The Pantone Color Institute has been governing worldwide color trends since 2000, providing, according to its website, “a universal language of color that enables color-critical decisions through every stage of the workflow for brands and manufacturers.”

That means that, come spring, you can expect to see peach-toned clothing, shoes, home furnishings and wall paints dominating their respective domains as designers scramble to satisfy a trend-hungry public. You’ll also see a plethora of peachy plants at the nursery.

Breeding new plants takes much longer — at least a decade, in most cases — than making new textiles. But make no mistake: Garden centers will be stocking a dizzying array of existing peach-toned plants this spring, and many will be new to us.

Some of my favorites:

ROSES
At Last is a beautiful light-orange shrub rose that checks all the boxes: It’s highly fragrant, low-maintenance, disease-resistant, and blooms from early summer through fall in zones 5-9.

Peach Drift, too, offers disease resistance and repeat blooming from spring through frost, but with a spreading habit. This groundcover rose is ideal for hillsides or open areas in zones 4-11.

SHRUBS
Double Take flowering quince is a long-blooming, low-maintenance, heat- and drought-tolerant spring bloomer with soft peach flowers that grows in zones 5-9. Unlike older varieties, it doesn’t have thorns, so you can work around it and make bouquets without getting pricked.

Suntastic Peach abelia puts forth pretty white flowers all summer long, but the real star of the show is its bright-peach evergreen foliage. As a bonus, it offers superior drought resistance and heat tolerance and is smaller than standard abelias. Grow it in zones 6-10.

Peaches and Cream is a bushy, heat- and drought-resistant Grevillea shrub suited for zones 9-11. Its eye-catching, multi-toned flowers bloom year-round against bright green, dense, dissected foliage.

PERENNIALS
Firefly Peach Sky yarrow flowers emerge peachy and then fade to yellow as they age, creating a kaleidoscope of peach, orange, cream and yellow interest as some flowers in different stages of maturity converge. Thrives in zones 3-8.

Pyromania Hot and Cold, a Kniphofia or red hot poker plant, has spiky flowers that are peachy at their tips and creamy at their base, making for quite the garden conversation piece. They rebloom all summer in zones 5-9 over tall, grassy foliage, and resist drought, salt, deer and rabbits.

Venti Tequila Sunrise dahlia is a showy, vigorous plant that lives up to its name. Peach-toned double flowers with coral tips and yellow bases bloom on mounded plants from early summer through frost. Hardy in-ground in zones 8-10; dig up and store tubers indoors over winter in colder zones.

Fresco Apricot is a striking plant: It’s taller and narrower than most other echinaceas, and its large zinnia-like flowers are a delicious peachy-apricot shade. Expect nearly nonstop blooms from June through October in zones 4-9.

ANNUALS
Celway Salmon cockscomb boasts velvety, spiked flower clusters, each composed of one central plume surrounded by several smaller plumes atop tall, strong stems. The salmon-colored clusters bloom from spring through late summer, and their longevity in bouquets makes them well-suited for the cutting garden.

Vivacia Orange dianthus is a low-growing, creeping plant with grass-like foliage and large, solid, light-orange blooms. Although some cultivars are perennial, this one is categorized as annual.

Superbena Peachy Keen verbena is a vigorous grower that blooms continuously from spring through fall without deadheading. It’s also heat-tolerant and deer-resistant.

Toucan Coral Canna is a dramatic plant with pretty peach flowers and a strong tropical vibe. The long-blooming plant tolerates heat, humidity and drought, and deer tend to avoid it.

Begonia Cocoa Enchanted Sunrise has unusual, dark, chocolate-colored leaves with lime green veins that contrast strikingly with its large, peach-toned flowers. The shade lover is hardy in zones 8-11 and widely treated as an annual elsewhere.

FOLIAGE PLANTS
Northern Exposure Amber coral bells is a low-growing, densely mounded plant with evergreen leaves that performs equally well in full shade as in full sun. Tall, slender stems hold up tiny, bell-shaped, green flowers in late spring for added interest.

