Unify your garden with a color scheme

Like many of us, Ann Elias likes planting and decorating with galvanized containers in her garden and came up with a unique way to combine her favorite color, aqua,… and galvanized grey. Stripes!

Ann Elias’s garden

Anyone who visits Ann Elias’s garden will know right away her favorite color.  Teal blue  Cool teal, aqua or turquoise make great accent colors for a garden because there are no aqua flowers, so every flower color is vibrant and contrasting next to it.

Collecting galvanized

Once you get bitten, there’s no cure when you begin collecting galvanized containers.  Any metal just lasts so long in the garden,..making it very practical.  Then the cool neutral color and rough nubby texture fit our vintage style and go well with any flower.  Some of us still have galvanized containers our ancestors used.

Part of Ann’s collection, before

Buckets get masked off and painted for a special project

A theme running through the garden is Ann’s galvanized tubs, all painted with teal blue stripes and lettering. She masked off the area on either side of where the stripe is to go and brushed on the paint.  She used Annie Sloan’s Chalk Paint in ‘Provence.’

Unify the garden with a color scheme

• Red and turquoise
• Rust and Cobalt blue
• Purple and yellow
• Dark blue and turquoise

Ann says, “I just like that way it ties all my different tubs and trash cans together, giving them the same colored stripes it becomes more of a collection then just random tubs.”

Ann Elias’s ladder planter, before and after

Ann put ‘feet’ on some of the tubs for in front of her garden cottage and more mounted on furniture legs.

Ann’s galvanized tubs sit on just the legs of discarded chairs

Ann’s garden path and her ‘Welcome’ tub planters

Mop bucket planter

A tub makes a good base for a ‘garden tool’ mailbox and it planted and labeled with Daffodils

Ann’s garden room, The Lady Lounge, all decorated in teal blue

Ann arranges the tubs on either side of her garden room, at the garden gate and in her amazing butterfly garden, below. See “Ann’s butterfly garden extraordinaire”

Galvanized trash barrels for Ann’s butterfly garden containers

Ann’s garden gate with overflowing tubs is your view when you visit!

Other colors schemes for flowers in the garden

• Red, Blue, yellow orange
• Falu red, chartruese, like Ann’s tubs above
• White,…all white!  A Moon garden
• Pink, lavender, pale yellow
• Green,…all green! Foliage and green and white flowers

So,…what’s YOUR favorite color for garden accents?  What is your flower color scheme,…any favorites?