It's a green world

Ralph Null, AFID
Design Concepts
Columbus, MS

It's a green world and we can't get enough of it. The advance of green and its influence is seen everywhere. The race for different, more exciting plants with a new or different shade of green is the opportunity to spur significant sales. Plants are a natural to supply this commanding need in society for a green world and abounding opportunities exist. But, as a designer, I am often perplexed by the amount of energy spent by some of my colleagues deciding if these greens "go together".
"God didn't make any clashing colors" is a mantra that I have lived by when making choices for combinations whether it was a garden design, interior plantscape, container garden, or floral design. Appropriate combinations are less about the "clashing of greens" and more about the proper proportionate relationships of the combination. Too many differences lead to confusion and disjointed unity within the total composition.
Many of the new colors of today's plants which create excitement would have been dismissed yesterday as chlorotic, ugly and totally worthless in the commercial marketplace. Today, the excitement of gray, blue-green, rust, chartreuse, yellow, burgundy, near black, speckled, mottled, pubescent, wooly, variegated, segmented, mosaic, and plain green is abundant. Wow! What a wonderful palate from which to work! Bring on the green!