Coleus Fancy Feathers Copper is a mounding plant with a whimsical tuft of narrow, yellow-orange and pink leaves that will brighten shady spots, whether in the ground or in a container, as well as your mood.

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[ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”show” ihc_mb_who=”reg” ihc_mb_template=”1″ ]Names can sway a person, says New York designer Daun Curry. “We once had a client choose one paint color over another because the name was Peace and Happiness,” she says.

More often, we pick a shade because we like it, says color consultant Debra Kling of New York, and “the names’ associations serve to augment our feelings about the hues.’’

She warns clients that paints when applied can look very different from their names: Creams, especially, easily veer into yellow territory, even when there’s no hint of that hue in their name.

Natalie Ebel, co-founder of the direct-to-consumer paint company Backdrop — which is behind Harajuku Morning and Modern Love — says that choosing the right names for paint colors is essential.

“We encourage customers to not just paint their walls, but create their backdrop,’’ she says. “So each name was chosen to evoke an emotional connection; we were inspired by real people, places, things and moods.”

Farrow & Ball is known for creative naming; their latest Colour By Nature palette, made in collaboration with London’s Natural History Museum, was inspired by Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours, an 1814 guide that cross-references hues with markings and colorations found in nature. Scotch Blue, for example, suggests both the throat of a blue titmouse and copper ore.

Time and place also provide inspiration, says Farrow & Ball’s color consultant Joa Studholme.

“Occasionally, the paint name comes almost before the color. Plummett was mixed after an afternoon spent fishing on the river, where the color of the lead used to weight the fisherman’s line was a thing of such beauty that it just begged to be added to the Farrow & Ball palette,’’ she says.

Studholme shares the backstories on two Farrow & Ball pinks, Calamine and Dead Salmon:

“For many people of a certain age, Calamine lotion was an intrinsic part of early life. Applied to treat scraped knees, stings and the general travails of a lively childhood, it was always of comfort. And what was more calming, the actual lotion or its extraordinary delicate color? It certainly creates soothing rooms in the modern world,” she says.

As for the fishy one, the name was found on a decorator’s invoice dated 1805 for a library. “Salmon is the color, and Dead actually refers to the matte paint finish,” Studholme says.

Another rosy paint that Studholme thinks is well-named was inspired by the soft, feminine shade found in traditional ladies’ private quarters. But “Boudoir Pink’’ didn’t sit right, she says.

“So, we spent time considering how the boudoir got its name, only to discover it comes from the French bouder, meaning ‘to sulk.’ Thus, Sulking Room Pink was born,” she says.

Pink has enjoyed a favored position in the color pantheon since at least 2014 when movie director Wes Anderson clad his “Grand Budapest Hotel’’ in the hue. That was followed by rose gold fever. Color company Pantone designated light pinks as signature colors in both 2016 and 2017.

Paint marketers generally like names that are aspirational, that stir the imagination. First Light is Benjamin Moore’s 2020 Color of the Year, a dreamy, soft shade of pink. The company’s director of color marketing and development, Andrea Magno, says that while the color was already part of Benjamin Moore’s 3,500-hue library, “it’s always fortuitous when the trend concept and color name complement one another. While descriptions like `light pink’ are quite straightforward, we also look for names that evoke positive associations and experiences.”

PPG Paint’s senior color marketing manager, Dee Schlotter, says Linen Ruffle is the top pink requested on the company’s Paintzen platform. It’s a pale, taupe-tinged white with a pink undertone, named to evoke images of ruffly pillows and curtains.

And what about Kenny’s Kiss or Salsa Diane, two other pinks in the PPG collection? The former was named after an employee’s dog; the latter after a color lab stylist’s beachy dress.

HGTV Home by Sherwin-Williams’ color of the year is Romance, another gentle pink with a name that stirs feelings.

Ebel, of Backdrop, says pinks have been the most fun to name.

