12 Green Flowers to Grow in Your Backyard

Sweet William "Green Ball"

Julia Pearson, horticulturist at the Denver Botanic Gardens, recommends the round and fuzzy Sweet William Green Ball, Dianthus barbatus, which produces perfectly spherical blossoms from late spring into summer. “[It’s a] really unique flower,” she says. “It's a short-lived perennial, but is usually grown as a biennial.”

Zone: 4 to 8
Size: 10 to 24 inches tall x 8 to 12 inches wide
Growing conditions: Full sun; well-drained soil

Chartreuse Envy Hellebore

Add a pop of bright green to your late-winter garden with vibrant hellebores. “Hellebores are among the earliest bloomers in the garden, they offer great early color and foliage that lasts throughout the season,” says Dee Hall of Mermaid City Flowers in Norfolk, Va. “They also spread quickly, and grow in shade!”(If you plant white hellebores instead, watch for them to turn green as they age.)

Zone: 4 to 9
Size: 9 to 18 inches tall x 18 to 24 inches wide
Growing conditions: Partial shade; moist, well-drained soil

Queen Lime Zinnia

Domed Queen Lime zinnias provide a vibrant complement to your other summer flowers. “These full-sun darlings boast large blooms and are cut-and-come-again all summer long,” says Hall. “The chartreuse blooms look lovely in a vase or in the garden.”

Zone: 3 to 10
Size: 30 to 40 inches tall x 18 inches wide
Growing conditions: Full sun; well-drained soil

Thorough-Wax

Jennifer Miller, horticulture coordinator at the Denver Botanic Gardens, says thorough-wax is a must-have green flower in any garden. “Thorough-wax (Bupleurum rotundifolium) is a reseeding annual with tiny electric yellow flowers cupped in gray-green bracts, and roundish leaves that appear as if they’ve been pierced by the stem,” she says. “Imagine if spurge and silver dollar had babies, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what this charming filler looks like.”

Miller uses the plant, also called hare’s ear, to add color to her garden in early summer, “peeking through here and there.” After drying the bloom, she says, it “adds zing to winter wreaths.”

Zone: 5 to 9
Size: 12 to 24 inches tall x 12 inches wide
Growing conditions: Full sun to partial shade; well-drained soil

Limelight Hydrangea

Show-stopping hydrangeas are a beloved garden staple. “If you’re looking for dramatic impact in your summer garden, Limelight hydrangea is it,” says Hall. The large, panicle shrubs grow fast, offer a long summer bloom season, and change in color from lime green to white to pink (in the autumn). “They make good cut flowers and dried flowers,” says Hall.

Zone: 3 to 9
Size: 6 to 8 feet tall x 6 to 8 feet wide
Growing conditions: Full sun to part shade; rich, well-watered soil

Neptune’s Gold Sea Holly

Thistle-shaped sea holly is a versatile plant that can thrive in areas with a range of sun and moisture conditions. It grows in shades of blue, purple, and green; Miller’s favorite is the Neptune’s Gold variety, where pale blue-green heads connect to light yellow leaves. “It’s about as magical looking as a plant can get,” she says. “Although technically not a chartreuse plant, the yellow seems to bleed into the blue like blended watercolors.”

Zone: 5 to 9
Size: 24 inches tall x 10 to 12 inches wide
Growing conditions: Full sun; well-drained soil

Green Jewel Coneflower

Coneflowers are more often grown in warm pink and purple shades, which makes the cooler Green Jewel variety a striking bloom in your mid-season garden. “A cultivar of the traditional pink/purple echinacea purpurea plant we typically see, this fun variety offers color at the height of summer,” says Hall. “Provide lots of sun but not much water to these drought-resistant beauties.”

Zone: 3 to 8
Size: 24 inches tall x 18 inches wide
Growing conditions: Full sun; well-drained soil

Short-Toothed Mountain Mint

A favorite of birds, bees, and butterflies, this fragrant mint relative is topped with clusters of tiny flowers. "With its lovely scent and sagey-silver green leaves and pale blooms, this eastern native offers a feast for pollinators of all sorts and makes and incredible cut flower foliage," says Hall. "They grow in all soil conditions, sun, or shade, and, like most other mints, they spread pretty profusely."

Zone: 4 to 8
Size: 24 to 36 inches tall x 24 inches wide
Growing conditions: Full sun to full shade; average, well-drained soil

Bells of Ireland

This plant gets its name from the dozens of tiny, bell-shaped blooms that project from its tall stalks, while the bright green color calls to mind the hills of the Emerald Isle. As these annuals begin to bloom in summer and fall, add them to seasonal bouquets and arrangements where they can last up to two weeks.

Zone: 2 to 11
Size: 12 to 36 inches tall x 12 to 18 inches wide
Growing conditions: Full to partial sun; well-drained soil

Snowball Bush Viburnum

Like the Limelight hydrangea, the large, multi-flowered heads on Snowball Bush viburnum shift in color from bright green to white throughout the season, adding a preview of the summer's verdant foliage to your late spring landscape.

Zone: 6 to 9
Size: Up to 12 feet tall x 10 feet wide
Growing conditions: Full sun to partial sun; well-drained soil

Amaranthus

Love-Lies-Bleeding amaranthus is best-known for its crimson-flowered versions, but the lime green hanging variety is a popular trailing addition to bouquets. Another variety of amaranthus, Green Thumb, grows upright instead of hanging.

Zone: 2 to 11
Size: 24 to 48 inches tall x 12 to 24 inches wide
Growing conditions: Full sun to partial shade; well-drained soil

Green Gladiolus

Perennial gladiolus flowers bloom in tall, tube-shaped bunches at the tops of leafy green stalks in early summer. The eye-catching lime color of the Green Star gladiolus complements other white, pink, and peach flowers.

Zone: 7 to 10
Size: 36 to 48 inches tall x 6 to 8 inches wide
Growing conditions: Full sun; medium, well-drained soil