Useful Tips

Using Colorful Containers to Add Vibrancy and Richness to Your Garden

Learn how to choose gardening containers, mixing and matching different hues and sizes, to create a unique and beautiful garden display.

Gardening is an exceptional way to add color and vibrancy to your landscape, bringing in different shades through the plants’ foliage and flowers. You can add even more depth and richness to the space by choosing colorful containers. The following information on color and color matching can help you put together a beautiful container display.

Picking a Color Scheme

Obviously, one of the ways to choose garden containers is to simply pick what appeals to you, regardless of how the colors look together. But if you want to have a color scheme, there are multiple ways to go about choosing a color or colors for your garden containers, and none of them are wrong.

  • You can base your selection on the colors of the plants in your garden. Or, you can choose colors based on the overall aesthetic and decor of your home or outdoor living space.
  • Colors can complement one another, or they can be contrasting to create accents.
Understanding the Color Wheel

Before choosing colors, it’s helpful to understand how the different colors are arranged in the color wheel and how they complement or contrast each other. This illustrative tool puts colors according to wavelength and their chromatic relationship to one another:

Combinations of the different colors and their shades are virtually limitless, but the seven color schemes or harmonies described in the next section are commonly used to great appeal.

Eye-Catching Color Combinations

If you’re looking to mix colors and create a vibrant display but are coming up short on ideas, let these bold color-combination ideas inspire you:

  • icon_number_1@3x Red and yellow paired together create an attention-grabbing, bold design. Putting together two powerful primary colors makes a bright, vibrant statement that is captivating.
  • icon_number_2@3x Blue and purple look beautiful in shade or partial-shade gardens since they are both classified as cool colors and next to one another on the color wheel. Mix and match these analogous colors in deep bright shades, softer lighter hues, or a blend of both.
  • icon_number_3@3x For a striking contrast, opt for bright yellow and deep purple, which are complementary on the color wheel, on opposite sides from one another. This stark contrast in colors is pleasing to the eye. Or choose a pale yellow and pastel lavender for a more subdued, softer look.
  • icon_number_4@3x Turquoise, goldenrod, and green draw out the beautiful shades of green in your plants’ foliage while creating an analogous color harmony amongst the containers. Choose from different shades of blue, yellow, and green to play off the natural color of the plants, sun, and sky.
  • icon_number_5@3x Create a bold triad of colors by putting plants with bright green foliage into pink and orange containers. The mix of green, pink, and orange is a vibrant color harmony bringing joy and playfulness to the garden.
  • icon_number_6@3x Mix and match metallic colors like copper with shades of your favorite color. Metals are considered neutral and pair well with every shade and color scheme. They make a great accent, adding an unexpected pop of color that looks luxurious and expensive.
  • icon_number_7@3x Black and white pots are a classic look that never goes out of style. These two colors aren’t on the color wheel because they don’t have specific wavelengths on the visible spectrum like the other colors.
Popular Container Colors

If you’re not interested in choosing bright, vivid colors for your garden, the following five popular colors always create a beautiful aesthetic.

Black

Black adds sleek, modern appeal to the garden, pulling the eye to it as much as a bright, vivid color would. Even among a garden of colorful blooms and green shades of foliage, black containers add sophistication and help ground the space.

White

White is clean and crisp and incredibly versatile. It is a perfect, sleek accent in the garden where foliage and blooms already bring bright, vivid colors to the landscape. White will help balance these out, but it doesn’t blend into the background, so it draws attention to itself and a specific spot in the garden.

Gray

Gray is seen as a neutral color different from white or black. Unlike deep black or bright white, gray tends to cloak busyness or disarray, bringing a calmness to a space. It is often seen as “industrial,” so it adds a beautiful contrast to the earthiness of a garden filled with plants.

Green

Green isn’t typically recognized as a neutral when it comes to color, but it is a neutral planter color in the gardening world. When plants match the shade of the pot, the plant’s color flows into the container, and vice versa, making the garden feel cohesive. It doesn’t draw attention or distract from the plants.

Brown

Brown is typically considered a neutral in many situations, but it’s an entirely different neutral in the garden. It’s a wonderfully warm color that is inviting and cozy, bringing a sense of home and comfort to a landscape.

Tips to Remember Before Choosing Containers

Before picking out and purchasing pots for your plants, keep the following in mind.

  • A container’s color — and the material it is made from — impact how much heat the pot absorbs and retains in the potting soil. Darker colors heat up more than lighter shades. If you live somewhere hot, keep this in mind, and think about sticking with light, pale colors.
  • An item’s color is affected by the intensity of the sunlight. The lower light of the early morning and late evening makes colors appear less intense and darker. When the sun is bright and intense during midday, containers will reflect more of the sun’s rays, and their color will appear more intense and closer to the actual color.

This is just the start of decorating your garden with colorful containers. Now that you understand the color wheel and the basics of color theory schemes, you have any number of gorgeous possibilities at your fingertips.