Choose Plant Colors. Review Hardiness Zones

Create Your Garden With
Colors You Love!

Simple and unique garden with colors.

Introducing PlantSwatch™, a flower garden planner for gardeners to select plants based on color and plant hardiness zones.
What Is PlantSwatch™?

PlantSwatch™ is a plant and flower gardening guide specially designed to make garden planning simple. Whether you’re a beginner gardener or a seasoned grower, PlantSwatch™ streamlines your garden design process, helping you confidently select plants that are meant for your plant hardiness zone in the color palette you’ve been dreaming of.

PlantSwatch™ takes the guesswork out of flower gardening for beginners.

Why PlantSwatch™?

If you are a gardener or want to be a gardener, PlantSwatch™ is for you. PlantSwatch™ is about creating a well-planned garden with the plants that are right for your garden’s conditions in the colors you love. Ensuring you only buy plants that will thrive in your garden’s micro-climate will save time and money, giving you more of the season to enjoy your garden.

Considering the average garden nursery sells over 5,000 varieties of trees, shrubs, grasses and flowering plants, trying to find plants suitable for a specific garden can take time and research.

PlantSwatch™ was designed to give new or experienced gardeners the ability to easily select plants by color, height, sun and water requirements and temperature tolerance (hardiness zone) that will be able to thrive in a specific location.

All of the plants in PlantSwatch™ should be easy to find in most local garden centers or from mail order nurseries for gardeners in Canada and the United States. PlantSwatch™ is a convenient tool for garden designers, gardeners, students, or anyone who enjoys the creativity that comes with gardening. The compact size and format make it easy to take around the garden, comparing the color swatches with nearby plants, and discovering additional plant choices that will harmonize or contrast with plants already there.

Looking for a particular color, or combination of shades, to brighten your front yard?

Choose plants from any color group and plan according to each plant’s height and width, as well as its sun and water requirements.

Wondering why those beautiful perennials you planted last year (and the year before, and the year before) are never seen again?

At a glance, PlantSwatch™ indicates the zone(s) in which each plant can be safely situated to come back season after season. If you don’t know in which zone your garden is located, contact your nearest garden nursery for clarification.

When you go out to walk the dog do you wonder what that beautiful bush is in the garden down the street?

At slightly larger than a cell phone, PlantSwatch™ is perfect for taking along to identify unknown plants and then using at your local nursery to show them what you want.

How Does PlantSwatch™ Work?

PlantSwatch™ features quick and easy access to information on over 230 classic and proven plants, arranged by foliage and/or flower color and the optimal plant hardiness zone for best results.

The average nursery stocks up to 5,000 plant varieties – PlantSwatch™ features 231 plants that will be available at most nurseries. PlantSwatch™ provides gardeners with easy-to-understand information to ensure excellent gardening results. Plant images are bold and colorful and there are no obscure horticultural symbols to learn. PlantSwatch™ is sized to fit in your pocket.

Buy Now!

Take advantage of our early bird discounts on PlantSwatch™ and start planning your dream garden today! And PlantSwatch™ makes an excellent gift.

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Guide Now!

Our Story

Like so many great inventions, this one was born of frustration. “I came from a part of the world where one is surrounded by lush plants year round and my mother was a commercial gardener and florist.” says Phillip Fourie, who grew up in Zambia and South Africa. “But when I moved to Canada, I found myself spending a fortune on plants that simply didn’t make it through the winter, or sometimes even the summer.” Phillip’s experience in both the publishing and paint industries, where color swatches are routinely used to select ink and paint colors, gave him the idea of adapting the paint and paper color swatch concept to the horticultural world.

 

To ensure that the information in PlantSwatch™ would be scientifically sound, Fourie teamed up with Steven Loewen, a professor at the University of Guelph, Ridgetown Campus, who teaches Horticulture Diploma courses. Loewen agreed to co-author PlantSwatch™ and his remarkable ability to identify and isolate the most important growing factors for each plant was key to PlantSwatch™’s successful development. Loewen also saw an opportunity to produce a guide with the kind of attention to detail that he felt was lacking in existing plant guides. For example, the introductory section of PlantSwatch™ actually defines what is meant by sun, bright shade, semi-shade and shade. When choosing plants to include in PlantSwatch™, the co-authors tried to select ‘classic’ garden plants – those that have withstood the test of time and tend to be reasonably easy to grow over a wide range of conditions. They included a number of favorite award-winning plants as well as some that are new and ‘promising’. Finally they ensured a wide array of colors to give gardeners lots of choice.

Phillip Fourie
Creator
PlantSwatch™

For any gardener who has ever struggled to find the right color combination for a favorite bed, or watched as expensive spring plantings became leggy looking for light or withered in too-hot sun, there is now a solution – PlantSwatch™.

PlantSwatch™ is a handy ready reference that looks much like the fan-out swatch books used to select paint colors. Featuring bold and colorful images of over 230 classic and proven flowers, bushes, trees and grasses, PlantSwatch™ is arranged by foliage or flower color plus the plant hardiness zone where optimal results are most likely. The back of each plant image includes information essential for successful growth.

Testimonials

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what our clients say

Frequently Asked Questions

We always suggest beginners start with a simple plan. Make a rough sketch of your property, try to determine which parts offer full sun or full shade, or combinations of the two. If you’re doing the work by yourself, start with one area and make a note about the soil conditions. Follow the guidelines in PlantSwatch™.

There are so many different soil testing kits on the market. We find the best way to approach do-it-yourself soil testing is to review this Almanac article: https://www.almanac.com/content/3-simple-diy-soil-tests

Our objective is not to limit you to the plants featured in PlantSwatch™. We suggest you select plants, and then visit your nearest plant nursery to see which other plants would match selected colors, as well as the other characteristics.

PlantSwatch™ features over 231 tried and tested plants.

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