It’s on the House! | How to Landscape With Your Home Exterior Colors | 161

When adding a plant or designing your landscape, there’s a lot to consider! One of the most important but overlooked considerations is the color of your home’s exterior. Get tips and tricks for choosing a garden color scheme based on your house colors.

For more information on DOUBLE PLAY® BLUE KAZOO® Spirea, visit https://www.provenwinnerscolorchoice.com/product/double-play-blue-kazoo-spirea/

To see more on the Gardening Simplified Show, visit https://gardeningsimplifiedonair.com/

References used in this video:
https://www.jameshardie.com/blog/explore-exterior-design/curb-appeal-landscaping/
https://www.housebeautiful.com/design-inspiration/real-estate/g14853723/different-styles-of-houses/

Stucco and Vinyl were the Most Common Siding Materials on New Homes in 2022

https://www.bhg.com/home-improvement/exteriors/curb-appeal/mediterranean-style-home/
https://www.thespruce.com/fast-growing-vines-that-are-damaging-your-home-11699053
https://www.marthastewart.com/sherwin-williams-least-popular-paint-color-2025-11737740#:~:text=Sherwin%2DWilliams%20has%20announced%20Radiant,tinted%20shade%20of%20the%20year
https://www.houzz.com/photos/stucco-exterior-home-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_736~a_32-222
https://www.provenwinners.com/learn/top-ten-lists/10-easy-foundation-plants-front-your-house
https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/cotinus-coggygria-royal-purple/
https://www.hgtv.com/outdoors/flowers-and-plants/japanese-maples-garden-tour-pictures
https://www.gardendesign.com/ideas/color.html
https://www.atomic-ranch.com/architecture-design/tour-a-dreamy-waterfront-midcentury-modern-home/
https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/hesperocyparis-arizonica/
https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/campanula-medium/
https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/alcea-rosea/
https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/lunaria-annua/
https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/verbascum/
https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/alliaria-petiolata/

[Music] Broadcasting from Studio A here at Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs. It’s time for the Gardening Simplified show with Stacy Herilla. Me, Rick Ve, and our engineer and producer Adriana Robinson. All right, today’s show is on the house. Well, every week it’s free, but it’s about your home’s color style and appearance in combination with the plants that you choose. And I guess choosing a color for a house is similar to making landscape design decisions. Just this past year, uh, we re-roofed our house and I thought, well, this is pretty basic. It’ll be easy decisions. Uh-uh. The guy shows up with a pickup truck, drops the back bed, he’s got about a hundred different color samples, and you’ve got to make a decision. Plants and colors are going to have a major effect on the vibe of your house, but they can also showcase the geographical region or time period in which your home was built and the surrounding area and community. And painting the outside of your house can be costly. So, you got to do your research. And there are three components to a tastefully painted house. The main color, the accent colors, and the trim. And while most homes tend to have a neutral main color, most homes playing with color can be done in a subtle way using accent colors. So color outside and the color outside as far as your home is concerned. Stacy, it can be tricky because you’re often competing with nature. You you can it’s so important, you know, really to uh I think pick the plants for your house color and a lot of people don’t realize that. And it it surprises me because when it comes to interior decorating, everyone says, “Oh, well, this will pick up on the mustard yellow of my walls or whatever.” But when it comes to outside, people just don’t even know where to start. And it’s like, start with the color of your house. Now, we can’t help you. I am no color expert, so I can’t help you with your roof choice and your paint choice, but I we can help you with your plant choice. Yeah, exactly. And there are all sorts of colors to work with. Modern and bold choices are trending with shades of charcoal, deep blue, jet black making a statement. Uh, and then you’ve got the trim, as I had mentioned. Uh, I’m seeing uh, in my neighborhood more and more homes going with a black exterior with maybe brown trim, brown garage doors, a brown front door. Very interesting. um doing this show, driving here to the studio today. I live on a culde-sac and I took a look. If you go down the street, the houses are red, white, gray, blue, two blue ones, uh tan, dark brown, white and black, tan, yellow, turquoise, brick, and t I mean, we’re all over the place, right? So, there are a lot of options available to you. And I find it really interesting that um we here in the north or the northeast, we live in vinyl sighting country. That’s for sure. And with vinyl sighting, I mean, the sky’s is the limit. There are so many different colors you can choose. Or you can paint your sighting as we did. We had an olive green house and we decided to go with blue and uh and white trim. So, according to annual data from the Census Bureau’s Survey of Construction, I thought this was interesting. Stucco was the most common principal sighting material on new single family homes followed by vinyl sighting. So, here in the north, Northeast, a lot of vinyl sighting. You you move to the south, southwest, southeast, a lot of stuckco. Uh here in the north, people aren’t real familiar with stucco. I you know that I I study standup comedy and I saw a comedian. It was