In sunny California, every Sherman Oaks home needs beautiful outdoor living. Landscaping and hardscaping can create different rooms, expanding your livable space. When designing these outdoor spaces, you must ensure their aesthetic matches or compliments your home’s interior decorating. In addition to furniture, features, and planting, you must have charming garden color palettes to accentuate your space and highlight key features.
5 Charming Garden Color Palettes
1. Southwest Desert
Southwestern decor centers around rich natural colors based on traditional Native American styles and hues. It takes inspiration from the land itself with warm browns, sandy tans, and sun-soaked adobe homes. Terra-cotta roof tiles complement the earthy colors, with cool grays and greens used sparingly for contrast. These garden color palettes typically match well with drought-tolerant landscaping, playing on the few features of water conservation and dismissing excessive planting.
2. Northern Beach Vibes
There is always something calming about the ocean. The chilly breezes and gentle sun of the northern oceans inspire respite and relaxation. They combine earthy tones with the coolness of the climate, slate blue, light olives, gray greens, beiges, and navy. These shades accented with the purest white can leave your home feeling like a Cape Cod cottage!
3. Sleek and Modern
If your home has contemporary architecture, your garden color palettes must match. When you have strong, simple, angular lines, pick contrasting neutrals. Use natural elements such as deep natural wood, dark grays and blacks, and stark whites and light grays for variety and intentional incongruity. If you do want to add a pop of color to draw the eye, reds and blues are excellent choices that will fit into most modern designs.
4. Southern Shores Style
Think of the bright southern sun and heat! Start with beachy neutrals, tans, and whites, and don’t forget to add some vibrant accents – it is all in the details! A bright blue, a banana yellow, or stunning clay color can be the perfect addition to make your doors, fences, or columns pop and give the feeling of a plantation-style home. Add in some comfy furniture with decorative pillows featuring these colors, and you will have the perfect storm for southern comfort.
5. Simple and Neutral
Neutrals are classic and will never go out of style. Build a color palette around nature, and the landscaping will never feel outdated. Using earth tones such as subdued browns, off-whites, cream, and tans is a great starting point. If you want to spice things up, try colorful accents that you can change as trends change, always keeping your style up to date.
Why is color important to landscape design?
Imagine that you looked out into your outdoor space, and it was one boring color. Would you be incentivized to go outside? Unlikely! Color brings life and excitement to an outdoor space, accenting key elements of a design while blending the rest of the space together. Additionally, proper color design can attract wildlife, improve mood, and devise a staggered planting strategy to ensure a beautiful space no matter the season.
How do I choose a landscape color?
We recommend using your existing space as the foundation of the garden color palettes. You likely already have an existing structure, immovable furniture, and live plants that can narrow your options. However, if you are starting from scratch and are struggling to envision what your outdoor space should look like, we advise thinking instead of the emotional response you wish it to invoke in you and your guests. For more information on the science behind color theory in landscaping, click HERE.
What colors go well together in a garden?
When designing garden color palettes, you want a complimentary pair of colors as your base that mix well together and highlight the space around them. For example, here are a few of our favorite color combinations:
- yellow and purple
- white and green
- pink and blue
- red and yellow
Other fun colors combination gardeners utilize include yellow and blue, orange and purple, white and blue, blue and purple, as well as red, white, and blue for a patriotic display!
What colorful plants can I use in my design?
The world is full of vibrant, stunning plants that can add a pop of color to any landscape design. Blue tango, walking iris, tiger flower, and bird-of-paradise are some of our favorites. The main reality one must keep in mind when choosing plants for their garden is how they will grow. Every gardener must research and determine what plants will best grow in their area; sticking to native plants is often the best option unless you are willing to constantly baby a plant or you have a greenhouse in your backyard.
What colorful plants are native to Southern California?
Southern California offers residents a wide array of beautiful plant life due to its moderate climate, with the only caveat being long, dry summers. To give your SoCal garden color palettes a pop of color, we recommend utilizing Beardtongue, California Fushia, California Poppies, Douglas Iris, and Bush Monkey Flower. For those that wish to highlight their gardens with pops of white, we recommend speaking to your landscaper about Bush anemones, Buckwheat, Coulter’s Matilija poppy, and even Common yarrow.
Design Scapes – Create Your Outdoor Paradise
Your backyard is a reflection of your personality, wants, and needs. When you step into your space, you want your garden color palettes to induce excitement and relaxation, allowing you to center back into nature while creating gorgeous memories of your time spent outside. Together, we can create a beautiful outdoor space that embodies your desired style and color palettes. To learn more about our design process, visit our website.
