7 beautiful ideas to pair green flowered perennials

In a modernist or minimalist garden

In a modernist garden or minimalist garden, the green flowers of certain perennials will sit well, offering a touch of individuality as well as a handsome sobriety that characterises this type of space. To echo the clean lines of the home or a modern terrace, bring green in an almost monochrome version, with foliage and perennials with green flowers!

Here, invite a few grasses with green inflorescences such as the Panicum elegans, the club-sedge or the club-sedge or the Briza triloba and a Miscanthus sinensis ‘Gracillimus’ for summer. For spring, incorporate a Corsican hellebore, then a few architectural plants such as Arums for the right amount of flowering in summer.

Miscanthus sinensis ‘Gracillimus’, Helleborus argutifolius, Carex grayi and Zanthedeschia aethiopica

Another take on the tropics

Let’s take the counterexample of this first minimalist garden… For a tropical-style garden, viable only in the orange tree zone or on Atlantic microclimates, you recreate at home a lush and exotic atmosphere. Green-flowered perennials can be anchored by the Curcuma longa, with a breathtaking level of exotica, and be accompanied by white, greenish and pink flowering displays, a little against the grain of what is usually offered by an exotic garden, but you’ll see, the result is just as inspiring!
Broad, glossy-leaved plants, such as those of the Alpinia zerumbet, also from the ginger family, but also alocasias will be planted primarily around. The bright white hibiscus flowers such as ‘Carousel Ghost’, white bougainvilleas or Brugmansia greatly enhance the tropical feel. Finally, still in a region conducive to this ambiance, install an Australian plant from the Proteaceae family.

In regions less favourable, this garden style is also possible, but by replacing these plants with somewhat hardier species : Ethiopian Arums instead of Alpinia, white daylilies with green throats like ‘Gentle Shepherd’ instead of Brugmansia, a Basjoo banana plant, the hardiest of them all, for the exuberance of the foliage, hardy orchids such as the Cypripedium or a Spiranthes…

Brugmansia arborea, Curcuma longa, Protea and Alpinia zerumbet

Summer in green and blue

A green and blue scene lends a touch of chic to a border! For this example, we have assembled the incredible Echinacea ‘Green Jewel’, with a green heart and cream- and green-coloured ligules, to a magnificent shrub with long-lasting flowering, thriving well in partial shade or full sun, the Hydrangea paniculata ‘Phantom’, and to an annual you won’t forget in this search for green flowers: ornamental tobacco (Nicotiana) ‘Lime Green’.

The intense blue of the plants chosen to accompany them will further enhance the freshness of the green flowers, with here a hardy geranium magnificum ‘Rosemoor’, also long-blooming, and blue lupins (Lupinus polyphyllus ‘Fräulein’ or ‘The Governor’) that will start the season. To replace them all summer, an agastache ‘Black Adder’ or a Campanula poscharskyana ‘Stella’ as a groundcover are perfect, in the same deep blue that pairs so well with the chartreuse-green of the other border plants.

Echinacea ‘Green Jewel’, ornamental tobacco ‘Lime Green’, Geranium magnificum ‘Rosemoor’, Hydrangea paniculata ‘Phantom’ and blue lupins

In a naturalistic spirit

Some perennials with green flowers are even less well-known, and yet they blend in, too, perfectly with the landscape when planted in a naturalistic garden setting.

Let us take the Eryngium yuccifolium, also known as yucca-leaved eryngium, and surround it with love-grasses (Briza media or Briza triloba, which have the greenest flowers). We now simply need to pick from the wide range of perennials that can enter this natural garden, such as echinaceas, chosen as wild as possible, for example the Echinacea pallida, pink or white, and purple coneflowers, tinged with green like ‘Mozzarella’. To carry this display through late autumn, we invite a few plain asters such as the Aster laevis ‘Calliope’.