hilarious. He said, “Stuckco, that sounds like a clown that gets himself into difficult situations. Stuckco, don’t go in there. Your feet are too big.” Uh but Stucco is uh something that can really give you a a Mediterranean feel or uh you know, again, it’s about the vibe of your house. An interesting thing uh too, Stacy, uh for people who have stuckco homes, one thing that’s an issue for them is vines. You’ve got to pick the right type of vine because uh the wrong type of vine, let’s say it’s trumpet vine or Boston ivy or Virginia creeper, they can do uh damage to the house for sure. Yeah, we don’t have a lot of stucco here. It does tend to be more in the uh mild climates. I’m surprised cement board or Hardy board wasn’t on your list cuz so many of the new homes are being built with that. And that’s kind of a nicer alternative to the vinyl siding. But I’ll tell you this, I have so many hot takes on housing materials and colors and I am just biting my tongue right now. I know. Me, too. I am biting my tongue and keeping my opinions for the plant uh portion of this show. But I’m just I’m just saying something to look forward to. Uh Stacy, I just took a look while you were talking. So stucco number one, vinyl sighting number two, fiber cement sighting such as hard hard plank or hard hardboard. Hardy board. Yeah, hardy board 21%. Oh, okay. And then that’s followed uh by I feel like I’m seeing that a lot around here. Yeah, that hardy board. And it looks nice. And I think you can get that custom painted so it’s like already deeply saturated in the material and you don’t have to worry about painting it. And you got to make that color choice. I I was doing some research and I found the least popular color. Oh, not the most popular co color, but the least popular color and we’ll have the link for you at the website. It’s radiant lilac. That’s the least popular color. Lilac. Really? Out of everything? Yep. Radiant lilac. So, huh. I don’t know. I mean, you look at classic house colors, usually you’re working with neutrals like white, beige, gray, and black. Uh, but very popular are sage green, navy blue. I love navy blue. Yeah, you wore your navy blue shirt today. And I wore my navy blue shirt today. You know, with our blue home, I was thinking about the landscape. And technically, if you have a a blue home, essentially you have to look at having a specimen plant possibly in your landscape, good foundational plants, green plants, um, and then something with color that complements and add some pop. So, and and possibly repeated throughout the landscape. So, I was thinking with a blue home like like an oho easy rose in pink. uh because pink plays well with all types of colors. Uh as far as the green is concerned with my home because of the area that I live in, I do it with ornamental grasses instead of evergreens. But it does cause me to see why green is such a popular color. Cuz if you have a black home or a green home or a blue home, white home, uh that color green is so important in the landscape and and it shows me why boxwood is so popular. Um and I love the color green. I mean, I love green better than yellow and blue combined. Did you see what I did there? did see what she did there. Well, you know, I uh worked used to work for Martha Stewart Living magazine and the uh what we had always heard was that Martha specifically chose that kind of gray sagey green because it sets off plants so nicely. Oh, so uh almost kind of not quite a neutral, not quite just like a gray, a little bit of sass in there with the green, but you know, very complimentary to all sorts of different plants. Makes sense. Well, it’s decisions, decisions, decisions. So, the limmerick today applies to that. Uh, and that’s making these decisions. Maybe you’re making these decisions with a spouse and you got to pick out these colors and pick out the plants. Do you argue colors with your spouse? Your curb appeal cause you to grouse. Make it home sweet home in colorful kodakchrome. No charge. Our advice is on the house. Our arbitration is friendly guiding. And with whom are you siding? See what I did there? I did. Thank you. I’m hot today. Your choice more than cosmetics. It goes beyond aesthetics. With your decisions, you’ll be residing. But it’s true. When you put a plant in a ground, you tried to have it develop. You spend all that money on the appearance of the outside of your house. you got to make some good decisions because you’re going to be sticking with it for a while. And you know, it’s a lot easier for us to sit here and say you got to make good decisions than it is to actually make said decisions. But at least it’s easier now than it ever was before because you can use one of those things on the computer and it will kind of like fake the color into your house and you you don’t have to just go in blind like you used to. Uh, so it’s a little bit easier, but then again, you know, you can get some analysis paralysis because then you’re just trying everything, you know, and you’re just trying so many combinations till you just get sick of it and you’re just like whatever, I don’t care anymore. Yeah. And I love uh like when you go to the East Coast or Cape Cod and they have the clapboard or uh you know the cedar shakes or whatever they call them and they’re kind of tannanish color at first and then they gray as time goes on. They add the white trim and then you look at getting something like a a a beautiful smooth hydrangeanger with that. It’s no wonder hydrangeas are so popular in that area. Yeah. Or you know a rosecovered cottage on Nucket. Doesn’t do much better than that. Wow. Well, let’s see how Stacy ties this in with Plants on Trial. That’s coming up next here on the Gardening Simplified