Different colours for different sections of a dashboard

I am using the layout-card to allow me to have a “sidebar” and then various bits of the dashboard to the right.

I would like to have a different background colour for the “sidebar” on the left (not each individual card, but the whole section shown in red below).

Is there a way to change the background colour using card-mod for a layout card?
I have an initial layout card splitting the page in 2 (grid-template-columns: 20% 80%). I want the 1st 20% to be one colour, and the remaining 80% to be a different colour.