My preferences lean towards the cool colors, pinks, mauves, blues wines purples or combinations of... I like punches of white but lately I've been really liking light yellows my most least favorite color along with orange. I like different textures which I get from Ferns, Rogersias, Ligularias and Hostas to name a few. But being a plant collector at heart I find there's the odd red and even orange popping up here and there. There is no rhyme or reason to my garden it just is :o)

Annette

Every color in the rainbow. But have lots pinks, yellows,orange. But last year added lot of red annuals. Wanted to attract even more hummers. And it worked.

I have enough space that I've got different areas with different color schemes. I have a pink/mauve scheme going that melds into blues/purples with soft yellows in the front outer garden. It is planted with pale yellow jonquils, Spanish bluebells and pink phlox subulata for spring.

In the butterfly garden, I have red, orange, purple, blue, yellow -- verbena, coneflowers, agastache, black-eyed susans, chaste tree, spanish bluebells, bronze fennel, asclepias, crocosmia, ornamental grasses, clumping bamboo, buddleia, salvia, pineapple sage, hypericum.

In the fragrance garden, I have mostly evergreen shrubs/vines and a mix of perennials with blooms at different times so that the fragrances don't overlap. The blooms mostly tend to be white or pink/mauve. Winter daphne, eleagnus, osmanthus fragrans, Confederate Jasmine, Akebia, August Beauty Gardenia, Sweet bay magnolia, curly willow, colocasia, brugmansia, heuchera, citronella, monarda, butterfly ginger and buddleia.

Inside the cottage garden fence, I have daylilies in yellows, cottage pinks, pink and mauve garden phlox, blue scabiosa, blue platycoden, blue/lavender perennial heliotrope, starfighter lilies, Encore azaleas in pink/mauve, Indian hawthorne in white, abelia in white, weeping cherry in white/pinkish, Lady Banksia in pale yellow, rosemary blue, Knock-out roses in deep rose, Spanish lavender in deep purple, heuchera in purple, creeping jenny, thyme, Dutch iris in blue/white, gardenia in white.

Cameron

Here is a link that might be useful: my gardening blog

I garden with the brightest, most eye blistering colors imaginable. The brighter the better!!!

GGG

I use mostly pastels. I don't really care for reds and oranges.
I don't know when that happened,I can remember having red or orange clothing over the years.

GG, why does that not surprise me. LOL!

Mainly I stick with pastels, but I do have some reds in there. I'm really trying to acheive my own cottage garden.I have alot to do this year.

There's not a color I couldn't use someplace!
We've already moved from the magentas and pinks of Taiwan cherries, redbuds, camellias, and loropetalum to the yellows of daffodils and now we're in dogwood/azalea/wisteria mode for a couple of weeks or so.
The perennials change partners through the season. Early summer Black Eyed Susans will come out, followed by periwinkles, both luscious with society garlic but a different look.
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Reds are the hardest to fit in. I just close my eyes when the red camellias are still blooming when wisteria cranks up across the drive.
My new fav is near black plants. I was tickled when a red oxblood lily bloomed with 'Black Pearl' peppers last August. Black Pearl starts with purple blossoms before the black pearls appear. In late summer the pearls turn red.
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I'm always trying new combos with purple/lavender plants. Chartreuse is fun, too, as a mixer.

The hardest plant to place properly I ever had is a daylily called 'Inner View.' It hated being next to any other pink or orange or yellow. I finally put it between a row of blue hydrangea and a line of stokesia, where it has happily bloomed since with its strange not quite orange, not quite yellow color complemented by the blues.
Nell

For Spring/Summer, I garden with soft shades of pink, purples, yellow, greens, white and peach. I do throw in a few sections of red, but in very small number.

Fall is generally bolder colors: bright yellows, red and just recently, I added some orange.

It just sort of happened that way and I didn't even realize until I started taking pictures of the garden and realized this.

Gardening is really, to me, like working with a live canvas. I love it!

I use all colors in most of my beds and pots. I do have a moonlight garden I started last year with all white flowers. After reading a lot in this forum I am thinking of having one color as the accent color blending through all the beds. Have each bed one specific color with some of the accent color. I was thinking this would help blend all the different beds. I'm still in the planning stage with this, right now I think yellow would be good for the accent color because it goes well with most other colors. I could even use a very pale yellow in my moonlight garden.

