose leaves really partnered well with the tulip's coloration.

Another one is Ajuga pyramidalis 'Metallica Crispa' and Carex 'Frosty Curls' Total opposites that show each other off nicely.

I have jpeg images of the combos mentioned at the beginning of this message. E-mail me if you want to see them.
Alan

'Blueberry Sorbet' violas and Black Mondo grass. The cooler the temps, the deeper the blue/purple of the viola becomes, and is foiled perfectly with the slightly purple-black of the Mondo. I've also paired the same 'grass' with pink hardy cyclamen. The richness of that black combines beautifully, and the attractive patterns of the cyclamen's foliage make a nice contrast.

Yellow dwarf marigolds surrounding mailbox pole with purple and pink morning glories growing up it. Super easy from seed too.

Hot pink impatiens with the green and pink coleus...slugs loved them too, unfortunately.

Mosther in laws tongue/sansevieria and white sweet alyssum.

ground hugging rosemary and dragon's blood sedum growing through one another. I love the needle and round leaves together, all the changing colors, dark green rosmary, blood red to green sedum and the powder blue flowers, then the tall red ones. I prune the rosemary to keep it flat and balance the openings for the sedum. Has been carefree and great fun!

Filling in a new perennial bed with annuals I got a lovely corner of appleblossom petunia, apricot calendula and purple cerinthe - heights and colours did really well together.

Stella d'Oro day lily with Salvia 'plumosa.' Beautiful and long lasting display....and just as I was ready to replace Stella for the softer yellow of 'Happy Returns.'

Sedum spectable 'Autumn Joy' and california poppies. The poppies reseeded themselves amongst the plant.

Where I got Arum Italicum's from I don't know, but they started coming up in my ivy. Fairly deep shade, they just pop right up. Nice color, white flowers in the spring, red/greed stalks about now.

Artemesia 'Powis Castle' and Perennial Ageratum (Eupatorium coelestinum). The silvery feathery leaves of the artemesia and the true-blue of the fluffy ageratum flowers were beautiful together, and it wasn't even planned!

Crinum bulbispermium and white penstemons - ethereal!

gold & green varigated euonomous and salvia (dark purple flowers)

What a great post. It reminds us that for all our planning and fussing about in the garden, nature and accident can yield beautiful results.

This year , my favourite spot is where Nepeta, Himalayan Poppies, lambs ear, and gallardia all combined togeter in a riot of colour, confusion and controlled chaos!

One of my neatnik friends thought it was a mess....to each his own I say!

Artemesia 'Powis Castle' with pineleaf penstemon - the orange red penstemon flowers against the soft blue-green of the artemesia really softens the bright color of the penstemon and "pops" against the soft foliage of the artemesia!

Blue myosotis seeded itself into my tradescantia. The FMN's started blooming about a month before the spiderwort and kept blooming for a couple weeks after the spiderwort started. It looked like the spiderwort foliage was making 2 kinds of flowers.

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orange turk's cap lillies growing up through a bed of old blue seersucker hostas

the chartreuse-leaved spiderwort I bought, and the striped (white/green chartreuse) hostas I rescued from a neighbor who'd dug them up and thrown them out in the street for the trash men

moonflowers growing up black hollyhocks.

My most favorite combo ever is pole beans and morning glories planted on tee-pees surrounded by marigolds. I get vigorous growth, few bugs, and no rabbits!

Here is a link that might be useful: heres a pic

Great inspiration! Please, everyone, post pictures. That said, I have no pictures of my favorite accidental combination. It happened this spring, when I wasn't able to work in the garden for awhile. Things just grew there. Some chartreuse green leaf lettuce had reseeded itself in a large patch. Right next to that, my dark purple irises bloomed. Behind that, a kale plant and two turnip plants had gone to seed (airy sprays of pale yellow). It was beautiful. Am I strange for thinking so? LOL

hi all, just popping in

i have lavendar munstead beside a tickseed coreopsis, with pink dianthus in front beside a chartreus green spirea gold mound. looked wonderful!

Friz

Giant Allium and Heliopsis Summer Sun. I didn't have any idea that they would bloom together.

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here's the spirea and dianthus combo that i thought looked great this year.

