Bold Colors for Your Flower Garden

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.

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

• Pair 'Royal Purple' smokebush 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.

The Magic of Magenta

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