Drama in the Borders

Add a unique touch of colour and drama to your garden by adding black flowers and plants. These can transform any garden or container. They add a tropical touch and look exceptional when grown with bright coloured plants. Plant breeders, ever eager to pursue a rarity, have gone to extreme lengths to create black flowers, especially in Victorian and Edwardian times when all things dark and sombre were in fashion. Breeders even today have not been very successful and only a few are truly black.

Here are a few of my favourites:

1. Tulip 'Queen of Night' - beautiful and dramatic, this closest to black flower appears in deep maroon colour in spring. It looks good mixed with white or pink tulips. It is also easy to grow which is very useful for beginners.
2. Helleborus 'Onyx Odyssey' - this dark burgundy or nearly black hellebore is highly appreciated by flower arrangers.
3. Viola 'Molly Sanderson' - can be grown in the garden and in containers. Flowers appear from spring to autumn with regular dead heading. It looks beautiful with yellow primroses grown in containers in partial to full sun.
4. Iris 'Before the Storm' - is a new variety, slightly fragrant and requires a sunny position and well drained soil.
5. Rose 'Black Baccara' - a dramatic tea rose. Its almost black colour and fragrant blooms make an amazing display. The leathery green foliage is reddish when young. The flowers appear blacker in cool weather.
6. Grass 'Black Mondo' - much easier to remember than 'Ophiopogon planiscapus nigrescens' Also called Black lily turf. An interesting plant for rock gardens, borders or in a pot. It grows about 12 inches tall and spreads 6 to 12 inches.  In spring the new dark green foliage emerges and in summer changes into a very deep purple black. Very small bell shaped white flowers appear, followed by small black seeds.
7. Calla Lily 'Black Star' - one of the most decorative flowers. It is deep purple with a spathe that is almost black. The foliage is spotted with red tips. Again, suitable for borders or containers.
8. Tacca chantrieri, the Bat flower takes the prize for the strangest and spookiest black plant. Sometimes called the Cat's whisker or Devil flower. Introduced from the forests of the Far East around the turn of the 20th century it was grown as a foliage plant.These days interest is in its curious heads of dark brownish purple flowers resembling the muzzle of a bat and with whiskery appendages up to 12 inches long. Best grown in a pot, it needs to be frost free but is easier to grow than its exotic and sinister appearance suggests.

I hope I have whetted your appetite for an aura of magic and mysticism associated with black flowered plants. There are a lot more out there. Good hunting! I hear every garden looks good in black.