Are you scared?
What do you remember of when you were scared when you were young? Being in a dark room? A big monster under your bed? Or you saw a black shadow that wasn’t supposed to be there? Probably, your fears had something to do with darkness. Blackness is a mystery and scary at the same time. Black is interesting.
There's More to See in Black Flowers
Back to the now. No monsters anymore. But flowers! Do you know a lot of black flowers? And do you use them? There are not a lot of totally black flowers on the market. The Calla Lilly is one,
black tulips, you probably know, and of course the
Cosmos black. Those are great examples of how wonderful and mysterious black flowers can be. When there is different daylight you can see more colors than black in these flowers. From dark brown to dark purple, to red, it can have all these colors in flowers. Mysterious, right..?!
Genetics
The biggest secret of black flowers is from a breeder's perspective. Breeders try to have as many colors possible in the crops. But, that is not as easy as it sounds. In my last blog, I spoke about the black tulip. It is so hard to make a black tulip, that in practical terms, it isn’t possible at all. The genetics of specific flowers are just not suitable for certain colors. In my daily job at
Royal Van Zanten I work with bouvardia, alstroemeria, statice and chrysanthemum. None of them have the genetics to make a black variety. So, be happy with varieties that are completely black, they have good genetics!
Black Makes Contrasts
That some varieties are not completely black doesn’t mean that black cannot be in the flower. Black is a brilliant color to make a high contrast with a brighter color. Great examples of the chrysanthemums are the
Vyking Dark and the Yellow Molly. Each of them are unique because of the contrast with the black hearts they have.
It is used in alstroemeria as well. The
Alstroemeria Nadya is world-famous because of its black stripes who give a great contrast with the red ‘background’. And don’t forget the
Alstroemeria Whitney, a great example of what contrast can do with a flower.
Black is Exclusive
In my opinion, a flower with some black accents always gives something extra. Of course, a completely black flower is much more exclusive. But that is mostly due to the fact that there aren’t a lot of flowers who are totally black. Eventually, when a flower does have something black in it, it gives that extra touch! Is it the mysterious image we have of the color black? Or is it just the exclusivity? I think the outcome will be a mystery to me!
