I am totally surprised by the 2026 Pantone Color of the Year - Cloud Dancer. With America's 250th birthday happening in July, I was expecting maybe a bright blue or sharp red. But white? Cloud Dancer is more like a very pale grey, more than mere white. When you think about clouds, they always seem to have grayish edges, never are they purely white.
Because it is the Color of the Year for 2026, Cloud Dancer can help new and old gardeners in adding pastel colors to the garden. Now, we do not order our plants based on the color of the year, but I can make recommendations using plants we will have in stock. To use pastels in the garden, you must try to avoid those colors which are bright and flashy, going for softer more neutral hues. Colors to avoid include red, orange, bright pink, and magenta.
Planning A Garden with Pastels
The kind of garden based solely on Cloud Dancer would be a Moon Garden. But I would suggest a pastels garden over a moon garden in this case. You can use more colors and it will be easier to extract the essence of a cloud within the garden. If you are looking for examples of gardens to model your own after, I can recommend any botanical garden with a Monet garden, or the following:
- The Lurie Garden, Chicago
- Delaware Botanic Gardens
- Shedd Aquarium - Chicago
- Glebe House - Woodbury, CT
- Monet Garden at Overland Park Arboretum - Overland Park, KS
- The Southeast Nebraska Cancer Garden - Humboldt, NE
One of the easiest things to do when planning to make these types of gardens is to do a meadow or prairie style garden. If you hike or visit prairies during the height bloom, June or July, you will see what I mean. There is a lot of shading of greens with grasses, and then the flowers at those times are primarily white, pink, lavender, or shades yellow. Usually the only red or orange at that time is from butterfly milkweed, which is subdued by the greens around it. Red typically gets lost in the prairie grasses, and becomes a surprise, not a regularity.
Choosing Plants
One thing you do not want to do when choosing plants to make a pastels garden, is to pick too many bright colors. You will need less yellow, oranges, reds, and purples than you might normally pick. Our brains our pre-wired to be attracted to these bright colors, which is why marketing in food uses them to get us to buy. But you will want to stay away from these as mush as possible for the pastel garden. Choose instead subdued shades of blue, pink, melon, cantaloupe, mauve, gray, and white.
Also, too many large flowered plants will also take away from the brush-stroke effect of a pastels garden. Steer clear from hardy hibiscus, rose of Sharon, most daylilies, and too many hydrangeas.
Plants that Match with Cloud Dancer
Separating the colors can help you with you design. I suggest getting the book - Planting: A New Perspective by Piet Oudolf & Noel Kingsbury, to help you with your design process. Or you can call Grimm's Gardens and we would love to help you! The following list of perennials are closely matched to the color Cloud Dancer.
- Phlox 'Opening Act White', 'Backlight'
- Veronica 'White Wands'
- Salvia 'Perfect Profusion', White Profusion', Snow Kiss'
- Yarrow 'Firefly Diamond'
- Meadow Rue 'Cotton Ball'
- Allium 'Bobbehead'
- Baptisia 'Vanilla Cream II'
- Coneflower 'The Price is White', 'Pow Wow White'
- Siberian Iris ' Swans in Flight'
Grasses and Other Perennials
Now, this list is by no means comprehensive, but it does include some of my Proven Winners favorites. These and more can be used in conjunction with Cloud Dancer plants, in a specialized design for maximum performance in the garden. You should be choosing plants which not only compliment with colors, but bloom in succession so there is always color in the garden.
Pale Blues
- Russian Sage 'Denim N Lace', 'Sage Advice'
- Salvia 'Crystal Blue'
- Amsonia 'Storm Cloud', 'String Theory'
- Baptisia 'Blue Bubbly', 'Purple Smoke'
Lavenders
- Lavender 'Sweet Romance', 'Phenomenal'
- Oregano 'Drops of Jupiter'
- Salvia 'Azure Snow',
- Catmint 'Catwalk Queen', 'Cats Meow'
- Bee Balm 'Pardon My Lavender'
Peach and Melon
- Yarrow 'Firefly Peach Sky'
- Agastache 'Queen Nectarine'
- Coneflower 'One in a Melon', 'Supreme Cantaloupe'
- Knipfofia 'Hot & Cold'
Oranges and Yellows
- Daylily 'Orange Smoothie'
- Yarrow 'Firefly Sunshine'
- Butterfly milkweed 'Hello Yellow'
- Butterfly Milkweed
Pinks
- Yarrow 'Firefly Fuschia'
- Baptisia 'Pink Truffles'
- Bush Clematis 'Stand By Me Pink'
- Coneflower 'The Fuschia is Bright'
- Bee Balm 'Leading Lady Pink', 'Pink Chenille'
- Catmint 'Whispurr Pink'
- Salvia 'Pink Dawn'
- Meadow Rue 'Cotton Candy'
- Phlox 'Luminary Opalescence'
- Veronica 'Pink Potion'
Grasses
- Switchgrass 'Apache Rose', 'Niagara Falls'
- Pennisetum 'Desert Plains', 'Lemon Squeeze', 'Water to Wine'
- Little Bluestem 'Brush Strokes', 'Ha Ha Tonka', 'Twilight Zone'
Conclusion
While Cloud Dancer may not be the choice I would make for color of the year, I can see why it was picked. By enlightening our conceptions of beauty, creativity, and calmness, Cloud Dancer can invoke our imaginations for a great world. Hopefully, it will help us create more beautiful gardens too.
Happy planting!
