Bold Colors for Your Garden

Blossoms of 'Purple Splendour' rhododendron and neon yellow Icelandic poppy form a stunning pair.

Plan your garden's bold color range for the intensity of light in its peak season. For instance, if plantings look their best in high summer, select the brightest colors possible so they won't fade in harsh sunlight. Tone down the color later by editing out plants or adding cooling white or silver plants as fillers among the brighter flowers.

The flower combinations listed below offer a starting point for creating your own bold color garden.

Use bold colors to enliven a scene, but remember to practice a modicum of restraint. Consider these outstanding color matches:

• Pair 'Royal Purple' smoke bush with copper tulips or red Oriental poppies.
• Combine pink 'Silver Cup' Lavatera with orange California poppies.
• Mingle red and gold daylilies, dahlias, and marigolds.
• Pair Rudbeckia "Goldsturm' and Aster x frikartii "Monch". Include lamb's ears as a calming device for the glowing duo.
• Mix summer bulbs: purple alliums and orange foxtail lilies.
• Contrast orange and yellow Calendula with flowering kale.

Two-color gardens.

Daring gardeners savor magenta's good vibrations and discover endless ways to contrast one of the boldest of the bold colors for stunning combinations, such as:

• Magenta coneflower with silver Artemisia
• Hot pink English primrose with chocolate-leaf bergenia
• Magenta cosmos with purplish bronze fennel
• Lime-green Euphorbia with magenta-flower zinnia
• Deep pink roses with cinnamon-hue plume poppy
• Magenta sweet William with burgundy astilbe
• Magenta 'Ann Folkard' geranium with golden orange daylily