In the (almost) immortal words of Kermit the Frog ‘It’s not easy being green’, and yet green is with us everywhere. We live on the green and blue planet. We are now aiming to keep it green. Many people agree too that every room, every home, every space needs a little green. Green has the power to relax us and unite us with the earth. There are a number of associations we make with the colour green.
We use a green light to tell us we can go. While this is directly associated with traffic lights we also use the expression for business projects too. We may also be green with envy (one of the few negative associations of green) Green being the colour of most plant life we also associate green with gardening. Most of us now know that if we are going to purchase a ‘green machine’ it will have something to do with the gardening world. From the plant world where green represents fresh new growth we also take our association of being ‘green’ as being young or inexperienced.
‘Eating our greens’ we all know is good for us and the world is full of generations of parents finding ways to get their children to eat up. Green beans, green peas, broccoli, lettuce, Brussels sprouts and even more green vegetables are grown, prepared and eaten every day. While green seaweed may not be high on everyone’s list of yummy greens most people still appreciate the flavour of a crisp green apple and could at least be persuaded to try a green bean casserole. Green is very simply the colour of good nutrition!
As a colour, green is a combination of the primary colours blue and yellow. How much of each of these is included gives us the almost unlimited shades of green that we find around us. Even many of these we give plant names to: leaf green, sap green, olive green, and lime green for example. While many people don’t find green a particularly exciting colour just imagine what our world would be like without it! It may not be easy being green, but lets appreciate and celebrate the green in our lives.
