Peach Fuzz is Pantone’s 2024 Color of the Year! This soft shade invites feelings of warmth, kindness, and compassion. According to Pantone, the peach color was chosen to “recognize the importance of fostering our inner selves and find moments of respite, creativity, and human connection amid the hustle and bustle of modern life”. This soft, comforting shade conveys vintage, romantic, and empathetic feelings, and is reminiscent of spending time with those we hold dear. We can't wait to plant the color peach fuzz this year!
What’s Pantone and the Color of the Year?
Pantone started out in the 1960s as a color-matching system and has since evolved into one of the largest recognizable color standards brands. According to their website, “Pantone provides a universal language of color”, complete with a unique naming system so people can communicate worldwide about colors.
In 1999, the Pantone Color Institute created the first Color of the Year, to start a global conversation about the connection between culture and color. The very first Color of the Year was Cerulean Blue, which kicked off the new millennium. Each year since then, Pantone has selected a new color that blends culture with the unique language of color.
How to Plant the 2024 Color of the Year?
With such a warm, compassionate color like Peach Fuzz as the Color of the Year, it’s easy to pick trees, shrubs, and perennials that embody the soft color. See our top picks below:
Trees
- Pink Sparkles® Crabapple - A gorgeous mid-sized crabapple with soft pink flowers and clean, disease-free foliage, which culminates in long-lasting, vibrant red fruit. The bright, cherry-red fruit of Pink Sparkles® lasts the entire winter, even into spring. This tree requires full sun and grows up to 15’ tall and 12’ wide. While it doesn't resemble peach fuzz all year round, the springtime blooms are sure to please!
- Sugar Tyme® Crabapple - This upright, spreading crabapple variety is a favorite of ours and among our customers. It has great disease-resistance and crisp, dark green foliage, which makes the pale pink buds pop. Buds open to white flowers and precede the rich red fruit that cling to the tree all year.
Shrubs
- Apricot Drift® Rose - This crossover between full-size groundcover rose and miniature rose sports double peachy-colored flowers that bloom continuously from June until frost. These jaw-dropping blooms have 30-35 petals each! These roses are tough, disease-resistant, and winter hardy.
- At Last® Rose - A disease-resistant rose with wonderful fragrance and a long bloom time - from spring through frost - this one is sure to brighten up your landscape! It’s sun-loving and attracts pollinators of all kinds to your yard.
- Happy Face® Pink Paradise Potentilla - This big-time bloomer stuns beginning mid-spring and lasting until the first frost. The cherry-pink flowers may fade to a pale pink or even white in the heat of summer, but they are semi-double, which means more petals to enjoy.
Perennials
- Siloam Peony Display Daylily - This daylily features soft peach-colored double blossoms, growing up to 6” wide. It’s fragrant and reblooms all summer long! It prefers full sun and attracts butterflies and hummingbirds to your yard.
- Strawberry Candy Daylily - Another daylily on our list, strawberry candy is a stunning coral color with a bright red center and golden throat. It blooms early to mid-season and will rebloom with deadheading. This daylily also prefers full sun and attracts pollinators.
- Autumn Fire Sedum - Perhaps a stretch for the color peach, but this sedum packs a punch of beautiful little pink flowers in early fall. When temperatures start to drop, the flowers turn to a more peachy salmon color, before ending as a rosy russet shade. They attract pollinators by the drove in the late season.
Edibles
- Contender Peach - Of course we couldn’t have this list and not include an actual peach! The contender peach has fragrant pink flowers in spring, which develop into delicious fruit mid-season. It’s a hardy tree that survives in cold climates, and produces fruit within 3-5 years.
- Fall Gold Raspberry - This disease-resistant light-colored raspberry is an excellent, productive variety for eastern and midwestern growers. It produces some of the largest, most flavorful golden berries in spring and fall, making it an everbearing variety.
Complementary Colors to Peach Fuzz
Peach is a versatile color to plant with, so it’s easy to find complementary colors. Plants with blue flowers provide a lovely contrast, and those with white flowers will help the peach pop in your garden! Plants with dark foliage can also help accentuate the warmth of the color peach.
In Summary
Pantone’s choice for 2024’s Color of the Year is one that brings feelings of warmth, kindness, and creativity. We can use the same ideals when planting, fostering a community in our gardens, fit for pollinators to enjoy!
Looking for more planting advice and gardening tips? Visit our Green Tips page!
