Do you have a garden that is hit by the rays of the sun in early morning or at sunset? Do you have (or want) a firepit? If so, pay attention to the colors of flowers and foliage that you place in this part of your landscape. You can create a brilliant breakfast garden or an inviting evening area just by picking the right shades for these spaces.

Fire Pit Plantings? A Cocktail Hour Garden? You can grow that!

One of the chapters in The Cocktail Hour Garden: Creating Evening Landscapes for Relaxation and Entertaining is about designing a landscape to catch the light of the setting sun. The light in the early morning and evening is filled with warm tones, so that plants that have yellow or red flowers and foliage are beautifully illuminated in these times.

There are hundreds of plants with yellow, coral, red and orange leaves or petals. These blend well with other, cooler colors so don’t worry if you’re normally not a “hot hues” person…just put some of these warmer shades in with the whites, blues or pinks you would normally choose and let the rising or setting sun work its magic. And yes, in the garden red and orange definitely go with pink…ask one of Monet’s paintings about this next time you’re in a museum.

Can you keep a secret? The photo for the cover of my new book was taken at dawn, not during the cocktail hour. But you can see how yellow the rays of the sun are, and if the title wasn’t blocking most of the flower bed at the bottom of the photo you’d notice that the yellow marigolds are positively aglow!

This photo was taken during the cocktail hour. There are patches of blue Ageratum in this garden, but they fade to the background as the golden light of the cocktail hour illuminates the warmer colored flowers.