Friz

Here is a link that might be useful: Spirea and dianthus

During 2003 I made lasagne beds, and was able to enjoy good soil for the first time in many years. I had started many plants from seed, and I needed to plunk them in somewhere. One of the accidental combinations was a knockout: orange calendula, 'Blue Bedder' salvia, and 'Zing Rose' dianthus (magenta flowers) that bloomed its first year from seed. Yes, these are rather common, but each color was so saturated, they balanced each other perfectly.

I plunked two delicate plants on the east side of the house to give them protection from the wind. One was perennial blue flax and the other 'Crimsonia' dianthus, which despite its name and the picture on the seed packet, turned out to be a pale pink. (Other people have had the same wrong-color experience.) The frilled flowers of the dianthus looked very nice next to the feathery foliage and blue flowers of the flax. I'm actually quite pleased that the dianthus turned out to be pink and not red. Another accidental combination that turned out very nicely.

Buddleia 'Black Knight' and rudebeckia; just had a pot of each next to each other and looked and...hey... added Salvia 'May Night' to the party too...

Okay everyone, My surprise combo is better than any of yours! Just kidding!!!

I grew Solar Flare Cosmos (Crimson Orange) in a pot and nonchalantly placed it by my (Hot Pink) Salvia Greggi. I passed by it one day in the fall and had an eww ahhh moment! :) This year I'm planting the same Cosmos in the bed with the Salvia.

Two of my favorites from 2003 were Gladiolus 'Boone' with Hemerocallis 'Mauna Loa' and Hemerocallis 'Happy Returns' with Sedum 'Purple Emperor'. I loved the sorbet violas with ophiopogon, in fact there are so many wonderful ideas in this forum.

I finally decided to take in hand the common garden of our block of flats. The only thing growing there was weeds and stones. I put in some donated (by 2 different people) cuttings of bright tomato red and hot cerise geraniums, and I transferred some blue cornflowers that had overgrown the pots on my balcony. With a daily watering everything flourished, and that red/cerise/blue combination is spectacular over the foliage.

I have a tendency to buy plants without a plan and then have to search frantically for a place where there's room to stick them in. Doing this, I wound up with a blue caryopteris, a pink hibiscus called Turn of the Century, and a Happy Returns daylily, which is a soft medium shade of yellow. This is a pretty, cheerful combination that delights me each time I see it.

Jennifer

Two years ago, I planted mixed seedlings of verbenas and short snapdragons in an urn on the porch. It was OK, lots of colors that didn't really match. Then the next summer, seeds of both sprouted and the ones that came up and bloomed were so pretty. Both the verbenas and snaps were white with pale pink centers. They were a perfect match and I enjoyed them until frost. I wish I had saved seeds, but then they might not have turned out that way again since they were hybrids originally.

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I especially liked this combination of liatris and petunias topped off with the lavender above. EP

I like how the texture of these two annuals is similar and the colors complement each other in this combo. I can't take credit, the plants self-sowed in my walkway. Dahlsberg daisy and lobelia.

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Nice pictures!

blanket flower with yellow evening primrose in front. have pictures, but don't know how to post them.
cindy

"Seafoam" landscape roses and Sundial Hybrid Mix portulaca. Lovely!

Lavender and those little orange & yellow (french, i think?) marigolds

thanks for this lovely post!

white lespedeeza (? spelling) (bush clover) and rosa "mrs b r cant." the magenta roses peeping up amid the fountain of white miniature pea like flowers are stunning in the fall. must be god smiling on a newbie gardener!

Mexican bush sage and Duchesse de Brabant rose

Catmint "Six Hills Giant" and Mexican hat

Homestead purple verbena and woolly thyme. The thyme is blooming right now in a lighter shade of violet. Knautia and purple coneflowers with Johnson's blue geranium. Stokes Aster and Daylily fairy Tale Pink.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:591155}}

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Courtesy of Isabel required me to relocate plants from the other side of our house after a tree came down. Because I was dealing with an interior disaster, I really wasn't paying attention to what plants went where. Suz

a Falstaff rose-deep red and a Elsa Spaeth clematis a deep purple- stunning.