“I wanted to keep the colors and names approachable for people like me — I wasn’t a huge pink person before Backdrop,’’ she says.

“Harajuku Morning was inspired by a trip we took to Tokyo in 2016. The color is bright, airy and fun, and reminded us of the playfulness of Takeshita Street, but in the morning before the crowds. Modern Love was inspired by one of my favorite New York Times columns — the color makes me think of the beautiful, messy feelings that come with relationships,” she says.

Just like the beautiful, messy relationship we all have with the brushes, rollers and paint colors we bring home.

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What’s Behind Paint Names

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This fall, interior designers say there’s demand for eclectic styles, interesting prints, rich hues and warm textures.

Style sense

The trim, tailored lines of midcentury decor have been ensconced in the home furnishings marketplace for several years now; versions of iconic pieces can be found in all big-box retailers. Has the beloved style peaked?

Some designers see an easing of the fever, but that doesn’t mean midmod is going anywhere.

“It has saturated the market,” says designer Elizabeth Stuart, of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. ”(But) I think the interesting thing is that unlike the ‘industrial’ look, the midcentury ‘comeback’ has proven not to be just a fad but an awareness and a respected way of designing. Amazing furniture and fabric designers came out of that time — Florence Knoll, the Eameses, Saarinen — design that’s held its own and shown the world that it never really left.”

Christiane Lemieux, who founded the home-design and fashion brand DwellStudio and now runs the custom furniture retailer The Inside, sees change coming.

“Interiors have been clean, midcentury-inspired and fairly generic for the past few years, (but now) people are craving the ‘new and more.’ Enter maximalism, specifically through the lens of British design, which is experiencing a major revitalization,” she says.

Elaborate patterns, ornamentation, and luxe materials are hallmarks of that style. Designers like Miles Redd and Ken Fulk are known for their max-y, layered, curated interiors.

“The beautiful thing about maximalism is that it’s entirely personal,” says Lemieux. “You’re encouraged to choose pieces that visually express your individuality. My No. 1 maximalism tip: Strive for personalization over perfection, and you can’t go wrong. The more you mix, the better the result.”

She has introduced a chintz fabric collection at The Inside. And at August Abode, there’s a Notting Hill-inspired chintz wallpaper collection.

In his furnishings collections, British designer Timothy Oulton melds respect for history with a modern-cool, slightly rebellious vibe. He takes classic pieces like tufted leather chesterfields, steamer trunks and Deco-era chandeliers, and plays with scale, incorporates a cheeky flag print, or re-interprets a saddle or aviator’s chair as seating.

Another fun way to bring a sense of history into a space: GE has a new collection of oversize vintage-style lighting. The LED bulbs come in ball, bulb and cylinder shapes with interesting filament designs, and all with the warm glow of the Edison fixtures that inspired them.

If you’re not comfortable going to the max, there’s another emerging look that finds the sweet spot between “lots” and “little,” and that’s maximal minimalism. This allows you to keep your clean-lined aesthetic while adding just a touch of something bold. Maybe it’s wild throw pillows. Or oversize art. Or a collection of objects — but instead of covering every surface, you display them in a contained way on a sleek shelf.

All the feels

“Shearling and boucle and velvet, oh my!” says John McClain, whose studio is in Orlando, Florida. “Deep, cozy textures are cropping up on more than just pillows these days — entire sofas, chairs and headboards are sporting luscious upholstery reminiscent of lambs, puppies and ponies.”

These materials create a calming, homey feeling, he says. He suggests also adding a hide rug, faux-fur throw or Nordic knit pouf for a fashionable look.

You’ll find seating from CB2, Houzz and Article upholstered in soft, nubby boucle. West Elm, Target and World Market are among retailers offering poufs with Scandinavian-style patterns.

Sophisticated hues

McClain is excited about some new, warm grays, like Benjamin Moore’s Gray Owl, Dunn Edwards’ Foggy Day and Sherwin-Williams’ Repose Gray.

