“It’s not easy being green.”
Kermit the Frog’s signature song could have been the theme song of the summer this year. It went through my head as I walked on the crunching, desiccated grass down to my garden or carried buckets of dishwater out to my suffering trees. The green leaves on ornamental trees and shrubs became yellow and brown and fell in August. It was painful to watch mature hydrangeas completely dry up while predicted rain never appeared. It was not easy being green, indeed.
“When I think it could be nicer
Being red or yellow or gold
Or something more colorful like that.”
But my lower garden is below the ledge, heavily mulched with hay, and hence, is moister and greener. And in this little oasis grow vegetables, fruit, and ornamental flowers of many colors. Some are green. I planted a six-pack of Zinnia elegans ‘Benary Giant Lime’. In the past I have planted the cultivar named ‘Envy’ whose name I enjoy more, but both have clean chartreuse petals. This year two volunteer plants appeared to create a symphony in green. The herb dill pops up throughout my garden and it joined the zinnias with its umbels of acid yellow-green. And the annual ornamental tobacco, Nicotiana langsdorfii, added its charming chartreuse hanging bells to the composition. Wayne Winterrowd claimed that “Nicotiana langsdorfii is a joy. It’s green bells are complementary to any other flower color.” Yes, they were a joy to me when I found them growing in this green trifecta.
Right now is the time to plant spring flowering bulbs. There are some tulips that have a lot of green color. ‘Spring Green’ is white with brushstrokes of green; ‘Groenland Green’ has a pink base with the green painted over. Two lily-flowered tulips with the pointed, flared petals are stunning with green. ‘Green Star’ is white and green, while ‘Green Mile’ is yellow and green. Soon after the tulips bloom the perennial lady’s mantle, Alchemilla mollis, begins its show. Scalloped edged concave leaves are handsome and rain and dew collect as a bead in the center. The plant’s Latin name translates to ‘little alchemist’. It seems that pure water was needed by alchemists in an attempt to turn base metals into gold and the beads of water collected on the leaves of this plant was a source. But in the garden it isn’t gold Alchemilla produces but a froth of chartreuse blooms on low plants, perfect for the front edge in sun or shade.
The Euphorbia family has hundreds of members, many with delightful acid green flowers. The unappealing common name, ‘spurge’, is used for these plants, referring to their purgative uses as a laxative. Euphorbia polychromatic ‘Bonfire’ is a firecracker of a plant. A cushion of bronze foliage with hints of orange, red, and green is topped with clusters of disc shaped chartreuse blooms. E.characais ‘Wulfenii’ grows up to three feet with blue green foliage and domes of lime green flowers with deep red centers. Unfortunately this one is not hardy in our climate but is worth growing for a season or wintering over inside in a pot. A native of the prairies of North America is E.marginalia or ‘snow-on-the-mountain’, an annual with striking white and green foliage. E.myrsinites is perennial with sprawling succulent leaves arranged in pleasing interlaced triangles that terminate in a cluster of lime blooms. All members of the Euphorbia family have a sap that may irritate the skin.
“And green can be cool and friendly like…”
Bells of Ireland, Molucella laevis, have a definite green presence, yet the actual flower is tiny, fragrant, and white, but surrounded by green calyxes. One nickname is ‘lady in the bath’. I guess the flower is the lady sitting in the green tub calyx. Another annual with a total green presence is Amaranth caudatus ‘Viridis’. Long strands of lime green velvety clusters of flowers seem to drip off five foot yellow green stems, finally reaching back to the ground. I often plant edible fennel and then don’t harvest so that the stalk shoots up and branches out and produces large umbels of chartreuse towering at head height, often with butterflies drinking their fill.
Leaves and foliage are expected to be green. Green flowers are surprising and complementary to all others hues. Old Kermit the Frog struggles a bit with his color, the green flowers don’t have a problem at all; they could have written the last stanza of his song:
“When green is all there is to be
It could make you wonder why, but why wonder why
Wonder, I am green and it’ll do fine, it’s beautiful
And I think it’s what I want to be.”—Jo Raposo