By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Maybe it's the gloomy economy, but for some reason I'm suddenly craving yellow, a color I've never liked much before.  I recently added Abutilon palmeri, a native shrub with yellow-orange flowers, to my garden. Plus a bunch of Bulbine frutescens, a South African bulb with early-blooming bright yellow flowers. And, just in time to benefit from a nice string of showers, I direct seeded a couple of packets of scented gold wallflowers, Erysimum perovskianum, a cheerful new annual from Renee's Garden.  Here's what it looks like:

E. perovskianum blooms early and long, says Renee, and its flowers smell like baby powder.  The plant is compact—9 to 12 inches tall—so it's a good choice for the front of the border or containers.  I wonder if it attracts bees?  If so, it would also be very pretty interplanted with that dark green dinosaur kale or with a gold-stemmed chard. (See Jim's post a few days ago on how bees deter caterpillars from crops.) Despite those short stems, I'm already looking forward to cutting these flowers to brighten up my home office.

When my soil warms up a little, I'm going to seed Summer Splash Marigolds, another newcomer from Renee, as well. This new cross between African and French type marigolds (Tagetes patula x erecta) blooms profusely, says Renee, and self-cleans, meaning you don't have to deadhead it. 

Just looking at all this yellow, I feel better already. 

How about you?  Is weathering the recession changing the way you garden or look at color?  I know Adriana of Victory Home Garden, a gal whose favorite color is black, recently started these same plants from seed.  So maybe this is happening to a lot of us.