show. [Music] Greetings gardening friends and welcome back to the gardening simplified show where we are talking about the colors of your house and how you can accentuate that with uh the plants that you choose. And I think that it’s one of those situations where I I don’t think a lot of people even remotely consider the color of their house when they’re when they’re out picking up a plant at at the garden center. Shrubs especially. Um you know, so they’re they’re kind of just like they don’t have any cues. they’re just lost and there’s tons of selections and they don’t know what to do when the answer’s right in front of you. The answer is in your house. And whether that means it’s the overall color of your house or, you know, a lot of times nowadays people will do a super colorful front door. Yep. Something like that. Shutters. Shutters. Yeah. Um trim. You know, there’s all sorts of little things like that that you can pick up on. And again, this is one of those things that I think as you’re driving around or walking around and you see a house that just looks great, the landscape, the house, everything looks great together, you do need to take a moment to just like stop and and analyze it and think about like what is it that I really like about this combination. I mentioned uh in my neighborhood there is a really contemporary looking kind of like ‘ 80s contemporary looking house that’s kind of like a deep smoky gray and they have a beautiful royal purple smoke bush in front of it and it’s trimmed. So, it’s, you know, normally I wouldn’t love something that was kind of not let to go to its own devices, but they trim it and there is just something about that combination that looks so incredible. And, you know, you also don’t have to consider what a plant looks like all the time. You can match it to something that is seasonal in the plant. You could match it to say spring flowers. If it’s something like a crab apple, work with that fall color. You know, it doesn’t necessarily matter if it looks so spectacular all the time. It matters that you get that one amazing moment where your whole neighborhood goes, “Now that person, they know what they’re doing.” I like that. I I picture a gray home with a Japanese maple. Oh, yeah. Like a beautiful dark leaf Japanese maple. That’s a great choice. But really, you can’t go wrong as long as it is to your taste because that’s what this is about. It’s not about impressing all the passers by. It’s not about impressing Rick and Stacy. It’s about whether you like it and making it an expression of you. But as you go to the garden center and think about new plants or design your landscape, especially as we’re coming into winter, you know, look for those color cues that are already in your house and work off of those. Now, for some people, that’s super easy. As you said, if you have a more neutral colored house, if it’s white, if it’s gray, something like that, you know, you can do pretty much anything. In that case, you would probably want to stick with one of your favorite colors to, you know, have some flowers and then kind of reinterpret that. So, it’s really easy, I think, if you start thinking about these things in terms of how you would decorate inside of looking at the outside as just this whole new world that you don’t know. You already have the skills cuz you already decorated inside. So, you have to just transfer those skills to the outdoors. Now, I love love love a good brick house. Unpainted brick. Not going to go there, but I’m just going to say right now, don’t don’t paint the brick. It’s a hot take. It’s a hot take, but I’m not going to allow myself to go into the rabbit hole. Um, but you know, there’s so many, especially uh throughout the Midwest, so many beautiful brick mid-centuries, and it breaks my heart to see so many people trying to convert them into some sort of modern cottage when you already have like this beautiful highquality material and house. Why are you trying to make it look like a lesser quality house? I don’t understand. But I have one theory, and that is that especially in the landscape, uh, those mid-century orange and red brick colors that were so common, they can be a little bit tricky to landscape with. Um, and you know, you don’t ever have the luxury necessarily of just changing the color. I mean, you can paint it, but that just turns again a low quality, low maintenance material into a high maintenance material. So, I have the answer. Whether you are stuck with analysis paralysis and you don’t know what color to use or you have a weird colored house and you don’t know what color to use or you have one of these red or orange brick houses, the answer for you is blue. Well, I can go with that. I know you like blue. I love blue. Uh and you paint your house blue. That’s how much you like it blue. So when it comes to plants, choosing a blue foliage, especially foliage, I mean there are blue flowers and of course there’s hydrangeanger macrofil which has the most famous blue flowers of any commonly grown plant. Blue foliage will go with pretty much anything. Wow. I mean I I I’ve thought through this. I think it would even go with uh what was it? Lilock something. The the least popular radiant li I think it would even go with radiant lilac uh if you were so inclined. Now, typically this blue is kind of interpreted in terms of evergreens and there are a number of great blue evergreens that you can grow everywhere from really cold climates to really warm climates. So, like juniper, false cypress, if you live in a milder climate, there’s all sorts of beautiful true cypresses uh that you can grow. And so, evergreens are a classic choice. Of course, there’s often holl shades of blue. And as important as evergreens are for