Wedding Flowers

After winter, we get tired of looking at that blank whiteness we call snow. We long for color – or at least for change.

To cheer myself I tried to imagine the opposite of a blank white space – and came up with a blank black space. Not too cheering. But I have noticed that for some reason an article I did a couple of years ago about black plants is getting a lot of readers lately. So I must not be the only person thinking that way.

In fact it’s not only snow-weary gardeners who seem to be having black thoughts these days – hybridizers are too. Since I wrote that first article more and more so-called black plants have appeared on the market.

Of course most of them are not really black – not even if you use a lot of imagination. But they are dark enough to be satisfactorily gloomy. Take the plant that caused a minor sensation last year, Calla ‘Black Forest’. It’s at best a deep burgundy – but people who are trying to create a really gloomy garden bought it by the score. Deep red is the true color of many of the so-called black plants.

A couple of hollyhocks that claim to be black are ‘Cherry Cola: and ‘Nigra- but to even a casual viewer these too are really deep maroon. A Tree peony called Champion of Black Flowers is darker than the aforementioned hollyhocks – but it’s still not black, which makes me wonder how easily the Chinese give out these champion designations. Although to be fair dark maroon often is called black in the Chinese culture, so at least they are being true to themselves.

Countless daylilies fall into this class of red flowers that people seen happy to describe as black (but then you will also see catalogs listing white daylilies – and there ain’t no such animal. In fact, if you order a so called “near white: daylily you will get one that is most definitely pale pink or yellow. I have a few of the alleged black and near white daylilies and they aren’t. The better catalogs admit it. But if you still want to try them in your own gloomy garden, try “Smith Brothers’, ‘Respighi’ , ‘Night Wings’ or ‘Dominic’ all of which are pretty dark. If you like the spider form of daylily then ‘Africa’ is the darkest one I’ve grown.

And then there is the Mourning widow geranium, G. phaeum- also pretty dark but of a tone that a strict Victorian might insist was only half-mourning.

Personally I think that purple does a better job of imitating black than does red. The tulip “Queen of the Night.” manages to look satisfyingly black until the sun hits it – then you see the purple undertones. The same holds true for the black parrot tulip that I once grew and which was about as perennial a tulip as I’ve yet encountered. The trick to making these tulips look as black as possible is to make sure to plant them against a green background – just one of those little tricks the spectrum plays on us.

I have a few irises that are almost black -’Superstition’ and ‘Paint it Black’ are pretty good in this regard. I have ‘Superstition in an area that gets sun – but it still gives a good imitation of a black flower.

The iris that is allegedly really black is Iris chrysographes – but the one I planted to see how true this was never came up. If anyone out there is successfully growing this Chinese iris, can you tell us exactly how black it really is?

One breakthrough in recent years is the black hellebore. H. “Nigricans” is indigo blue-black, and ‘Philip Ballard is in the same color family. If you could find hellebores growing in the wild you might discover that H. torquatus has a black flower sometimes – at least on the outside of the petals. Inside it seems to go to green, so that when the light shines through the blossoms they are a very strange color indeed. Meanwhile, pay no attention to the fact that H. niger is popularly referred to as black hellebore – they are talking about the root, not the flowers which tend to be pristine white.

And then there are the brown/black flowers – the most recent and somewhat famous one being >Rudbeckia occidentalis ‘Black Beauty’ – a rudbeckia that looks as though someone plucked all of its petals, leaving only a black cone with a golden band around it. And while the seeds that form on that cone are black, the golden coloring that lies beneath it still makes me classify this as a brown flower – no matter what they call it.

There are a few flowers that seem almost indisputable black – all of them in the Viola family. Viola ‘Molly Sanderson’is as deep a color as can be, and since it is somewhat matte in finish – velvety rather than shiny, it seems to swallow all the light. Other black violas or pansies include V. nigra “Bowles Black,” “Black Prince,” and “Black Magic.” Look carefully at the eye of the plant where it has a speck of yellow – that is the only spot that betrays these plants’ true color. And there is a new black Viola wittrockiana ‘Accord Black Beauty’ introduced by Goldsmith Seeds this year which promises to be very black indeed. I will let you know when and if my seeds come up – but look for the plants at your local nursery.

