Discover green-flowered perennials, gems of the plant world

Why includind green flowers?

The appeal of choosing perennials with green flowers when designing a border is twofold: these green-flowered perennials are truly original and stand out from their peers, while they provide a very useful unifying element to ensure a subtle continuity in flowering borders.

With perennials with green flowers, and of course with green-flowered shrubs as well, you’re rarely going to go wrong!

The advantage is indeed that they pair so well with all surrounding plants, creating a seamless continuum and bringing a great deal of softness, freshness and brightness to partially shaded corners. This colour blends discreetly with other plants, whether they have green foliage leaning towards blue, or darker purples.

Among green-flowered varieties, some will display a solid colour on their petals, but most are flowers of an acid green colour, which in our jargon we call chartreuse green, punctuated or speckled with white or purple. Sometimes it’s only the sepals or bracts that give the flower its green colour; other times it’s the stamens at the heart.

We generally see colours ranging from absinthe green, anise green, pistachio green, jade, lime green — i.e., the warmest tones in the green colour palette.

Perennials with green and white flowers

A bit like white flowers with many hues, green-flowered perennials sometimes display a white coloration, the green appearing at the heart of the flower or as flame-like markings or stripes on the petals. It can also be a green colouring only at the start or end of flowering.

Among the beautiful options, you’ll find the Arum ‘Green Goddess’, the Allium ursinum or wild garlic, a small woodland perennial whose foliage is prized in cooking, the Narcissus Narcissus ‘Sinopel’ with a lovely green inner collar, the Alstroemeria or Peruvian Lily in a very elegant cultivar from the Majestic series (the tallest) ‘Mazé’.
Also look out for very fine varieties of Aquilegia (columbines), which brighten partial shade, such as Aquilegia ‘Lime Sorbet’ or the double Columbine Aquilegia ‘Green Apples’.

More showy blooms are to be found in the splendid Paeonia lactiflora ‘Green Halo’. As for the Acanthus ‘Rue Ledan’, its bracts crowning the pale greenish-white flowers give it a stunning green-and-white bi-colour.

Allium ursinum, double ‘Lime Sorbet’ Columbine (©Wikimedia Commons, David Stang), Platanthera leucophaea (©Joshua Mayer, Flickr), Paeonia ‘Green Halo’ and Peruvian Lily ‘Mazé’

Perennials with green and purple flowers

Sometimes speckled with purples, sometimes attached to the stem by a purple petiole, these perennials often have two-tone flowers:
Starting with Helleborus foetidus, commonly known as the stinking hellebore, essential in winter shade gardens with its flowers delicately edged in purple, and some Oriental hellebores speckled with a very dark violet such as the Helleborus guttatus ‘Double Green’. Many garrique euphorbias (Euphorbia characias) that highlight in their centres some beautiful dark surprises such as the Euphorbia characias ‘Blue Wonder’ or the alluring ‘Black Pearl’.

Less well-known blooms join these green beauties: the hybrid Aster ‘Ann Leys’ with its prominent green ligules, the Paris quadrifolia, a remarkable bloom with a black pearl-like centre, the Puya mirabilis, and a number of Arisaema, these cobra lilies bearing their strange flowers, such as Arisaema rigens, Arisaema taiwanense, Arisaema gaelatum or Arisaema serratum. There are also a few terrestrial orchids of interest such as Calanthe tricarinita.

Stinking hellebore, Paris quadrifolia, Helleborus guttatus ‘Double Green’, Euphorbia characias ‘Blue Wonder’ and Arisaema serratum

Perennials with green and yellow flowers

It is in flowers with yellowish-yellow-green hues that perennials are found in greatest numbers. They are very acid-green, wavering between apple green and pistachio green, with some blending a margin or a centre that is distinctly yellow. That’s where we spot that famous chartreuse green, also often identifiable by the English descriptor ‘lime’! Alchemilla are fine representatives of it, as are many euphorbias too, with the euphorbias as well, with the Euphorbia ‘Polychroma’.

Horticultural breeding also yields certain varieties of this beautiful anise-green, notably among coneflowers, including the ‘Coconut Lime’ and ‘Green Jewel’ or even ‘Apple Green’, among some Kniphofia such as ‘Pineapple Popsicle’, ‘Ice Queen’ or the ‘Green Jade’, or among a few gladioli like ‘Green Star’.
Discover also the distinctiveness of this apple green at Primula vulgaris ‘Francesca’, bright in spring, just like the Dianthus or the angelicas and their unique spheres (the type species Angelica officinalis or Angelica taiwaniana which radiate in late spring).

