an armistice with Orange

ONE DESIGNER'S TRUCE WITH AN AGE-OLD NEMESIS

- Victor Lazzari

my very first copy of Horticulture was the January 1997 issue, when I was just 15 years old and living with my parents in suburban Maryland. As with most magazines, the cover was what grabbed my attention. Over an elegant cascade of reddish-purple roses-Rosa gallica 'Rosa Mundi', if memory serves-ran the intriguing and, for me, quite literally page-turning headline: "How to Handle Magenta." 

This article, written by the wonderful and sadly departed Wayne Winterrowd, marked a turning point in my life, for this was when I first learned that flower colors were not mere abstract "things" (e.g. red roses or yellow daffodils). They were also tools, tools that could be used deftly, clumsily or nails-on-a-chalkboard painfully.