Yellow is being hailed as the colour of the season.
Cheery hues have been springing up in planting schemes from Chelsea Flower Show to Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival. But look beyond the buttery hues, and there’s a pigment that refuses to glow happily in the background. It zings. It pops. It screams summertime.
Chartreuse
Enigmatic. Not quite yellow, not quite green with bags of attitude!
It’s the vivid shade chosen by deodorant challenger brand AKT London to launch their latest fragrance, Hay Fever (inspired by the Noël Coward play of the same name), at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival.
To complete their deliciously quintessentially English country garden exhibit, they requested the presence of the Hopton summerhouse painted in eye-catching hex code #DFFF00. How could we resist?
Hopton Summerhouse
The campaign (devised by AKT founders Ed Currie and Andy Coxon) is a pure confection, worthy of their theatrical pasts. The garden exhibit, designed by Plants by There’s James Whiting, was created to feel like a film set, moments after the actors have wrapped.
The Hopton summerhouse became the lead character Judith’s dressing room, while the surrounding garden gave major Saltburn-meets-Midsomer-Murders vibes, dressed with flouncy English blooms and a lavish picnic banquet spread across a table and vintage sports car bonnet.
A little colour history
Chartreuse takes its name from a French liqueur created by Carthusian monks in the Grenoble region of France in the 1760s. It was intended to be an elixir of long life and was distilled from a secret recipe of 130 herbs, plants, and flowers, which gave rise to the unmistakable greenish-yellow hue we now call chartreuse.
Over time, the colour has made its mark in the worlds of fashion, art, sport, and now gardens. Van Gogh and Monet used it extensively to add vibrancy and depth to their works. Even tennis balls adopted the colour to stand out more clearly, turn heads and spark endless debate about whether they are in fact yellow or green.
Why it works for gardens
Chartreuse is more than a colour. It’s a conversation starter. It can make a garden feel alive and even a tad rebellious. Pair it with charcoal grey for drama, soft lavender for contrast, or deep forest greens for harmony. It works because it’s unexpected.
And that’s what makes chartreuse more than just a passing trend. It bridges nature and design, energy and elegance. It’s found in the first flush of new leaves, the edge of a lime peel, or the shimmer of a beetle’s back. It’s not a colour that begs to be liked. It dares to be unforgettable.
So, while yellow may be the golden child of the garden world right now, chartreuse is the vibrant newcomer shaking things up. If you’re looking to refresh your space, this almost-yellow, almost-green hue might be the statement your garden never knew it needed. Give chartreuse its time to shine.