Alchemilla, Euphorbia polychroma, Primula vulgaris ‘Francesca’, Kniphofia ‘Pinapple Popsicle’, Echinacea ‘Coconut Lime’

Solid green flowers

They are very striking, in an intense green, often sought after by florists for their originality and sophistication. They range from the palest, almost cream green, to the darkest and make a splash in the garden!
Among these green flowers, let us mention the Irish bells (Moluccella laevis), the Eryngium serra Eryngium serra, in a very soft grey-green, the papyrus plants (Cyperus glaber, Cyperus alternifolius, and Cyperus papyrus) with their unique inflorescences, for mild climates and ponds, or some botanical Arums (Arum italicum and maculatum).
The carnations ‘Green Trick’ and ‘Green Ball’ (also encountered under the name Sweet William ‘Green Ball’) bearing perfectly green, spherical flowers are almost unreal…
But one could also cite in this category of uniformly green flowers many Arisaema such as Arisaema amurense, as well as green hellebores, many of which, in varying colours, finish their flowering in green shades, and then the singular Muscari paradoxum with tiny apple-green bells.

Irish bells, Arisaema amurense, Muscari paradoxum, Hellebore, Cyperus papyrus, Dianthus, Arum italicum

Green and pink perennials

Green perennials sometimes take on a touch of pink. This gives them a very romantic and even softer note. To incorporate them into the garden, choose the Phlox paniculata ‘Sherbet Blend’, many Helleborus sternii, whose petals are generally pink on the reverse, or the Helleborus torquatus. There are a few others as well, such as the Echinacea purpurea ‘Green Twister’ and the Alstroemeria Duc d’Anjou ‘François’.

Helleborus sterni, Alstroemeria ‘François’ and Phlox paniculata ‘Sherbet Blend’

Green flowers among grasses, bulbs and climbing plants

Let us not forget grasses and climbing plants, which include some very handsome specimens with green-flowering forms that are very discreet or more conspicuous.
Admittedly less spectacular, the green flowering of some grasses adds a small point of interest to naturalistic areas or by the edge of a water feature, with, for example, the Briza triloba and Briza minor, and others such as the Panicum elegans. Although not belonging to the grasses, one can finally mention the striking Carex grayi (Gray’s sedge) and its mace-shaped flower (which is often considered a grass), and the Cyperus.

Briza maxima and Carex grayi

Climbing plants and bulbs are not to be outdone, with some superb horticultural cultivars: Clematis ‘Green Passion’ with large double flowers, Clematis florida ‘Alba Plena’ in a very pale green, or Clematis marata, with a very natural appearance. For tulips, the white-and-green, ruffled ‘Brooklyn’ is an essential feature in spring displays, just as the ‘Evergreen’ tulip, with single flowers. Do not forget viridiflora tulips, always elegant, green-flowered.

Botanical species with green flowers

Because many green flowers originate from horticultural breeding, just like black flowers, it’s interesting to mention those that are naturally green by species!
Scleranthus perennis, an adorable alpine perennial, low-growing, and the Tellima grandiflora with pale-green flower stems recalling the flowering of heucheras. There are also several thistles: Eryngium campestre, known as the rolling thistle, a very spiny field thistle of a pale greenish-white colour, Erygium giganteum with cone-shaped heads, bluish-grey to light-green, or Eryngium yuccifolium, with greenish-white pom-poms. And then a superb plant on the brink of extinction, the Platanthera leucophaea, known as the White Fringed Orchid of the East.

Eryngium campestre, Eryngium giganteum and Platanthera leucophaea (©Joshua Mayer, Flickr)

Unusual and exotic green flowers

We’re not done with these green perennial plants, which, you’ll admit, are more numerous than you might think!

Here, to finish in style, are a few exceptional plants with green flowers, very stylish and graphic, often frost-tender since they originate from tropical or southern regions, but it would be a pity not to mention them in this article:
Puya chilensis (from Chile) with enormous upright yellow-green inflorescences, or Puya raimondii found in the wild in the Andes, with a spectacular inflorescence… but unique (the plant dies after flowering), the Amaryllis ‘Evergreen’ with flowers the colour of Granny Smith apples, to be grown indoors here for the winter; the Hippeastrum calyptratum, a superb Brazilian amaryllis from shaded areas or the Curcuma alismatifolia ‘White’ with white flowers, but with prominent green bracts dominating.

Puya raimondii, Curcuma alismatifolia ‘White’, Puya chilensis and Hippeastrum calyptratum (©Wikimedia Commons, Victor Farjalla)