“Adding layers of darker, moodier colors on top of this new gray leads to a sophisticated and almost sexy feel for fall,” he says.

Benjamin Moore color and design expert Hannah Yeo notes another chic combo: “From pale buttermilk to rich gold, yellows are making a strong visual statement. Soft yellow mixes well with gray and warms up wood tones.”

And Los Angeles designer Breegan Jane’s favors colors that “appeal to the emotions.”

“I see fall’s color trends moving toward darker, deeper hues like dark teal, maroon, plum,” she says. “These colors create a relaxed atmosphere that contrasts the bright, electric tones of spring and summer.”

PPG’s color of the year is Chinese Porcelain, a dusky navy. Fashion’s fall collections from Armani, Philip Lim, Christian Siriano and others featured the hue in variations ranging from quiet grayed blues to vibrant cobalts.

Navy is a perennial favorite, but McClain suggests trying peacock, deep teal or juniper. “These warmer, greener blues are just as versatile, conjuring feelings of a relaxing snuggle by the fire on a fall evening,” he says.

And Joan Craig of the New York architectural and interiors firm Craig & Company says bold hues are finding their way into the kitchen, too. “Many of our clients are interested in the black stainless finishes, which are handsome and fingerprint-resistant,” she says. “The trend for color in appliances is staying strong. What’s not to love about a burgundy, deep blue or brilliant green La Cornue range?”

Brass notes

Complementing all the rich blues, teals, berries and greens are the metals, and designers say mixing them up is the way to go now.

“Mixed metals definitely infuse an eclectic balance this fall,” says Jane. Rose gold may be on the wane, but brass and gold accents are trending, as is matte black. Silvery nickel and steel are always in. The mix isn’t solely about material or color; it’s also about finish. Matte, polished, antiqued and brushed give home decorators many options to provide interest and depth.

How do you decide which to use? McClain’s trick: repetition.

“Create a rhythm through themes,” he says. “For example, appliances and plumbing fixtures are stainless steel, cabinet hardware and light fixtures are brushed brass, and all door, hardware and window frames are matte black. Then punctuate your metal mixtures with picture frames, lamps and accessories.”

GE Café’s new appliance suite lets you customize knobs and handles, for example. “One of my clients opted for copper accents on her stainless appliances for fall, and plans to change again for spring,” McClain says.

Surfaces with personalities

“Wallpaper is having its day,” says Craig, citing papers with natural textures, customizable hand painting and small-scale prints.

“Beyond rooms, we’re lining ceilings, cabinet interiors and bookcases,” she says.

Terrazzo has found a home in many designers’ hearts. “It’s been around for 10,000 years and it still looks modern,” says Craig. “There are so many variations, and we love the design impact it gives a space.”

She’s mixing cream, buff and gray-blue stones in an off-white matrix for one project, while in another the team’s combining charcoal, gold and cream with bronze. “Besides being beautiful, epoxy terrazzo is lightweight and easy to maintain,” she says.

You’ll even find terrazzo as a pattern on fabrics, kitchenware and tabletop accessories.

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Fall Décor’s Style Song: Feel-good Vibes and Personality

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So they improvised, using luggage tags and airmail envelopes to create wall hangings. They found a fun suitcase to display in the room, and decoupaged a table with maps and travel-oriented scrapbook paper. The look came together pretty easily and inexpensively, said Smuzynski, who gave birth to daughter Avery in February 2015.

“It was more budget-friendly than if we had gone with a pre-assembled theme. This reflected who we are,” said Smuzynski, who wrote a blogpost about the effort on her website, parenthoodandpassports.com. “Travel has always been a significant part of our lives.”

In just a few years, the trend seems to have taken off. “When I go into Hobby Lobby, there’s an entire section that looks exactly like her room,” said Smuzynski, of Oklahoma City.

Many interior decorators, home goods manufacturers and trend spotters have embraced the travel theme. Some people decorate with pieces they bought on vacation or that remind them of past trips. Others simply go to the store for furniture, lighting and other elements that evoke the look and feel of places they’ve visited.