the landscape, it’s equally important to have some uh more seasonal elements, whether that means a flowering shrub that’s going to, you know, offer flowers at some point in the year and then go dormant, you know, to to just give your landscape that seasonality. Uh and so I am presenting for today’s plant on trial, uh double play blue kazoo spya. Awesome plant. Such a great plant. Now, as you can probably guess from that name, its foliage is a beautiful kind of powdery blue color. Now, for a lot of people, when you hear spyhea, there’s probably a specific plant that comes up in your head and it’s one of those real tidy little toughy plants with pink flowers. This is not that type of spyhea. This is a different type of spyrhea. Spyrhea media. Um, the one that you’re probably thinking of with the pink flowers and the little tuffet, that is Japanese spyhea or bumalda spyhea. Uh, but this is a spyhea media, so it’s going to be a little bit bigger. It’s going to get two to three feet tall and wide. Um, and the foliage all season long is just this beautiful again powdery blue kind of color. And as the new growth comes out, it takes on tones of kind of this muted purple, pink, and lime green. Now, that sounds much more colorful than it actually is. This is something to remark about, but we’re not talking about like a kaleidoscope of colors. Everything is very compliment. Yeah, very subtle and complimentary. So, subtle bits of color and then here’s the real kicker. It blooms full of big white flower clusters in spring. So, you never have to worry with those white flowers and the blue foliage. This is a plant that goes with everything. It’s the little black dress of the landscape. Uh so, I I I just think it’s a great plant and and I know I fell in love with it because the flowers are really really big. they attract pollinators and uh so it’s a kind of a different take on your average spyhea and one of the things that’s also really great about it is its habit is very versatile. So again it’s 2 to 3 ft tall and wide and it naturally grows with kind of a round mounded kind of shape and you can trim it if you want. So if you love that more formal trimmed look you can certainly do that or you can just let it go on its own. Its stems are kind of slender and arching and just really really graceful. If you do want to trim double playaza, this goes for any spyhea. So anyone who’s sitting out there who already has spyhea and is wondering, if you want to trim it, you want to do that after it flowers. Uh that will give you, you know, the longest time for it to set flower buds for the next year. And uh it looks great either way. Spyhea, of course, are pretty good deer resistance. Yeah. So if you have deer, it’s not a problem. They’re also pretty drought tolerant and they’re one of those plants that is pretty versatile when it comes to light as well. So, if you have a situation like I do where one half of my front yard is very sunny and one half of my front yard is very shady on either side of the door, it can be hard when you have already a symmetrical house to get that symmetry when you have two totally different conditions like that. Whereas, uh, something like Aspyheia is so good in sun or in at least part shade that this would make a good way to get that kind of cohesive look on either side of your door. Oh, I love that. And I just popped on provenwyinners.com and Stacy, I see it’s really hardy, too. All the way to zone 3. Yep. Party to zone 3. Heat tolerant through USDA zone 8. So, a nice wide range of hardiness there. So, for almost all of our listeners, uh, it will actually do really well. And you know, Sperry is just known to be low maintenance. It’s known to be drought tolerant. And I it’s a plant that I think I I mean, when I see this plant, it pretty much always looks great. It will benefit from mulch because like most sparas, pretty shallow rooted, so those roots are close to the surface and can easily dry out. So, a good 2 to 3 in layer of mulch is going to help you a lot with this. But overall, I think this is kind of one of those no-brainer plants. If you don’t want to think too much about your landscape, you know, you need to do something different, think blue. Sorry, Michigan State fans, this is not a dig at you. Go green. Uh, when in doubt, go blue for your landscape, no matter what color house you have. And Double Play Blue Kazoo is a great place for you to start. So, if you are looking to plant this season, there’s still plenty of time to plant here in Michigan or really almost any cold climate. You just want about 6 weeks before the ground freezes solid. Uh, so we have plenty of of time for that to happen still. So, put it on your shopping list and if you’re thinking about not doing anything until spring, we’ll add it to your planning list and look for it at your favorite local garden center coming next spring. Quick question. Will you hit me with a hot take in segment 4 in? Uh, it depends. Where are we going? All right, we’ll see you soon. There’s always a hot There’s always a hot take in here. So, the answer is yes. We’ll take a break and when we come back, we’re opening to the mailbag. So, stay tuned. [Music] Greetings gardening friends and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified show where it’s my favorite time of the show because I love helping people with their gardening questions, quandries, and conundrums. And I know they’re out there. You know, at this time of year, man, is stuff looking tired. I’m not going to lie. My garden looks tired. It is. It has been hot and dry. Yes, so dry. So, if your garden is looking tired, yes, you can still write us in with a question, but know that you’re in very good company. The plants are just done. The plants