Tuesday 29 April 2014

Y is for Yellow!

Aquilegia - Golden Queen

The colour of sunshine and so many Spring flowers, yellow has a feeling of life to it. I'm not a great colour theorist or into auras or whatever but seeing a field full of yellow rapeseed or a garden full of daffodils and forsythia bushes in full spring bloom always makes me smile.

It's a cheerful colour - think sunflowers, buttercups and primroses, rudbeckias and of course, the classic yellow rose - all lighten and brighten any room or section of the garden and give a happy corner full of colour.

Rudbeckia
But it's also a gender neutral colour - not taken over by marketing executives. Paint a room with a pale yellow and you'll always have a sunny room - even in the winter, you can almost 'feel' the warmth of the colour! Ideal for a nursery if you want to get the decorating done before you know what sex your baby is going to be and also ideal for any grandmas or aunties who want to knit for the baby!

My kitchen used to be painted a pale, pale yellow and was north facing but it never felt cold or dark. I added bright splashes of red and green using herb pots on the windowsill and a chopping board with red poppies on it. I loved my kitchen even if it was pretty small! Talking of kitchens - some of my favorite foods are yellow too - bananas, eggs, lemons and that good old British favorite - custard! You just can't beat a nice apple crumble and custard for pudding!

Auricula
Culturally, yellow represents happiness, glory and wisdom in China. In English, words to describe light are often used to describe intelligence too - think 'bright' or 'brilliant'. In science, gold has the chemical symbol Au which comes from aurum, golden being another version of yellow.

When you think of yellow - what's the first thing that comes to your mind? For me it's a child's drawing of the sun in their sky - almost always oversized because that's the way they see it.

I had no shortage of yellow flower photos to show you - my albums are full of them which isn't surprising as apparently, it's one of the most prevalent colours for flowers due to their visibilty from a distance and it's attractiveness to insects. I can attest to how much insects like yellow - I had a yellow car once - never again! With all the bugs swarming it on a warm summer's day, it was hard to leave a window open for some air without inviting half a zoo of insects in too!


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