Designing with Green in the Garden: The Ultimate Foliage Color

Green's season begins with pale hosta cones and fiddlehead ferns. Summer deepens shades. Boulders, trunks, ponds reveal startling lime greens of lichens, mosses, algae. Mediterranean plants offer dusty gray-greens that diffuse summer's burning rays.

Green refreshes shady places, especially woven with white flowers or variegated foliage. Two-tone leaves (green-white, green-silver, green-gold) dapple shade with highlights. In coleus, houttuynia, tovara, green mingles with reds, purples, blues for shade palettes.

Ways to Use Green in the Garden

• Green hardscape: Choose green arbors, benches, fencing, furniture, containers — they enhance nearby flower colors.
• Shade contrast: In deep shade where showy flowers fail, contrast green foliage shades. Use chartreuse, yellow, variegated green-white/yellow-green for strongest effect. Add light statuary, birdbath, bench, or temporary vibrant pots.
• Green flowers: Novel appeal from viburnum, lady's mantle, tulip, hellebore, bells of Ireland, hydrangea. Great cut flowers too.
• Named greens: Pea, olive, fern, bean, lime, kiwi, mint, ivy — no wonder there's a green called spring!