For me it has to be pastels. I do however add some darker shades of pinks and purples and blues and of course whites. It almost highlights the garden. I'm not into the bold colors and tend to feel that the softer colors are more romantic and relaxing and lend itself to the 'cottage' feel.
Meghan

For the most part I love blues, purples and pinks. I do put some very light yellow and white in there too. I have one bed that is all peach, pink and yellow and white. I saw a sofa years ago that I just loved - and it had those three colors in it and I loved it. So I'm trying to duplicate it.

I like having blooms all year 'round - there are probably more summer-blooming than anything else...but I've been concentrating on late summer and early fall blooms. I need one last flush of flowers because I'm usually going into withdrawal and dreading winter. :)

I love the combination of yellow, red and purple and try to use these when I can. I also have pink, yellow and peach daylilies combined in my daylilly bed.

I throw in some white and silver foliage for contrast.

Sometimes I just plant and see what happens. I like the element of surprise.
faye

I use all sorts of colors in my garden. I love all colors, and enjoy using diffrent textures in the garden too. I agree with bellarosa, a garden is like a canvas. It does annoy me to no end if one of my gardens has too much of one sort of color in it. One area has too much of the warm colors, like pinks and reds. Ive been working to add some blues and purples to it. I think im what you might call a plant collector, because I love all sorts of unusuall plants. I buy plants because their interesting, color is only a second consideration to me. Its amazing some of you guys can stay within a color scheme, I dont think I could do it!
CMK

I like them all! But I tend to separate them by doing color schemes in my beds. It seems to make gardening easier for me, not sure why.

Tracy

I also like them all ,and separate them by color with different beds.One bed is all pinks,purples,grey and i'm getting ready to add a white cobbity daisy to the mix.

I don't have a lot of reds,but a few scattered here and there,the same goes for oranges.One of my favorite plants is Zinnias,all sizes and colors.
kathi

Like the two previous posters, I also like all the colors, but tend to sort them, more or less, by areas. The front garden, which faces West and is planted mostly as a Fall and Winter garden, has yellows, reds and oranges. The side passage is mostly white with bright pinks. The back garden is more on the pink/purple/blue/white range. In one part of it I have been trying to concentrate on a pink/yellow combo, but I'm still far from achieving the look I intend. A garden is never finished, isn't it?

Eduarda

All colors and shades and white here and there to make those colors pop. I just grow what I like.

sweetannie4u

LOL! What a question, and what varied responses!

Cottage Gardens in England seem to have all those mauves, pale pinks, pinks, roses, blues and purples & whites going on, and that's where my Cottage Garden ISN'T. I dislike all those colors here because they are so washed out in the full sun.

My favorite flower color is bright coral, so I have one bed that is all colors that will go with that one, and even if they clash with everything that is going on, it still all goes together. Sort of. LOL!

I also have a red bed of all annuals. It was red-scarlet last year, but is going to go to red-carmine-burgundy this year. (The beauty of annuals - can change it up every year.)

Basically, bright colors and NO WHITE, and NO GRAY and NO BROWN. :))

Lime

I like almost all the colours as well, but my favorites are by far the purples :) I'd buy purple anything, lol. I also tend to group by colour scheme, although not exclusively. The one colour I'm not so fond of is orange. I have very few orange flowers, but I do have one orange daylily that I just adore. I also don't really like to have too much green. That sounds funny in a garden I guess, but I mean the purely foliage plants. I don't go for too much foliage, and would rather have colour and flowers.

I try to plant so that the colors that are next to each other harmonize, or at least don't edge your teeth. But I do lean toward bright, clear colors. That's because my garden is so big that most of the time you see the beds from some distance. The paler colors that are so exquisite up close get lost under these conditions. I do still plant some of the tender ones because they are so luscious. I guess I just like 'em all and try to place them so that they don't clash too badly.

Iris colors - blues, purples, maroons, pale yellows. I like a strong white highlight among pastels - e.g. tall white phlox. And different textured whites side by side can be cool: I have an aruncus next to mockorange, which is lovely. Considering adding white-variegated foliage there, but haven't decided which plant.

I favor white flowers and use them in every scheme-hate magenta and mercilessly rip it out when I find an infiltrator.
I try to have a theme in each garden area and color can vary dramatically in each "room". However, if I squint my eyes and take a panaramic view, bright coral, peach, apricot, and cool blues seem to stand out.

Eye blistering here too.

In the back yard: Bright yellow Dendromecon Harfordii next to deep blue Ceanothus Concha. Yum! Other yellows are sunflowers and that Oxalis (pes caprae) that I let grow everywhere in winter. It disappears when the weather warms up.

