Plant Talk

Green Flowers Aren't Just For Saint Patrick's Day

Green flowers are more than a curiosity for St. Paddy's Day. While blooms that match their own foliage may not show up too well in the garden, cut and brought indoors their unexpected coloration shines in flower arrangements.

Euphorbias chartreuse blooms hold their own in the garden or the vase. I use these weird, bright little flowers in every flower arrangement I make from March through autumn.  If you cut them, be sure and wear gloves for euphorbia sap can cause a rash. And be sure and singe the bottom of the stem - just touch it with a match or lighter for a few moments, and euphorbia will hold up for a week in arrangements.

My favorite primrose is a delicate apple green ruffled beauty called 'Francesca' (below). It blooms April into May, is sturdily perennial, and has long enough stems to make a great cut flower. The mosaic egg next to the primrose in the photo is by Vashon artist Clare Dohna...

Long blooming Rudbeckia 'Green Wizard' (below) is an oddity, with its brown dog-nose cone surrounded by emerald green petals. This one really does disappear in the garden, but well worth growing for a cut flower...

I was just admiring beautiful big bunches of green cut flowers at Metropolitan Market - I hope green flowers are on display more often than just March 17th. From hellebores in winter, to 'Lime Light' hydrangeas and spiky green chrysanthemums in autumn, green flowers are worth tracking down year-round.

 

 

Garden Shrines, a Venerable Elm, and the First Big Bouquet

It's pouring rain here in Langley, but for most of the weekend it was glorious weather - and WARM - I mean gardening in flips and shorts and T-shirts warm. I planted nasturtium seeds, and even tomato starts in a sunny, sheltered spot where they'll bask in reflected heat off the house (or that's my hope).

Here's reassurance from meteorologist Cliff Mass who wrote on his blog on May 2,  "Due to the warm weather my vegetable seeds have germinated...soil temps are now in the low fifties. The cloudy weather will prevent any real cold...so delicate plants should be ok."

A few images from the first real gardening weekend of the season:

I admit this first photo is mostly about procrastinating on my final book edit. I certainly didn't set out to make a garden shrine - but once I got the moss glued onto the chair, I thought about the peacock feathers, then the Buddha needed a comfy place to sit outdoors. It went on from there, ending with a little offering of fresh flowers. What if we all made our own unique garden shrines - think it'd bring us some  sunshine karma for the coming season?

I came across this glorious weeping Camperdown elm (Ulmus glabra 'Camperdownii')  on my walk this morning in Langley's Woodmen Cemetery.  It's worth a pilgrimage up Al Anderson Road to take in this elm's gnarled shape and tissue-paper chartreuse flowers, so delicate on such a sturdy old tree.

Below is my first big bouquet from the garden this spring...The orange 'Princes Irene' tulips are just about blown out, there's yellow-leafed bleeding heart in there (Dicentra spectabilis 'Gold Heart'), purple lunaria flowers, old-fashioned snowball viburnum, and the very first lilacs, not quite fully opened.

 

Enviable Green Flowers

Green is the color of spring, abundance, optimism, and good fortune. In shades and tints from emerald to sunny chartreuse, green is primeval yet soothing. Green flowers are enviable for their subtle sophistication, whether cut for the vase or growing in the garden.

Here's a garden-worthy sampling:

Zinnia 'Envy' (left) is a lime colored fluff of double annual that grows easily from seed.  (photo courtesy of Park Seed). Another bright green annual is the marigold 'Nosento Limegreen'. 

'Bells of Ireland' (Moluccella laeviscomes) is a flower arranger's dream of a plant, with its tall wands of chartreuse bells.

 

There are a couple of green flowering tobaccos; Nicotiana alata 'Lime Green' and N. langsdorfii with sweetly dangling bell-shaped flowers.

 Rudbeckia 'Green Wizard' is more of a curiosity than a pretty flower (photo courtesy of Thompson and Morgan), and quite a stunner with its chocolate center cones set into rays of green petals. 

Helleborus foetidus and H. argutifolius have truly green flowers. Old-fashioned columbines like 'Aquilegia viridflora' and A. 'Irish Elegance' light up the spring garden. Lady's mantle (Alchemilla mollis) sports soft froths of tiny chartreuse flowers.

Perhaps the most delicately charming of green flowers is the pretty snowdrop 'Flora Pleno' that is already finished blooming by the spring equinox. 

 

 The swirled flower of Calla 'Green Goddess' matches its own leaves so exactly that it doesn't show up well in the garden. Cut for the vase, 'Green Goddess' shows to best advantage.

Some flowers morph through a green phase. The miniature rose 'Green Ice' opens white, then turns soft green. Kniphofia 'Green Jade' starts out green and ages to cream.  'Annabelle', one of my favorite hydrangeas, has snowball flowers that mellow to soft green in autumn.

Green flowers are great for beginning gardeners because, like foliage, they go with any other color in the garden. Because they're  monochromatic, you see texture and shape more than obvious color, which makes green flowers so attractive to more experienced gardeners. Do you have any favorite green flowers I've missed here? If so, let us know...