White goes with everything.

What happens to the garden in winter?

If you do a search for "exterior paint" you will get numerous paint manufacturer websites, many of which will have color selection help.

Our little ca1930 farmhouse came with siding a previous owner had slapped up. The color itself wasn't too bad, somewhere between Sherwin William's "Compatible Cream" and Kilz' "Angel Cake". The trim was a faded, dusty brown, and I repainted with a warm shade of green called "Green Jewel" which is another Kilz color.

It's a warmer color scheme than basic white with black trim.

My garden rests in the winter ;-)

Make the color of the house work for the house. The house is usually the most dominant feature of the residential landscape. If the house is working well on its own, there is less need for the plantings to mitigate the house. Plantings generally work well on any color with the exception of certain greens, unless the house color makes the house displeasing on its own.

That is one person's opinion - not a law of design.

In my opinion a shade of green for house color will go with almost anything in a garden, but I would also suggest that you try painting sections first to see what looks best to you. Nothing beats actually painting a wall with a sufficiently large area to really see what it will look like...

With my own house, I painted the stucco a color called Tropical Fern by Fuller Obrien Paints, and absolutely love it.

The reason that I say to be cautious about some shades of green is that it can absorb your planting and weaken the affects of the planting that you might be trying to use. It is not that green will make the garden look bad. It is that the green of the house lessens what the garden does to the house.

That could be a thread on its own.

There are many theories about colour and even more opinions. My opinion is that, if it is the intention to have the house look and feel like it belongs in the garden, then it should be an earth colour. Earth colours are basically yellow.

I have used a grey/sage for two homes and a grey/blue for another. I tend to use a creamy white for trim that has yellow undertones to keep it from shouting "white" at me!

Here's a link to my current home and garden...it's still new, we started this garden when the house was finished in Sept 05.

If you like the colors, I don't mind sending you the paint formulas, stone color and roof color information.

Here is a link that might be useful: house colors and garden

your color choices are beautiful, wonby. I think lots of people make the mistake of having too high a contrast between paint and trim colors and other elements. But yours is very soft.
Nice garden, too.....I'm curious. Did you start from bare earth? And what, if I may be so impolite, was the cost to achieve what you have done?

collaway: yes, we started with bare earth. The "bones" were installed by a landscaper that I've worked with on other projects. We are two people who have identical visions whenever we work on a project together!

Inital work in 2005: The flagstone walk, two bridges, Jerith fence with stone corners, the stream, the waterfall, the patio just behind the gate, front porch flagstone floor, the larger trees (cryptomeria, deodar cedar, wax myrtles, willow, crepe myrtles, prunus, many shrubs, etc), grading, initial garden soil and mulch was $26k. With a crew of 5, it was done pretty quickly.

Work in 2006: We personally built the flagstone dining patio, dry stream bed, the "newly planted shrub garden", fragrance garden around the dining patio and all of the perennials for around $3-4k. That included 28 cubic yards of garden soil and mulch. I retired last summer, so I did most all of the gardening by myself and my sons and husband did the heavy lifting with all the stone.

Here's the "before landscape" photo during construction:
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Wonbyherwits, Simply stunning, breath taking can't think of all the words to say. Well done.
Jill

just_me_6: Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack your thread with my gardening project.

As for your siding color for your garden with blues and purples, a soft yellow or creamy white would give you backlighting for those colors to be visible. Some pinks might not go well with a yellow (although I break that rule), and you can use greenery behind the pink if that's an issue. A yellow or white will draw more attention to your house, but those colors work well with country cottage gardens.

As you can see from my photos, we built in the back of a 2 acre meadow that has mature woods on 2 sides. We chose the grey/sage/cream to let the lines of the house show up without distracting from the surrounding natural areas. I had considered using a deep brown on the siding, but with our southern exposure on the front, I was concerned about paint fading (we are passive solar).

I mentioned having used these same colors twice, so here are the exact colors on my previous house, which was a craftsman-influenced design set in a wooded area with minimal lawn. The only color difference here is that we used a deep charcoal on the window sashes of the true divided lights.
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Your house and garden is beautiful. If you don't mind, could you please tell me about the stone that you have. What brand it is and the color name. Also the cut of the stone. I have been going nuts trying to pick out stone and really love what you have.

thanks a lot
julie