Summer Color

Using annuals is a fun way to experiment with color design. Each year parts of your garden can be changed to demonstrate color effects; if it's not as successful an experiment as you'd hoped, you can try something totally different the next year. An asset of annuals is the constant bloomtime, averting the missed effects that perennials are subject to.
The possibilities can be related to interior color schemes: pastel harmonies of primrose yellow, icy pinks, sky blues, and soft whites; the neutrals of cream, white, and silver; the jewel colortones of deep amethyst, garnet, sapphire, ruby, and citrine; simple schemes of red/white, blue/yellow/ivory, green/white, blue/white,...you choose! Then find your flowers and plant away.

Some of my favorite combinations, especially for containers, are what I term "grandma garden" colors: deep true purple, bright yellow, bright red, and pure orange. The trick to making this look good is to keep the colors in the high saturation range. Don't water it down with pastels or blues and off-purples. Of course, a huge overflow of one plant variety in a single color is a gorgeous presence, too! Hopefully this jolts your imagination into creating your own garden masterpiece. Annuals are ideal for experimentation, check out the annual plant list page for individual variety choices.


I've always liked a tighter color scheme, with a limited palette, for an entry way. It is welcoming without being distracting. Also, it can provide a nice background to showcase the container plants, flower boxes, or hanging plants that often accentuate a front porch. My favorite color scheme one year was primarily blues: blue petunias, lobelias, ageratum, with white alyssum around the edges. A salmon pink, white and blue combination with salmon and white geraniums, and blue ageratum and lobelia was extremely good in front of evergreens and flanking a stair. Now, with containers, almost any colors can be used ...because if you don't like the way it looks, just move or repot the container!

Color Schemes

Grandma's Garden

Purple heliotrope, purple pansy, yellow marigold (tagetes), orange calendula (the English "marigolds"), bright red geranium or red salvia, dahlberg daisies. Some bright white marguerites or allyssum thrown in and make it sparkle; this combination is made for Midwestern sunshine! Zinnias in the right colors work in this garden,too.

Fairyland Mists

Pink and white cosmos, gypsophilia, nigella, candytuft, "Mother of Pearl" Shirley poppies, ageratum, lobelias, cream zinnias, lavender and pink petunias (Chiffon Morn is a dreamy color), pink and white dianthus, pink and white nicotiana, and mixed annual asters. Spikes of pink hollyhocks, blue salvia, and carpets of allyssum and violas,belong here as well.

Monet's Kitchen

'Heavenly Blue' morning glories, 'Blue Ensign' convolvulous, dahlberg daisies, white marguerites, blue salvia 'Victoria', yellow and blue petunias, primrose yellow hollyhocks, and lavatera 'Mont Blanc'.

A descriptive list of flower choices.|MORE on Garden color