Eryngium yuccifolium, Aster laevis ‘Calliope’, Echinacea pallida, Briza media and Echinacea purpurea ‘Alba’

Green flowers and a white garden

In a white monochrome garden, green flowers hit the mark! Often striped or speckled with green, they slip in discreetly and delicately into a setting designed for them. Choose a position in partial shade or full sun and plant a few of the finest white alstroemerias, such as the cultivar ‘Mazé’, subtly enhanced with purple at its centre. Surround them with handsome evergreen ferns for year-round presence, with Alchemilla mollis with a tangy spring flowering that is so fresh (and repeat flowering when pruned after flowering), and a few white Alliums such as ‘Mont Blanc’ or ‘Mount Everest’ (these are the tallest, but smaller Allium neapolitanum, which bloom earlier, can join them).

For a touch more panache and verticality on this display, rely on a superb acanthus, little known, the Acanthus mollis ‘Rue Ledan’ (also called ‘Jeff Albus’), a perennial that flowers for a long early summer with its majestic flower spikes, which is distinguished by green bracts. Its foliage will also be present for many months, adding a little exotic touch to this bed.

Alstroemeria Majestic ‘Mazé’, Dryopteris wallichiana, Alchemilla mollis, Allium ‘Mount Everest’ and Acanthus ‘Rue Ledan’

Green and orange flowers in a container garden

The anise-green of certain perennials provides another source of inspiration alongside orange flowering. The vitality of the orange flowers indeed teases out just enough of the softness of the green flowering.

Thus one can imagine bringing together, in an exotic setting and a pot planting, a few attractive green perennials: the Curcuma alismatifolia ‘White’ and green Kniphofias such as ‘Green Jade’, or ‘Ice Queen’, to orange-flowered varieties, the latter being very hardy. Easily grown in pots with proper care, a Cyperus papyrus, with its light spikelets, so characteristic, yellow-green in colour, will add that extra touch if you set this scene on a terrace. This small microcosm will be enhanced by a few cannas, of which we will choose purple-leaved varieties for added depth.

Curcuma alismatifolia ‘White’, Kniphofia ‘Fiery’, Canna, Cyperus papyrus and Kniphofia ‘Green Jade’

A jewel of a black and green planting bed

We can finally attempt a bolder pairing, that of two singular colours that intrigue us in the garden: green and black. The black flowers are not truly black; they adorn their petals with a deep purple, sometimes with bluish reflections. For this elegantly contrasted display, a small jewel in your garden, gather among themselves the loveliest flowers of these two original shades: for the green note, for example, opt for Veratrum album which has the advantage of offering handsome foliage once flowering has finished, gladioli ‘Green Jade’, wormwood-green, euphorbias and Ornithogalums. For the dark note, invite here a few black irises such as ‘Black Night’, the Centaurea ‘Black Pride’ and a Zantedeschia ‘Odessa’.

Link all these wonders with a touch of white and cream-variegated foliage to bring the right amount of light : Lily of the valley, a few white columbines, Phlox divaricata ‘White Perfume’, the lupin ‘Noble Maiden’, etc. We will add to these plantings some winter and early spring blooms to start the year in beauty: black Oriental hellebores and green hellebores, a small group of hyacinths ‘Woodstock’, black tulips ‘Black Parrot’ and green ones, ‘Brooklyn’, wood anemones ‘Virescens’ to be planted more in partial shade, and perhaps Persian fritillary ‘Green Dreams’?

You can envisage this striking alliance near mauve- and violet-dominated borders, and really in any garden, these plants being fairly hardy to cold (apart from the black arum, hardy down to around -5 °C). This border bed will enjoy a partly shaded to sunny position.

→ Find more ideas for black-flowered blooms in Marion’s article: Choose black-flowered perennials.

Centaurea ‘Black Pride’, Veratrum album, Calla ‘Odessa’, oriental hellebore, Iris ‘Black Knight’, Ornithogalum thyrsoïdes, and gladiolus ‘Green Jade’