are just absolutely done for the season, but they are You were sick of dragging hoses around. Oh my gosh, so sick of it. I’m only doing it because of the potential of still more tomatoes. If I didn’t still have so many tomatoes ripening in the garden, I would probably just be like, I’m done. I don’t care anymore. Uh but you know also I am keeping my containers watered even though uh they are clearly the plants that are in them have clearly so thoroughly filled with roots it’s almost impossible to keep them watered anymore. The same thing I just wet my plants. I’m out there all the time. But you know I’m keeping them watered because the hummingbirds are still around. And of course all the annuals that I picked are for hummingbirds. I did stop filling my feeders. So I was like, you know, they didn’t seem to be coming to the feeders as much anymore anyway. So, uh, I decided to just say, “Hey, you got plenty of flowers here in the containers. You got plenty of flowers in the zenyas in the vegetable garden.” And they are loving those zenyas. Um, so no more feeders. And people have to understand, we’re broadcasting here from the state of Michigan. And, uh, Stacy, we are now into October and it feels like July. It does. It feels like a cool July. Yeah. Uh, but I do think a cool down is coming. But in any case, uh, you may have questions. That’s what that was all about. And you can always reach us at gardeningimplifiedonair.com. There is a contact form there. You can also leave a comment on our YouTube version and Adriana will read all of those and get back to you. So, we welcome you to ask there. Uh, and sometimes we get really nice notes from fans. Yeah. Like Kimberly wrote us uh, and she said, “Thank you so much for your show. it has brought me so much joy. You’ve inspired me and educated me in so many ways and I’m a huge fan, which is so sweet because that’s all we really want to do. So, really appreciate that. Thank you for saying so. She also shares a tip for our listeners and she sent some pictures. So, uh we’ll have those in the YouTube version for you. Uh she created a Proven Winners plant tag reference using a binder ring and a hole punch to keep every plant tag that she buys accessible for posterity. Brilliant. I’m not that organized. That is brilliant. I’m not that organized either. And she is very organized. So, she has these. She has one all of just shrubs and she has one of annuals and they’re all on there. So, you can go through because you know what I always do? I plant my annuals and I say, “I’ll remember what this is and I throw away the tag and then I’m like, nope, don’t remember what that was anyway. Hopefully, I’ll find it next year if I liked it.” Wow. Um, so that’s a great idea. And then, you know, you could have these cuz those binder rings, you know, those little snap aart binder rings that you get at office supply stores, super inexpensive. Um, and you could do one, you know, different for every year of annuals. And you could put a little tag on there. It’s a, you know, 2025. Tag your it. Tag your it. And, uh, and keep all of that. So, great tip from Kimberly. Thank you so much for writing in. So, what do we got in the mailbag? Melissa writes to us, “Hello, Rick and Stacy. Love, love your show.” Thank you, Melissa. I got a good deal on some North Pole Arbor Vite. Oh, it’s one of my favorites. Even though I have extreme deer traffic, one of their favorites, too. Yeah, exactly. I couldn’t resist planting the beauties. Do you recommend planting junipers or some other deer resistant shrubs along the base to help protect them? Is there anything besides a fence that will help? Oh, well, you know, I figured Rick and I would have an earful for you on this one. Personally, I would not uh attempt arborv ID. You know, there are food there are shrubs um plants in general that deer will eat and there are plants that they don’t eat and there are plants that they love. And arborvite at least uh thuya accidentalists, the the eastern arborvite is one of those plants that they love. And I can’t blame them because if you crush the foliage on that, it does release the most delicious fruity smell. And that has to taste really good to them, like juicy fruit gum or something like that. So, I love North Pole arborite. I uh Thuya acident talis. Uh I love the plant. Um but to grow it, I have it in the compound. You have to have it in the compound. But uh here, so here’s the thing, uh Melissa. So you can try planting a lower hedge of something like a juniper in front of it. Perhaps that will deter them. um you know, anything that you can do. I find at least living in more of an urban area with deer that our deer are mostly path of least resistance kind of creatures. They want the good stuff, but they don’t really want to work too hard for it. So, I find that often minor deterrents are pretty effective. But, you know, I you have to be careful because you also don’t want to put this lower juniper hedge that you’re using to try to deter them too close because then you’ll lose that great cone shape and that nice branching all the way to the ground that characterizes North Pole arborvite. And of course, the worst part about arborvite is if the deer do eat them, it takes them so long to recover, if they do ever at all, and then it turns into the little muffin top arborite where you just got the thing on the top and then the bare branches on the bottom. So, here’s what I would recommend. uh a good dose of deer repellent. Even if you are doing the uh hedge in front of it to try to deter it, um a repellent is going to help you so much. And very often, especially when they’re young, they they’re going to be even more appealing to deer. When these plants are young, the growth is much