The Flamboyant Gardenood

The author of A Proper Garden does an about face and leads the charge out of the cool, refined colors of the classic English border into scintillating gardens of ""orange, vermilion, scarlet, and strong yellows."" She describes in chatty prose the development of her own enclosed hot-color garden in upstate New York, where once scorned dahlias, marigolds and salvias blaze in combination with ""gaudy"" cultivars of other common annuals, perennials, vines, shrubs and bulbs. Chock-full of informative tidbits, the text rambles on a tour of bright-blossomed (and leaved) plants that Sheldon has successfully included in her garden. While she consistently hedges her enthusiastic recommendations with second thoughts (an approach that may bewilder beginning gardeners but will entertain veterans who may recognize their own moments of ambivalence and frustration), Sheldon demonstrates how to tame and harmonize hot garden residents with deep purples, burgundy and mahogany and provides appropriate plant lists at the ends of chapters. As the scope of possibilities swells from glowing (""satin blossoms of chocolate cosmos"" backed by perilla's ""smoky, brown-red leaves"") to pyrotechnic (black hollyhocks behind red-orange dahlias and ""flaming daylilies""), Sheldon goes far toward demonstrating that flamboyant need not be tacky, painting a vision to open the most dubious eyes. (Jan.)