It’s all part of a trend toward making decor personal and customized, said Donna Garlough, style director for Wayfair, an online home goods store.

“These days, people crave homes that speak to them and their interests rather than one that was decorated in one fell swoop. And travel is one of those things that can really shape you, so it’s no wonder people want to reflect their favorite memories and destinations in their home’s décor,” said Garlough, whose book, “Your Home, Your Style” (Rizzoli USA), will be published this spring.

Laura Casey of Laura Casey Interiors in Charlotte, North Carolina, designed a dining room inspired by a zebra photograph that clients had purchased during a trip to Africa. She incorporated complementary colors, textures and patterns, using Moroccan-inspired tiles to help the room feel travel-inspired and eclectic.

Wall hangings are an easy way to add travel elements to a room, Casey said. Consider framing one of your photos or buying a print or art piece while traveling, she said.

“One of my clients has family photographs from many countries they have visited. In their kitchen and den we made small gallery groupings to represent each trip,” she said. “It keeps the room casual and family-friendly, while also allowing the family to be reminded of their adventures.”

Souvenirs are an obvious way to reference your travel, said Danielle Whitburn, a freelance writer for Home-Designing.com. But there are other options, as well.

“I love pieces that make a subtle nod to another place or memory — a bicycle bookend that reminds you of riding by the shore, for example, or a pillow that reminds you of the color of a certain lake or sea,” said Whitburn, who lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

Garlough agrees. “Rather than collecting souvenir spoons and refrigerator magnets like their parents and grandparents, today’s shoppers are incorporating their travel memories in bigger ways, such as an abstract landscape that reminds them of a hiking trip, or whimsical pillows with a beach motif,” she said. “It’s a subtle, constant reminder that they can appreciate every day.”

Of course, it’s also possible to achieve this look without ever leaving home. Moroccan leather ottomans, Persian rugs and Mexican artwork are distinctive elements that evoke a sense of place and can be bought online or at a store, Whitburn said.

As for souvenirs, today’s travelers often have a more global approach than in the past.

“As travelling increases (in) popularity, we are seeing more pieces outside the traditional tourist haunts in Europe and North America,” she says.

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Travel Has Become a Prime Inspiration for Home Decor

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1. Aloe Vera: Every Floridian should have this plant around. It’s awesome for relieving burns as well as illnesses. Plus, it loves to rid the air of formaldehyde. One can do the job in a small space but if you have a larger home, you’ll need a few of them strategically placed around.

2. Dracaena: Get rid of xylene, benzene and trichloroethylene with dracaena. Unless you have furry friends roaming about that is. Dogs and cats can become quite ill from this plant.

3. Ferns: Want a greener bathroom? Liven up an otherwise dull space with a fern. They love humidity, which is perfect for Florida, as well as bathrooms. And it will happily remove xylene from your air in exchange for room and board.

4. Spider: Plant Do you have a brown thumb? Are you the sort who forgets to water your plants? Well then this one is perfect for you. This plant is so low maintenance. It doesn’t need to be watered often and absorbs the cleaning chemicals you use in your home.

5. Chrysanthemums: Believe it or not, NASA found this plant to be one of the best natural air purifiers ever. It’s lovely to look at and really goes at those air pollutants. It’s wonderful for indoor spaces as well as patios.

6. Snake Plant: This is one you’ve probably seen everywhere from cafes to the waiting room at your doctor’s office. It’s so simple to take care of and like the spider plant, it rarely need to be watered. Additionally, the snake plants doesn’t require much sunlight to be happy cleaning the air in your home.

7. Peace Lily: Here’s a gorgeous flower that, beneath it’s lovely exterior is a deep cleaner. This is the flower for those of you who seem to ruin every plant you touch. Like Steven Seagal, it’s hard to kill. So while it’s busy beautifying your home, it’s even busier making the air in your home beautiful to breathe in too.

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