Goth up Your Garden with These Gorgeous Black Flowers
Broody black flowers and foliage to add a touch of drama to your garden.
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Black flowers have the power to cast an instant spell over anyone who gazes upon your garden—one that warns passersby that your grail overfloweth. Add a touch of Morticia Addams to your garden and celebrate Halloween all year round with these moody blooms and brooding foliage.
Heuchera ‘Black Pearl’
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There are so many terrifyingly black-leaved Heuchera to choose from, but with its rounded lobed leaves, ‘Black Pearl’ takes the cake for being the blackest. ‘Black Taffeta,’ ‘Black Beauty,’ and ‘Obsidian’ are other good choices; all are blood-black, though the former has playfully ruffly leaves. Heuchera thrives best out of direct sunlight, like any good goth.
Hollyhock ‘Blacknight’
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‘Blacknight’ hollyhocks are an outstanding choice for a witchy, Olde English cottage garden. This tall, black-flowered biennial can be grown from seed but will require the patience of the dead (e.g., two years) before you’ll see a bloom on it.
Tulip ‘Night Queen’
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This spring bloomer is here to remind everyone that she did not come to play; she doesn’t care if winter is over—she’s still cold as ice. Plant her in the fall; she’ll wait quietly like a corpse in an unmarked grave until it’s her time, and then she will destroy you.
Begonia ‘U485’
There are so many savage black begonias, but Begonia U485 is as chilling as 2001: A Space Odyssey. This fussy houseplant has a name like a killer robot from a dystopian nightmare, and its leaves look like the Monolith. Begonia ‘Darth Vader’ (B. darthvaderiana) is another villainous sci-fi cultivar that will have you screaming “Nooooooooooo!”
Hellebore ‘Dark and Handsome’
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This Prince of Darkness is definitely ‘Dark and Handsome.’ Not only do its hellish black flowers bloom in winter and prefer the shade, they’re also deadly poisonous. Nonetheless, black hellebore (Hellebore niger) was used in ancient Rome and Greece to treat an array of ailments, including paralysis and insanity; by contrast, its green cousin H. viridis will literally stop your heart.
Echeveria ‘Black Prince’
This isn’t even the only ‘Black Prince’ we love—there’s an equally sinister-looking coleus that shares the name. But this sun-tolerant Echeveria doesn’t need much water and looks as forbidding as Maleficent’s manicure.
Pansy ‘Molly Sanderson’
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Molly Sanderson might sound like a nice old gal, but her black flowers seethe out of the dark soil and right into your very soul. Old Molly likes rich, black earth; she can handle some morning sun but will not abide a hot afternoon.
Colocasia ‘Black Magic’
Colocasia ‘Black Magic’ is a terrifying addition to a pond or water feature; they have leaves like nightmares, causing the pangs of dark delight. Like Jenny Greenteeth, this dank plant requires a sodden soil to survive—but children best not stray too close to this swamp hag lest they be dragged to their drowning.
Mourning Widow Geranium
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Bela Lugosi’s dead, and so is this geranium’s poor husband. She now wanders the shaded woodland edges with her head hung low, shrouded in a sloe-black veil. Her leaves are streaked with brown splotches the color of dried blood, giving a clue as to who might be responsible for her husband’s untimely death.