more tender. as they get more established in the landscape, they can be slightly less appealing, but you know, really once they get, you know, once they find your arbor fighting, it’s pretty much over for them. And unfortunately, no plant is dear kryptonite. It’s not like you can put something, you know, that’s that’s like smelly or that they don’t eat in front of them and they’ll go, “Oh, nope. Not going to bother.” They’ll still somehow sniff out those arborite. Yeah. And I’ll see people wrap them in burlap and I’m like, “Then what’s the point?” because it’s just downright ugly, right? Well, now I will say there’s a a marina uh by me that did wrap some very deer damaged arborite over winter and they really started to recover because what was happening is that the deer were mostly eating them in winter when the food sources were scarce and they would kind of go and move off for the summer. But one winter they didn’t do it and now those things are dead because it’s one of those things you have to keep doing. Now with the repellent, good quality repellent. Uh again, we mentioned this in a previous show. I love Bobex. It’s something that comes off the east coast. No, they are not paying me to say this. I just personally use it in my landscape. I think it’s a great repellent. You know, the best tip we can give you for deer repellent is if it smells even remotely good to you, it’s not going to work. If it smells foul and you really worry that your dogs are going to go bananas when you spray it, it’s probably the right Yeah. Bob X has chicken livers in it. Oh, lovely. Appetizing. Yes, indeed. So, uh, get something stinky. Don’t fall for the minty fresh. Uh, not that they like mint, but, uh, it’s not as much of a turn, especially over winter. So, if you, if you’ve planted them, Melissa, make sure you’re protecting them, especially for their first winter, because that is going to be a very crucial time for their long-term value in your land. At the base also, yes. All right. Stacy Aki writes to us, “I live in zone 4 in British Columbia, Canada. I have several second-year Canterbury bells. Some flowered this year, but most did not. Think they’re going to flower next year, Stacy? Right. So, interesting question. Canterbury Bells is a type of companula, also known as bellflower. Kind of an oldfashioned plant, but I feel like it is starting to make a comeback. I know Proven Winners perennials just released a perennial uh companula a couple years ago, a line of of perennial companas. very popular in England but kind of you know not as well known here but uh you will notice that I said that proven winners introduced a perennial companula because not all companulas are true perennials. A true perennial of course comes back from the same roots year after year. It has a crown and the growth goes dormant in the fall and then it will come back up from that growth or from that crown the following year. The ones known as canerberry bells are actually biianials. And a biionial, if you’re not familiar with it, is a plant that puts out a rosette, nothing but a rosette for its first year, and then in the second year, it will shoot up those flower stocks. So, holly hawks are a good example of a bianial. Most there are some perennial holly hawks. Uh, lunaria, the little money plant that people grow. Verbascam, the mullen that grows all over on our roadsides. you you see that big rosette and then no flowers that year and it doesn’t flower until the second year. So what happens with a bianial? Most bianials are self-seing. So when you buy that plant typically it is in its second year. Sometimes they will be in its first year. So ready to flower you get those flowers that first year. It sets seeds. Those seeds drop. You get a rosette next year and then the following year you have flowers. Now eventually after a couple seasons of self- sewing you will end up with something that is always in flower but it takes a couple of life cycles to have that second year. I immediately think of garlic mustard. Oh yeah that’s another good example bad example but a good example of a bal a bad example of a plant to have in your garden. So not to worry a those plants that didn’t flower this year will be flowering for you next year. and make sure you’re leaving those seeds so you continue to build that population up and you always have a fabulous population of Canterbury bells to enjoy there in beautiful British Columbia. We’re going to take a little break. When we come back, apparently I’m giving a hot take as we continue our discussion on house colors. We’ll talk to you then. Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified show where we talk about the color of your house. Of course, there are many different types of architecture, many different types of colors to choose from, but again, in choosing colors, well, choosing colors for the house is pretty similar to choosing colors for your landscape. You’re going to look at the main color, the trim color, and accent colors. You’ve got to consider your neighborhood. Choose a color that complements your surroundings without being jarring. Consider the environment. Uh fun for me in my neighborhood. Again, live on a culdesac so everybody watches everybody else and neighbors talk. And uh one of my neighbors, great guy, made the decision to change the color of his house was tan colored. He went to the brightest turquoise you could imagine. Wow. He was like, I’m sick of being the tan guy. Yeah. I’m be the turquoise guy. Was that the talk of the neighborhood or what? And like good. Did they say good things or were they like pearl clutching? It was actually it was mixed 5050. Oh, okay. Yeah. You know, I feel like out here by the lake shore, it is much more common