Green, My Favorite Color

This morning on the Health and Well Being report on CBS 880 Radio, it was stated that spending time outdoors is good for your spirit and that exercising outside, such as walking, is better for your mental health than using a treadmill. The report also said that the color green is the "in" color this year. That makes me happy because green has been my favorite color since I was a young teenager. Thinking about this I was reminded of a poem I wrote at that age. Here it is:

Beauty Is

Beauty is the plants in my room.

With their glorious shades of green,

they bring color to my otherwise

dull windowsills.

Susan Franz (c) 1977

I was also reminded of a collaborative journal I created with a friend who lives in Portland, Oregon in 2004. I wrote this poem in it along with a section on my love for the color green.  I would like to share that.

"Sunlight through the leaves of the hops plants and through the canopy of oak leaves reveals several shades of green at once.

How can this image best be captured? Photograph? Painting? Words? All of these I try."

"Green has been my favorite color for as long as I can remember. When I was sixteen I wrote this poem:  (see poem above)

Green has a calming effect and I am a calm, quiet, peaceful person most of the time. I do like to play music loudly on occasion, just as I like a splash of orange and yellow in my gardens."

 Garden photos








 "As much as I love flowers of all kinds, I'd take the greens in all their varied shades and hues. I love my vegetable garden precisely for this reason. The deep rich green of rhubarb leaves growing alongside the wispy yellow green of asparagus and the bluish green blades of garlic. Lovage, tomatoes, chives, green beans, dill, strawberries and snap peas fill the garden beds with months of non stop color.

While every season brings its flowers of pure delight, it is the color of leaves that sustains me, just as the chlorophyll sustains them. The grasses, privet, Rosa rugosa, honeysuckle, bittersweet, rhododendron, violets, hostas, daylilies, birches and so much           more provide layer upon layer of light and shadow, texture and color."

"The long, dull brown and grey winter months are soon forgotten as the first tender leaves of spring emerge to be followed by the full chorus of beautiful greens.

Please do not misunderstand me. I absolutely adore flowers and have much praise for them, but just as an arrangement of flowers in a vase needs a filler of green to make them stand out, the landscape needs green as its back drop. If green were taken out of the picture, it would lack harmony.

So this is the foundation of my garden and the beginning of my journal..."