Choosing colours for your garden can feel overwhelming, so I always suggest starting with the colours you love. Think about the shades that lift your spirits and the combinations you find most beautiful, and use these as the starting point for a garden that feels joyful and full of life.
Sarah's advice for choosing colours
Select a couple of starting colours
Select one or two starting colours and then begin introducing complementary shades. For instance, you could pair orange with purple, apricot with burgundy, or blush with cream and lilac to create harmony and depth.
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Consider all seasons
Think seasonally when creating your garden’s colour story. If you’re planning for 2027, use autumn to think about which bulbs can transform your spring borders and pots. Create a theme that carries through the garden over the whole year and apply that palette to both perennials and foliage for a consistently abundant look.
Think about the shades that lift your spirits and the combinations you find most beautiful, and use these as the starting point.
Successional planting gives you a continuous display of colour from early spring onwards, rather than one short-lived burst, and is one of my favourite ways to make a colour story last throughout the whole year. A bulb lasagne, layering bulbs at different depths in a pot or border, is a lovely way to create this effect, with each layer coming into flower in turn. With that in mind, take time to consider how you want your garden to look over the whole year when planting in autumn.
I like to combine early, mid and late season bulbs, then weave in perennials and foliage that will take over as the bulbs fade. That way, the garden is always moving on to its next moment of colour, and the palette you’ve carefully chosen continues to evolve rather than disappearing after a few weeks.
The best colour scheme is ultimately one that feels like you.
Don't forget foliage
Don’t forget the importance of foliage in a colour scheme. Foliage gives a garden its texture and structure, often for far longer than the flowers themselves. Look beyond the standard green and use shades of silver, blue-green, and burgundy to link different plants and seasons together. One of the joys of foliage is that your garden never feels like it truly finishes flowering, as there is always something interesting to look at.
Sarah Raven’s colour combo picks for spring 2027, to plant NOW
For autumn 2026, our new tulip collections explore four distinct colour directions: Velvet, Luminous, Comfort, and Washed. Each is designed to show the power of complementary shades, taking the guesswork out of planting while giving gardeners the confidence to create a beautiful display.
Try the Café-au-lait collection for rich, sophisticated colour. The collection combines ‘La Belle Epoque’ with ‘Purple Dream’ and narcissus ‘Cha Cha’ to create a beautiful mix of coffee, blush, cream, and purple hues. Tulip ‘Ballerina’ offers something brighter, a glowing orange that works particularly well with dark wallflowers. For darker areas of the garden, the Light the Shade collection of ‘Apricona’, ‘Apricot Pride’ and ‘Menton’ combines soft pink, white, and coral to catch and reflect the available light.
I particularly love tulip ‘Callahan’, our new discovery, with its extraordinary crème-brulee colouring of apricot, caramel, and gold. It works beautifully paired with creamy whites or dusky pinks. For a softer scheme, the Mother of Pearl collection brings together delicate blush, cream, and lilac tones.
The collections are there to give you a starting point, not a set of rules. Once you see how colours work together, you can begin to trust your own eye. The best colour scheme is ultimately one that feels like you. From scented orange tulips and coffee-coloured doubles to resilient species varieties and colour combinations made for pots, Sarah Raven selects the bulbs worth ordering now for a spectacular spring:
Best for deep, dramatic colour: Sultan's Palace Tulip Collection
For a scheme that feels rich rather than loud, choose 'Sultan's Palace'. True crimson, brick red, and terracotta give the combination depth, while the warmer tones stop it becoming sombre. 'Sarah Raven', 'Slawa', and 'Request' share elegant flower shapes and a similar 45cm height, so the planting feels coherent in both pots and borders. The result is opulent, sophisticated, and easy to combine with the new coffee and brown shades.
Best for returning flowers: Tiny Dancer Tulip Collection
Species tulips look delicate, but 'Tiny Dancer' proved remarkably resilient in our trials at Perch Hill. Tulipa clusiana var. stellata, T. cretica 'Hilde', and T. clusiana 'Lady Jane' flower early, stood up well to wet conditions, and establish beautifully in grass. The fine stems and starry flowers look equally as glamorous in small tabletop pots; so choose them for a lighter, more natural display and a strong chance of seeing the flowers return.
Best for the vase: Perfect for Picking Tulip Collection
A good cutting tulip needs a strong stem, a clear colour, and a shape that works easily in an arrangement. 'Flevo Passion', 'Slawa', 'Sarah Raven', and 'Amazing Parrot' bring all these attributes together in one collection. The flowers reach about 45cm and combine colours and textures of deep pink, red, purple, and parrot-tulip. Grow them in a cutting patch or a large container, then take a few stems at a time as the display establishes.
