Keeping Primary Color Orange But Changing the Box On Top

I like the fact that all the links and titles turn orange when I hover over them. I have set my primary color option to orange. However, it turns the left box on the 3 column grid an orange color, too. How can I preserve the orange color for all the links and highlighting/mouse-over effects and just turn the background of that top left box to a different color background?

I tried this code but it did not change anything:

.sidebar-top.group {
background: #4e6b7a none repeat scroll 0 0;
}
.page-title.pad.group {
background: #4e6b7a none repeat scroll 0 0;
}