A Guide to Colorful Garden Furniture

For most of us our garden is our refuge. The open blue sky and plant shapes, smells and colors are elemental.

But when it comes to garden furniture, many people choose their garden furniture without thinking about how the furniture’s colors interact with the environment they will be placed in. High-quality garden furniture can sometimes be found in a variety of colors, or you can paint your furniture yourself. My customers often ask me how to integrate colorful furniture into their garden or landscape. They want to know about color combinations, how to use furniture as a color accent, how to draw your eye with color, or how to create a serene place with color. It’s a part of my business I really enjoy.

Consider these possibilities for using color with your garden furniture:

Contrasting colors: When a garden design calls for vibrant color I advise contrasting colors such as blue or purple near yellows; or orange or orange-red against emerald or lime greens. Even black furniture (say against a hedge of yellow forsythia) can create a dynamic contrast. Imagine the impact of periwinkle blue Adirondack chairs against a backdrop bed of bright yellow daylilies.

Harmonious colors: If you don’t want to challenge the eye or you want a garden space to look larger, choose your garden furniture in colors that match their surroundings. Solid wooden furniture with a rich coat of paint will make every inch of the garden feel luxurious. A bright lime green in a dark, shady spot adds light and an airy quality.

Furniture that matches a garden accent: Think about what you want to highlight. A customer in New England placed a bright tangerine garden bench alongside her koi pond. In this case, the bright bench matched her favorite garden accent, her orange fish.

Serene colors: A customer in the pacific Northwest selected an Adirondack chair painted in white, for her moon garden that was planted with all white flowers. She tells me she lounges in her chair, listening to the night noises under the full moon, her white flowers glowing in the moonlight.

Color can bring your house and garden together: A colorful piece of furniture on a front porch can match your shutters and tie colors in your house to colors in your landscape. Trying matching your house’s trim color to provide a unified, coordinated look, or choose a contrasting color to add interest. One customer in the Boston suburbs placed her two seat bench in a pale Daffodil yellow to complement her slate blue porch. With spring flowers it was a welcome light color; in the Fall it set off chrysanthemums and traditional gourds.

Colorful furniture with a purpose: If there’s lots of shade in your yard, chose a vibrant color – colors in shade look great. If you want to draw your eye across the landscape chose a bold punctuation color. If there is dominant color in the garden or house, chose a color that either compliments or contrasts. For best results, keep the color scheme in the garden simple by sticking to one, two or three colors. Avoid a shotgun approach with one color here and one color there. A simple design that takes your house color into account gives a planned, unified look to the garden and your home.

Colors for all the seasons: If you don’t have a green thumb and you have a hard time producing harmonious color in your garden, colorful furniture may be the answer. And think about winter too. After the May flowers have passed and the vibrant colors have vanished, a well placed piece of colorful furniture can break up the steady diet of gray and add a bit of brightness to the landscape.

How do I make up my mind? Many gardeners can have a hard time deciding on right color, given the myriad of choices and combinations available. Check to see if your furniture manufacturer can give you pictures of the product you are purchasing in several different colors, or use paint swatches, and bring them with you to the garden to see how they match or contrast the natural colors there.

There are many books available today providing excellent guidance on color in the garden. Concepts that apply to juxtaposing plant colors often make sense when considering the use of color in furnishing your outdoor space. Given the joys of gardening and all the hard work involved, I always recommend you top off your labors with handsomely crafted, durable wooden furniture in a color that rewards your view, let alone the brown dirt under your nails.