Pantone’s 2025 Colour of the Year: British Garden Centres guide to Mocha Mousse plants to bring beauty into your garden

The Pantone Colour of the Year is an important benchmark in the world of fashion, design and the home. This year, the colour that will be trending is Mocha Mousse, a shade that has been described as “a mellow brown hue whose inherent richness and sensorial and comforting warmth extends further into our desire for comfort.” Want to include this in your planting scheme in 2025? The UK’s largest family-run garden centre group, British Garden Centres, explores ways to integrate this brown shade into your outdoor space.

At first glance, Mocha Mousse might seem a little muted for your outdoor space, but the brown evokes earthy and natural shades that will compliment any garden. With its warm tone, we have some recommendations on how Mocha Mousse can be translated into our beds and containers with plants and flowers.

We love Mocha Mousse style on-trend plants with deep, rich foliage like Purple Hazel and Physocarpus Diablo which both boast dark brown, almost burgundy leaves, providing a striking backdrop for other plants in the garden border.

The Rodgersia Bronze Peacock adds a touch of luxury with its large, bronze-coloured veined and glossy leaves, while the Carex Comans Bronze offers a soft, textural contrast with its reddish brown colour that will add movement in an outdoor space.

For a touch of Mocha Mousse with fragrance, consider the Chocolate Cosmos with its velvety brown petals and intoxicating aroma of dark chocolate and vanilla.

The versatile Heuchera comes in a range of browns, perfect for creating a splash of colour to containers and borders during autumn.

To introduce a vertical element in your garden, perfect for pergolas or climbing walls, the Akebia Quinata or Chocolate Vine as it is also known is an excellent choice for the Mocha Mousse trend, as it drapes itself in a cascade of brown, pendant-like flowers in the springtime.

For a more tropical feel, the Canna with its brown-coloured leaves is a perfect choice as a striking focal point or to create a lush, tropical border.

We also recommend Trifolium repens Atropurpureum, a four-leafed clover in a striking chocolate colour while the Viola Frosted Chocolate lives up to its name with a brown and white colourway which will look fantastic in hanging baskets.

Actea atropurpureum with its dark brown stems and statuesque white flower spikes is another unique addition to a Mocha Mousse style garden, whilst Coleus Chocolate Mint and Dark Chocolate’s dark foliage with bright green serrated edge is a great choice to fill gaps in your garden beds or containers in 2025.

The plant team’s final recommendations for a Mocha Mousse garden are Phormium Tenax Purpureum which is a large evergreen perennial that boasts striking purpley-brown sword-shaped leaves and Calibrachoa Colorburst Chocolate compact annual plant with rich, chocolate-brown blooms that cascade beautifully from containers and hanging baskets.

Julian Palphramand, Plant Buyer at British Garden Centres said: “With the Pantone Colour of the Year, Mocha Mousse, we’re seeing a shift towards warm, earthy tones. At British Garden Centres, we’re excited to offer a range of plants that complement this shade so you can have this rich brown in your outdoor space. From deep burgundy foliage to rich, chocolate-brown blooms, our plant experts in your local store can help you select the perfect plants to create a stunning, on-trend garden in 2025″