Five Ways to Add Bold Color to Your Garden

An Artist's Canvas on a Shady Hillside

Diana Stratton's Healdsburg garden bursts with color inspired by childhood memories of Morocco. A once-white greenhouse is now cobalt blue with chartreuse trim; red and salmon pink roses grow beside it. The garden is a visual feast of bold, bright palettes.

5 Color Strategies

1. Use paint chips or a favorite object to select a palette; mirror those colors in flowers, paint, furnishings.
2. Use high-energy colors (red, orange) sparingly; soothing colors (green, purple) more extensively.
3. Choose different tones of one color (lime, forest, apple green) and repeat throughout.
4. Scatter vivid furnishings, flowers, pots as focal points.
5. Paint a wall, trellis, shed, or bench in bright colors—you can always repaint.