For those who love color, your garden is the place to really experiment—without the fear of making expensive mistakes. Unlike the inside of your house, outside you must work with what nature gives you—climate, soil conditions, sunlight and shadow, the bright blue sky above, the natural foliage of your region, and the areas around your garden space, like views and neighbors' gardens. In dry sunny areas, you'll have backdrops of grays and light browns and silver greens to plan with. In more temperate climates, green in all its variations will provide your canvas. As the garden "artist," you'll add the color, form, and texture to make the garden your own.

Before you plan, watch your garden space as it changes with the seasons and the times of day. In gardens, more than interiors, light affects the intensity of the colors and climate controls what will grow there. Play with color in your garden. Gardens are never the same from one season to the next. They are ever changing and always miracles of growth and time. Enjoy experimenting there. There are no "best" colors for gardens. Nature is the one place where most colors live happily together. Green is Mother Nature's ubiquitous neutral.

Portions reproduced from "THE COLOR ANSWER BOOK" with the permission of Leatrice Eiseman.