to do those beachy bright colors. Even though they look a little bit crazy in winter, uh it seems like that’s a very popular thing to do around here, have that kind of beachy vibe. I had a neighbor just down the road. Um, again, it was a white home, I believe. Yeah, it was a white home. He went with barn door red. Oh, I mean, and again, for some people it was like, hey, that’s cool. Other people were like, how can you do that to our neighborhood? But then, of course, he has choices to make as far as plants are concerned. And whether it’s plants or the colors that you pick for your home, high contrast works well. Like if you pair dark sighting with a light colored trim, uh that’s So again, I guess I’m talking about contrast, looking for contrast in the landscape, looking for contrast with your colors. Uh you of course can pick a monochromatic look with a home. You could create visual interest by using different textures on the same color siding and trim. So, we’re looking at textures here. We did a show on shades of green and using different foliage sizes and textures. Match your roof. Ensure your chosen sighting color or the paint that you use complements your home’s roof and trim so you get a cohesive design. I guess there we’re talking about repetition again in your landscape. When you find a plant that works for you and the color works really well, repeating it allows the eye to travel across the landscape and makes it uh really comfortable. But sometimes, Stacy, if you’re picking out some plants to do this, you got to experiment a little bit. And uh the worst thing that can happen is you have to dig up the plants and move them. I’m talking about color that’s outside of the uh the foundational plants. It’s kind of like like throwing something against the wall and seeing if it sticks, right? And it’s a lot cheaper to move the plant than to repaint your house. So So, you know, that’s a good option to have is that you can move things around. I think you can also uh you know, mitigate or manage uh color situations that you may not like with more with different color. Sure. uh you know you can add to it. You can have like some some white usually works as a good blender in the landscape. Silver foliage. I mean there’s not a lot of white foliage here. We can get variegated plants of course. Uh and you know you can kind of use that to sort of blend it in. But I like what you said about repetition and you don’t have to repeat the same plant. If you pick a color that you really like, yes, you are then able to reiterate that through your landscape in foliage plants and in flowers and in stems and in garden accessories like containers and things like that. So you aren’t just saying, okay, like you know, red is my color, so red roses all around. You can then take that red and find some red foliage like Kodiak red dervilla. And you can also add something that is red in the fall, really great fall color like an aronia. And so you have these multiple layers of interest and again that helps you to narrow down the plant selection so much. You know how many times I don’t need to ask you did you see someone standing there in their shrub section just you know with a glazed look in their eyes. Think you know bring the colors with you take a picture of your house uh have it on your phone and and use that to guide your decisions. You bet. And super important, make sure that you put annuals into the mix because it gives you that flexibility. I mentioned earlier how much I love that combination of blue and pink and that pink plays well with other colors. So for the spring, summer, early fall period, if you can add trufflea, pink gum fina, uh bubblegum, super tunias, that sort of thing, the oso easy red or pink roses. Uh you’re so right, uh Stacy, it doesn’t have to be the same plant, but pick up those colors and then uh use them in the landscape. I love what you said about annuals because if you are someone who is not super confident in your ability to combine colors, which again this is completely subjective, so there’s no objective like you did this wrong straight to plant jail. Uh it is it is your own personal taste, but annuals are such a great color laboratory for you to start experimenting with combining colors and you know it’s low stakes. If you combine some annuals and you’re like, “Wow, that is just too garish for me.” Mhm. It was one season, so what? You know, not a big deal. Or you can separate the plants so they’re not clashing or whatever. But that’s really, I think, where you make those discoveries about what colors really work in the landscape, what colors you really like, and what colors you want to bring through your landscape to improve it and improve that curb appeal. Yeah. And you’re going to make some mistakes, but you’re also going to make some really great discoveries like, “Wow, look at me go.” Right. Yeah. And and that’s why I say throwing something against the wall and seeing if it sticks. It’s like when I make spaghetti and I cook the pasta. I always throw a little on the ceiling. Yeah. I remember those commercials and they say that, but my mom never let me do that. For good reason. For good reason. Yes. So, if you’re going to paint, look this up. This is interesting, Stacy. Most popular exterior colors. If you’re painting, we talked about vinyl siding, stucco, that sort of thing. Uh, but if you’re going to paint, alabaster, a warm off-white, white dove, white with hints of gray, tricorn, which is a true black again, we go back to black, and is black a neutral color? I mean, I I will say that I do love the idea of a black house. I think way too many people are painting their brick black and again taking that inherently beautiful lowmaintenance material and turning