Summertime is the perfect season for finishing projects – and the folks at Southern Living are wrapping up a doozy with the debut of the 2022 Southern Living Idea House! Each year, the magazine partners with design experts to create a home that showcases spectacular trends in interiors and outdoor living. This year’s coastal North Carolina Idea House opens its grand doors this summer, and its inspiring designs will be showcased later in the year in print and online features.
Did you know that once its time as a “show home” is complete, the annual Southern Living Idea House embarks on the next phase of its journey… as a family home? If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to live in one of these grand Idea Homes, you’re in luck! We caught up with Kathryn Packard, a Virginia home and lifestyle expert, who lives in a Southern Living Idea House built in the 1990s. A stunning wraparound porch sets Kathryn’s Idea House apart in a crowd. Naturally, it’s home to cozy rocking chairs and plenty of outdoor living elements that reflect the season or holiday.
Outdoor seasonal touches and nods to upcoming holidays can set a festive tone that can be extended and amplified throughout the home’s interior décor. Perfect for Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, or all summer long, Kathryn is showing us how to create easy and elegant red, white and blue container plantings that are as bright and cheerful as fireworks!
American as apple pie and as sweet as summertime, the classic “red, white and blue” is a captivating combination of colors. Kathryn accents the pleated fan flags on her home with two towering urns that add height and classical drama to her entryway. “If you want that Southern look, hydrangeas, azaleas and big planters are the way to go. Planting two towering planters out front looks absolutely grand.”
To play up the height of tall containers, anchor your container planting with plants that have a vertical growth habit, meaning they generally grow in an upward, narrower trajectory. Kathryn’s planters feature Diamond Spire Gardenia, a strong vertical-growing shrub that produces fragrant white blooms from spring through fall. Diamond Spire’s gorgeous evergreen foliage that extends its beauty through winter. To fill in the container’s understory, Kathryn added low-growing petunias with punchy red petals.
Blue can be a tricky color to add to the garden as one of nature’s less common colors. To get that blue hue she was looking for, Kathryn added the firework-like spherical blooms of Ever Sapphire Agapanthus to her landscape. Agapanthus blooms come in a range of colors, from the airy white blooms of Ever White Agapanthus to the perfectly purple flowers of Ever Amethyst Agapanthus. For a red, white and blue theme, the Ever Sapphire variety used by Kathryn offers a clear, cool blue splashed across the plant’s colossal flowers atop towering stems.
Finally, Kathryn completed her red, white and blue planting with sizzling scarlet containers of Saucy Red Salvia! Planted in abundance in pots lining her entryway staircase, these vibrant red blooms will attract pollinators with bright flowers from April through November. Saucy Red Salvia is a self-cleaning bloom, meaning there’s no need to deadhead – they always look abundant and tidy.
When it comes to scouting new ideas at home, we love looking to the Southern Living Idea House – past and present – for dreamy designs and lovely landscapes. Be sure to catch the 2022 Idea House in the magazine this fall – or tour in person beginning this July – for inspiring ideas to take your home and garden to the next level!
Photographs and design inspiration provided by Kathryn Packard, 2022. Catch Kathryn on Instagram at @kathrynpackard.