Shades of blue seem poised to dominate color palettes in 2020. Landscape designers may look to incorporate more of the color into their projects for the year.

Pantone Color Institute named Classic Blue, a color that evokes a sky at twilight, its color of the year. Paint companies like PPG and Sherwin Williams each chose deep blues as their colors for 2020, while Valspar and Benjamin Moore included more muted shades of blue in their annual palette of trendy colors.

Containers and outdoor furniture are an easy way to incorporate blue into a landscape. But there are also plenty of plant choices, including iris, flax, larkspur, lupine, and Colorado columbine, that can add a pop of blue. More subtle blues can be added with Blue jazz piñon pine or Colorado blue spruce.

Looking for an edible blue? All America Selections chose blue prince pumpkin F1, a flattened pumpkin with blue shading and contrasting orange flesh, as its edible plant of the year. Blue Prince pumpkin is touted as a vegetable that can do well in a shorter growing season and is good for both decorating and eating.

Read more in this issue of Colorado Green NOW:
NALP predicts top five landscaping trends of 2020
Perennial top performers are reliable plants for Colorado landscapes
DOL issues more clarification on FLSA compliance
GreenCO announces 2020 legislative priorities