Keen on Peach

Ellen C. Wells

Each year in December the Pantone Color Institute grabs headlines with its announcement of its Color of the Year. For 2024, that color is Peach Fuzz and it’s not the uncertain growth on your young nephew’s chin to which they are referring. It’s a soft and velvety gentle tone between pink and orange, which kind of reminds me of the peach ice cream I loved at Carvel when I was a kid (second only to their blueberry ice cream).

Why Peach Fuzz? Paraphrasing Pantone, the reasons are its overall feeling of kindness, and its visual message of caring, nurturing and community. Magical, huh?

Is it possible to have too much magic, though?

As a tart cranberry relish gives relief to a rich and buttery Thanksgiving meal, so too can Peach Fuzz benefit from a coordinating color that grounds all that peachy pastelness. We have plenty of annual and perennial flowers—and I bet even a heuchera or 12—that match up with Pantone’s Peach Fuzz (go here for a list from Garden Media Group). AND we have plenty of options when it comes to items that can tone down all of that fuzz-magic, such as a daylily’s bright green leaves, a tuberous begonia’s chocolate foliage, a maroon glazed container, the textures of fillers used in a homegrown flower arrangement and the list goes on. I can’t recall a recent Pantone color for which we can supply both the matching flower/plant/accessory color and the coordinated grounding colors so well.

A few of my Ball Publishing colleagues have opinions about Peach Fuzz, too. Jen Zurko said, “I like it! But you run the risk of looking like it belongs on the set of ‘The Golden Girls’ …”. Jen’s got a point there. Jen Polanz agrees this could be a great color, and “I could see this as a nice pot color, too, for indoor or outdoor containers with white blooms.” Chris Beytes simply said, “It’s not unlike terracotta.” A weathered terracotta, yes, I agree.

What say you? Email me at ewells@ballpublishing.com and let me know! GP