My other blue is perennial Morning Glory. It climbs the back of my house and over the roof.

I love red roses -the redder the better. Altissimo and Don Juan are favourites. I have two Altissimos, one DJ, one Dublin Bay and a Chrysler Imperial rose tree.

For Orange I have Sarabande rose and Cape Honeysuckles here and there.

I like white flowers too. I have Spirea in front next to dark purple Royal Robe. I have Matilija poppies next my my garage. They've kinda spread to mix with the Royal Robe in front. Last year I planted a Lady Banks out near the curb. I'm hoping it will become a big monster that climbs the big elm tree.

I do have some pink. Dark pink Hummingbird Sage and light pink Evening Primrose that volunteers in clumps here and there. I'd have more of them if it were not for the gophers. I also have hot pink Zephirine Drouhin and a hot pink Crape Myrtle.

For purple, the aforementioned Royal Robe and for a paler shade Cleveland Sage.

I also enjoy ! white flowers thru out the Garden,
Olgaflowers

I don't think of myself as liking very bright colors, but more and more my garden seems to lean that way. I think here in CA we either have strong sun which washes out pastels, or dreary cloudy/foggy greyness, which does the same. And most everything I plant is evergreen, so the flowers either have to "pop" in color or be so massed to have enough impact. This is not easy when you're gardening in relatively modest beds in the heart of the city!

These are all from 2007. Spring (April) is gaudiest, with orange poppies and reddish nasturtiums:
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See how much more subdued it looks by July, with the poppies and nasturtiums gone. Agapanthus adds its cool blue notes for a month or so:
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By October it's even calmer, with only roses, osteospermum and euryops making the big splashes. There's smaller color, but you have to be close to see them, like convolvulus, aptenia and salvia:
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By December the lemons are making as much of a color splash as the purple iris and yellow euryops:
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Hi Craftlady07,
A garden is purely a personal choice. It's always nice to get ideas from other gardeners, but in the end it will be what you like. I've always told new gardeners to get a garden journal and a digital camera, and visit gardens every 2-3 weeks to see what's blooming. It's helpful to see a full grown specimen rather than a picture in a catalog. Document all findings, and plant what you like. Perennials are like furniture. Most can be moved. So if you don't like where its planted, just move it. There is only one aspect of gardening that you have to take seriously and that's growing good soil. Gardening is an adventure that will never end, and through the years your taste will change over and over again.

My back garden consists of most colors, except for red. I find that the purples, lavenders, apricots, oranges, yellows, blues, pink, and some white blend well together, but when I throw in some red, the garden starts to look like "the gardener" was on drugs when she planted. :)

My side bed by the driveway consists of lots of red and some white - mostly pentas and salvia for the butterflies. This way, I can enjoy all colors!

Jkom made a very good point - and illustrated it beautifully! That seasonal change is one of the things I love about gardening.

I really do not have rules and really enjoy trying to make some unusual contrast. The picture is an example: in this bed I have sedum autum joy with black eyed susans, rudbeckias, nasturtiums and sunflowers...gift from some birds because I feed them.

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Anicée

Thanks for posting this topic! I'm still trying to create some color coordination in my garden. I just ripped out all of the blues, purples, cool pinks and magentas and bought five orange and red roses and ten new red, violet, orange and yellow irises. I am waiting for the remaining iris to bloom to rip out the purples, blues and whites. It was just too chaotic, I could not remember what bloomed when and what went with what. I also realized that my eye was always drawn to the Joseph's Coat roses, the nasturtiums, and the red and orange impatiens mixed with the painfully chartreuse variegated duranta and euphorbia. Funny, I never liked these colors in the past.
My main problem is that I love the white fillers: Santa Barbara daisies, etc., but they don't look all that great with flaming orange, gold and lime green.

also, a friend of mine does wonders with black eyed susans, chocolate hollyhocks and silvery sea holly.

My main garden is centered around old fashioned roses, so I tend to coordinate colors that combine well with the rose colors pink, white, crimson red, and lavender. This means I choose companion plants of blue, lavender, white, and light pink mainly. I avoid oranges and hot colors.

For my early spring garden I have a lot of blue, purple, and yellow flowers. When the tulips come up later I do have some hotter reds/cardinal colored flowers, but these will be finished before the roses start to bloom so won't clash.

For fall, there is more blue/white/pink/lavender with asters, japanese anemones, and chrysanthemums. I have some areas away from the rose garden where I have some maroon chrysanthemums and orangish daylilies.