Not only do we see plants with black flowers being hybridized, but plants are also being selected for their near-black foliage. They tell me that black mondo grass (Ophiopogon planiscapus “Nigrescens” or ‘Black Knight’) is really deep purple – but I must say that I see very little on the way of undertones when I hold mine to the light. To me they are about as black as a black plant gets. And it’s been around a sight longer than other foliage which is touted as black.

For instance, I saw at least one list of black plants that included the heuchera ‘Pewter Moon’ – which to me looks more like it’s name – pewter colored. A newer issue called Ebony and Ivory’is much darker in color without so much silver and comes about as close to black as I’ve seen in a heuchera. To top that off it has white flowers. Don’t you think it might be fun to plant a garden in black foliage and white flowers? Talk about confusing photographs!

Lately there have been a few cimicifugas that are supposedly black. Pay attention to the names – “Brunette’ isn’t called that for nothing – and if you don’t get the lighting just right it’s actually pretty green with just a flush of deep color. In fact, Dan Hinkley of Heronswood calls it “chocolate colored.’ Other sort of black cimifugas include C. ‘Black Negligee’ with black-purple foliage and C. ramosa ‘Hillside Black Beauty’ – also black purple – although once again mine had areas that were decidedly green – yet it is described as the blackest one to date. Maybe I’ve just been unlucky and paid designer prices for mistakenly labeled C. ramosa ‘Atropurpurea’ which is supposed to look like my “black” ones do.

I’ve had better luck with dahlias. I managed to get hold of ‘Bishop Of Llandaff’ at a seemingly extortionate price – but it did have dark bronze foliage which looked fabulous with the flaming red of the flowers. And last year I tried another bronze foliaged dahlia with apricot flowers that I loved – and can’t find for sale anywhere this year. Old House Gardens carries a dwarf dahlia , G. F. Hemerick, which is an oldie with flowers the color of orange sherbet which will do in a pinch. And there is a long list of dark foliage dahlias available only to commercial growers – we can only hope that they are then made available to us without our having to go on a scavenger hunt.

However, bronze foliage is so much easier to locate that the really black stuff that I would advise those of us who wish to be sane about things to go for a bronze garden instead. I’m not alone in this advice. House and Garden TV has already done a whole show on this idea.

If you’re still set on black, then your best bet is to go tropical. Many of the new coleus have very bl

ack-looking leaves – or splashes of black. But don’t get sold on the name – a lot of the alleged blacks are really burgundy.

One vine that I buy every spring (because although I save the tubers each fall my husband always mistakes them for sweet potatoes past their prime and chucks them out) is Ipomoea batatas ‘Blackie’ which is noticeably a deep purple – but a very deep one and an outstanding plant for the garden or container plantings. I accidentally paired it with its sister, ‘Margarita’ and a pink verbena in the neighbor’s garden and it was a smash hit!

The most dramatic black plant that I know of is one that not only looks indisputably ebony but gets satisfyingly huge and thus can be the real centerpiece of any garden. The plant is a colocasia called ‘Black Magic’- and that it truly is. Not only that but the leaves are huge and impossible to overlook. Because of that it can be difficult to work into the garden design, but try it with chartreuse – it’s worked for me.

So if black becomes the designer style of planting that some sources suggest, this list might start you on your way – or prevent you from wondering why those so-called black plants don’t look black to you. Most of them aren’t – although you could fool me on the Colocasia and mondo grass. Anyone else have a candidate for plants that are truly black?

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• Purple Wedding Flowers: Fit for Royalty
• Hummingbirds in Louisiana
• Is Your Garden the Dead Zone? A Guide to Winter Colour Gardening
• Using the Color Blue in Garden Design