Put some Pantone pow in your garden
Tangerine Tango is making big fashion headlines this year, attracting more than the usual attention given to any single color. Selected by the Pantone Color Institute (the organization that has set color standards for housing and other industries since 1963) as the 2012 color of the year, it is the one color expected in the next 12 months to have the strongest impact on fashion and home decor.
Luckily for the woman who exclaimed, “I love that color, but no way I can wear it,” one doesn't have to just wear it: Tangerine Tango is found everywhere in home and garden accents.
Close enough is good enough when it comes to matching Tangerine Tango in the garden. Pantone color is precise and garden flowers are anything but. Flower color can be affected by soil and climate and therefore hue and intensity can be slightly different within the same cultivar.
Tangerine for spring can be found in the tulip and daffodil families. For summer, think of old standbys like impatiens, begonias and marigolds.
Summer sun-loving tangerine perennials include Rocket City daylilies, Tangerine Dream coneflowers and Summer Breeze Orange poppies.
Good news … so many more perennials and annuals to choose from.
Patient gardeners can start their plants from seeds. Not so patient? Purchase flowering plants at the garden center. Best bets for instant Tango color in mixed planters for sunny patios include Gerbera Daisies, Can-Can Terracotta callibrochoa and Juliet Orange diascia.
Dazzler Orange Impatiens is the tango choice for full shade. Mounded, upright plants are covered with masses of 1½ inch blooms over rich, green foliage. They flower freely until frost and are a great choice for hanging baskets. For double flowers on a smaller plant choose Rockapulco Dark Orange impatiens.
Fanfare Orange Trailing Impatiens are perfect for a spot with morning sun, afternoon shade and evenly moist soil. Fanfare varieties are more sun tolerant than many impatiens. They produce abundant bright flowers over the full trailing foliage.
New Guinea impatiens are favorites for shady summer containers. Best variety for Tangerine Tango is the Divine Orange Bronze Leaf. A paler version of Tangerine Tango is found in another popular summer annual, Bonfire Orange Begonia. It's a 1-foot tall, trailing pot-filler and is easily grown in planters or hanging baskets. Give it partial sun and good drainage.
Double Zahara Fire zinnia is a 2010 All-America Selections award-winning annual with bold 2½-inch wide orange flowers. UpTown Orange Blossom zinnia grows 24 inches tall and wide. Both are resistant to the fungus diseases that occasionally plague zinnias.
Perennials will bring the Tango year after year. Echinacea Hot Lava coneflowers and Helianthemum Henfield Brilliant are both easy to grow perennials with truly hot colors. Plant either one with Scabiosa Butterfly Blue for a classic eye-catching combo in the sunny border. Rule of thumb: blue and orange combos always rock the house. Other good perennial blues include Angelonia Serena, perennial geraniums and Salvia Adora Blue.
Bold colors like tangerine are nothing new in outdoor furniture and fabrics. Garden ornaments and ceramic and plastic pots have always been a quick and easy way to bring bold color into an outdoor living space and move it around as desired. Pots in all shades of orange look great planted with bright blue flowers. To heat up the color scheme one notch more, plant those pots with bright red or yellow flowers.
“Sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive, Tangerine Tango is an orange with a lot of depth to it,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. It is a most spirited reddish orange.
To determine the color palette for each upcoming year, Pantone monitors world events, movies and celebrities. Consumers' attitudes also affect color trends and lately they have become braver and more color aware.
For precise color-matching, handpick some dynamite accessories. Tangerine sculpture, furniture and pots can create a great accent in weathered color schemes comprised of washout blues, grays and greens.
Ÿ Beth Gollan is a horticulturist affiliated with The Planter's Palette, 28W571 Roosevelt Road, Winfield. Call (630) 293-1040 or visit planterspalette.com.