Green: The Overlooked Color
With so many colorful flowering shrubs and perennials available today it’s easy to overlook the simple beauty of the color green. On more than one occasion I’ve actually had a client say to me, “green is not a color”. It seems Kermit the Frog said it best when he crooned, “It’s Not Easy Being Green”. Not only is green a color, it’s a very important one when it comes to garden design. Green is the most ubiquitous color in the landscape and thus it provides the background to which all those colorful flowers and shrubs stand out against. In its purest form green is balanced, neither warm nor cool. It’s a peaceful color that can calm the nerves and sooth the soul. To paraphrase Kermit – green is the color of spring, it can be cool and friendly, big like a mountain or tall like a tree.
Green is a natural complement to any color including green itself! Combining different shades and tones of green can produce some striking results. One favorite planting combination of mine is a dense border planting of Green Carpet Pachysandra (Pachysandra terminalis ‘Green Carpet’) in front of a row of light green boxwood (Buxus) with a taller back row of Hicks Yew (Taxus x media ‘Hicksii’). The contrasting shades of green, leaf textures and heights make this combination both stately and eye catching. Each of these plants has the added benefit of being evergreen and brings color to the garden when everything else has faded. When designing solely with one color you have a great opportunity to really highlight differences in leaf shape, texture and size. Take for example the tall, airy fronds of the Cinnamon Fern (Osmunda cinnamomea) which stand out dramatically when surrounded by a mass of wide, flat leaf hosta such as Big Daddy or Blue Angel.
A landscape filled with diverse, vibrant colors is a wonderful thing. But the next time you look at a garden take special notice of the ever-present color of green. Once you do you will realize that it’s much more varied then first meets the eye. Green is an important, powerful part of the landscape and the world would be a pretty drab place without it.
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