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Black...good or yuck?
Every time I see a black flower in someone's garden I have to ask why? Yet the owner always puffs with pride when "showing them off". Black geranium, what's that? Awful looking plant. Black violas?
I was near to buying a black hellebore but remain unconvinced. Dark purple yes.
Grew. Chili Black scabious but it wasn't really black ....more like morello cherry and it was a nice plant.
Black always looks like soil to me from a distance. Close up not exciting.
Black! Good for you?
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With orange, yes. It's all about what you plant it next to I think. Have to say I don't much care for those black grasses you get though - always look like the leftovers after a forest fire.
I only love black flowers when they are actually really dark purple - hellebores, irises etc
Black centres (as in rudbeckias) are good - but guess that doesn't really count
I can't recall seeing any fully black flowers, but don't hunk I would be keen, not a black fan at all unless they are with another colour as Chicky said.
I do however love very deep purple, and was thinking of buying a deep purple Lily but missed the offer (I think it was called Black Knight?).
It dépends on what you associate them with - cream, white, orange, bright scarlet or something with silver foliage.
I'm growing for the first time a black hollyhock. I have wondered myself and generally I wouldn't plant black of any description (maybe black bamboo), so I am to be persuaded.
I use this stuff as ground cover in a sharply drained bed at the top of a 3 feet high sleeper retaining wall. It is spreading nicely now and looks fab with white crocuses in spring and then pink dwarf dianthus later on. There are snowdrops, grape hyacinths, hellébores, verbascum phoenicums, bergenias, achillea and stachys all in a happy jumble to attract pollinators to my damson tree, autumn raspberries and tay berries which grow nearby, enjoying the same sunny position.
Verdun, try growing ophiopogon next to Milium effusum Aureum ( Bowles golden grass) they look stunning together. I grow the Milium behind so it gently hangs over, but doesn't crowd the Ophiopogon.
I too have ophiopogon, but I'm growing mine on at the mo. Not really sure where to put it, maybe in my alpine bed
I really don't like ophiopogon. I know its very "in" but it just looks like dead stuff to me.
I'm not fond of black flowers either, partly because they're not black, they are usually dark purple or red, and I think that if you work in the day, and come home in the evening, you don't see them, because they disappear in the gloaming. However a pale colour or white will shout out at you in the evenings.