Flower color

Green flowers

22 garden plants with green blooms, with bloom times, hardiness zones, and sun needs. Build a green color scheme that lasts across the season.

22 plants

How this list is made

Derived from each plant's flower color tags and bloom colors, as stored in the BloomsEye library, which was written with AI assistance. Of these 22 plants, 20 have been checked against outside sources (1 fully verified); the rest have not been checked yet, and each plant's own page says which. The cards are AI-generated illustrations.

Green flowers are a small and deliberate corner of the garden: 22 plants here, against a hundred or more in every other color. They do a job nothing else does. From across a lawn a green flower reads as foliage and vanishes, and only resolves into a flower when you are standing over it, so green belongs beside a path, by a door, or in a vase rather than out in the open border. In an arrangement it is what stops a handful of color looking like a handful of color, which is why cutting gardens grow it on purpose. Lady's mantle, the green hellebore, Green Jewel coneflower and Envy zinnia are on the list.
American Hornbeam
Carpinus caroliniana
Part shadeZones 3–925 ftModerate
Big Sacaton
Sporobolus wrightii
Full sunZones 5–84.5 ftLow
Bottlebrush Grass
Elymus hystrix
Part shadeZones 5–93 ftModerate
Canby's Mountain Lover
Paxistima canbyi
Part shadeZones 4–712 inModerate
Cedar Elm
Ulmus crassifolia
Full sunZones 6–860 ftModerate
Emerald Tassels
Amaranthus caudatus 'Emerald Tassels'
Full sunZones 9–113.5 ftModerate
Envy
Zinnia elegans 'Envy'
Full sun2.5 ftModerate1.5 ft wide
Field Maple
Acer campestre
Full sunZones 5–830 ftModerate
Fox Sedge
Carex vulpinoidea
Full sunZones 3–72.5 ftHigh
Gray's Sedge
Carex grayi
Full sunZones 5–92.5 ftModerate
Green Hellebore
Helleborus × hybridus 'Green'
Part shadeZones 4–91.5 ftModerate
Listed as toxic to dogs and cats
Green Jewel
Echinacea purpurea 'Green Jewel'
Full sunZones 4–92 ftLow
Green Star
Gladiolus 'Green Star'
Full sunZones 7–104 ftModerate
Listed as toxic to dogs and cats
Lady's Mantle
Alchemilla mollis
Part shadeZones 3–81.5 ftModerate
Lime Green
Nicotiana alata 'Lime Green'
Part sunZones 10–112 ftModerate
Listed as toxic to dogs
Little Lime Hydrangea
Hydrangea paniculata 'Jane'
Full sunZones 3–84 ftModerate
Listed as toxic to dogs and cats
Prairie Junegrass
Koeleria macrantha
Full sunZones 3–91.5 ftLow
Princeton American Elm
Ulmus americana 'Princeton'
Full sunZones 3–963 ftModerate
Quaking Aspen
Populus tremuloides
Full sunZones 1–645 ftModerate
Shumard Oak
Quercus shumardii
Full sunZones 5–959 ftModerate
Listed as toxic to dogs
Virginia Wild Rye
Elymus virginicus
Part shadeZones 3–83 ftModerate
Woolgrass
Scirpus cyperinus
Full sunZones 4–84.5 ftHigh

Green flowers by season

A plant is counted in every season it flowers in, so a long-flowering one appears in more than one. The named picks are the plants whose whole flowering sits in that season, not the ones that only pass through it.

Spring

March, April and May

10 plants

Summer

June, July and August

15 plants

Green flowers by height

Mature height, in the three bands a border is planted in. Anything over 10 ft is structure rather than a border plant, and a climber is sized by whatever it is growing up, so both sit this out.

Middle of the border

12 in to 3 ft

11 plants

Keep exploring

Design your garden

Drop plants onto a 3D plan, see how they fill in, and watch the whole garden bloom across the year.

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