it into a high maintenance material because once you paint you can’t go back. Um but you know the black trend I think does derive from a practice that is popular in Scandinavia where they would side with burned wood. Okay. So and those are beautiful. You can look them up. Just absolutely gorgeous. And I you know obviously not necessarily practical and very high cost. So, not something that the average person can do. But I think that the black paint is to some extent a desire to to get that same kind of look. But I think as far as plants, I think if you have a black house, it’s very important to choose plants that bring life and bring light and movement into there because it can look like a kind of a black hole in the landscape. So, you know, that doesn’t mean you have to go totally to the, you know, extreme and plant like bright yellow everything. Um, but you know, purples, uh, pinks, like something like that that that really helped to bring that life. Well, and like we talked about in the backdrop show, uh, I truly believe that green pops on black. Oh, it definitely does. And, uh, and there are so many different shades of green. And we can go to chartreuse, uh, uh, all different types of green. You put that against black and that is, um, I don’t know. It just looks rich to me. It looks uh very very stylish. Uh other popular paint colors were pewtor, which is a cool muted tone of gray, polar bear classic, well a cool white uh tone, peppercorn gray, uh which I think uh very pretty. And peppercorn gray is going to look almost like those worn weathered cedar shakes on the east coast. And I love that pool house, which is a mediumish light blue paint, naval dark blue. I love that. Uh grayge. So blending gray and beige, right? If you can’t make up your mind, maybe some uh some grayge. And then iron ore, which is a really dark gray uh that looks uh almost uh charcoal black. So many many different choices. Stacy, I think the gray and mud red combination is beautiful. I think pink and cobalt blue, super beautiful. Uh, and then if you have a light yellow home, I really think that green plants are going to be uh super important uh because again, green plants are going to really stand out well against uh a light yellow home. And I do love the look of a uh a yellow home and using that color in the landscape, but when you decide to use it, then you do have some decisions to make as far as plant materials. Yeah, definitely. And all this talk has kind of made me realize something we didn’t really address is choosing your paint colors based on your plants that are already in your landscape. So, say for example, you do have a fabulous established plant. You know, is there something about that plant? it’s, you know, it’s flowers, it’s fall foliage, or maybe it’s regular foliage. Is there something in that that can help you inform your color choices for your house? So, you’re working with what you already have and not against it. I like that. You know what works really well with yellow is mahogany brown. So, if you have some trees, you have some of that brown in your landscape, uh, that’s a great way to go. Also, I like black forest green. So, it is a green that is so dark it almost feels black. That’s my favorite color. Green. Is it really? I love it. My My earrings are actually that color. Fant. They are. I know. Wow. You practice what you preach. That’s fantastic. My shoes are that color, too. So, is your hot take that just don’t paint brick? Is that what your hot take is? You You just don’t like that, right? I mean, I just I it breaks my heart to see people take an inherently highquality, lowmaintenance material and turn it into what looks like a lower quality material that is then high maintenance. You know, the brick needs to breathe. Um, and it costs a bunch of money to sand blast it off to try to get back to that original is not necessarily feasible, especially if you have plants because then the plants are going to get damaged. And you know, it really it really breaks my heart to see so so many people, of course, everyone can do with their with their house what they will. But it just boggles my mind that you could have a material like brick that never needs anything really, hardly at all. Never needs painting, right? How great would that be? And you paint it so it needs painting. Yes. But you just like spending money. Yeah. I don’t get it. But anyway, everyone has their own taste. That’s the That’s what makes the world go around. You got it. I love that. uh talking about being plant specific as far as the color on your home is concerned. I just want to quickly mention Stacy, I was looking at it coming into the studio today. Also, many homes utilize white trim. I mean, classic styling. You have a gray home with white trim or a blue home with white trim. The uh incredible storm. Yeah. and looking at that plant and how that would perform in a landscape and tie in the trim of the house. I don’t have any. I got to go get some. That is a classic choice. And you know what? It’s one of those looks that just kind of gives you that like cottage or country garden kind of vibe. Um it’s such a popular landscaping plant for that exact reason. And it’s one of those things you just can’t go wrong with it. Yeah. All right. Well, I’m inspired. Uh, this has been a colorful show. It’s I hope you’re inspired to plant plants and not repaint your house cuz that’ll be expensive. Plant plants and I re-roofed it. So that’s done. So yeah, you’re you’re locked in for a while except for those plants. Well, yes, that was a great conversation. Thank you, Rick. Thank you, Stacy. Thank you, Adriana. And thanks so much to all of you for listening. We truly appreciate it and hope you have a wonderful week ahead.