We tend to think of leaves as green and flowers as anything but. Nevertheless, nature put a bit of green on the palette of flower colors, too.
Those rare blooms are the focus of “Green Flowers: Unexpected Beauty for the Garden, Container or Vase.”
Green flowers don’t wear the showy hues of their more brightly colored cousins because they don’t need to attract pollinators, author Alison Hoblyn explains.
The book profiles more than 80 such plants, some with true flowers and others with flowerlike structures made of bracts or modified leaves.
“Green Flowers” is devoted almost entirely to descriptions of individual green-flowered plants, including information on caring for each and suggestions for using it in the landscape and in flower arrangements.
Marie O’Hara’s photographs accompany the descriptions.
The book is published by Timber Press and sells for $24.95 in hardcover.
Q&A: REPLANT STALKS FOR NEW LILACS
I have very large and very old lilac bushes. Around the base of the bushes are many new stalks. I would like to know how to transplant them to other areas around the property, or how to get new starts without buying new bushes. – Gail Owen, Franklin Township, Ohio
Digging up and replanting those new stalks, which are actually offshoots from the main plant, is the easiest way to propagate lilacs – that is, as long as the plant is not a grafted one.
Otherwise, you’ll reproduce the base plant.
Just use a shovel or other sharp instrument to cut the offshoot (also called a sucker) from the main plant, trying to keep as many of the roots intact as you can. Then replant in a new spot. Give the transplant some extra care for a year or so as it gets established.
WHAT’S NEW: MATCH PHOTO TO PAINT HUE
Think those peonies in your neighbor’s yard are the perfect color for your bedroom walls?
As the iPhone commercials would say, there’s an app for that.
At least two, in fact.
Benjamin Moore and Sherwin-Williams have both introduced free iPhone applications that let you shoot a photo and then match a color in the picture to a paint hue.
Both also suggest coordinating colors and can even guide the user to the nearest retailer.
Benjamin Moore’s app is called Ben Color Capture and can be downloaded at www.apple.com/iphone/appstore.
Sherwin-Williams’ ColorSnap can be downloaded at www.sherwin-williams.com/colorsnap.
Mary Beth Breckenridge, Akron Beacon Journal
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