Why does Lanzarote use the colour green?

Puerto del Carmen will go green this month as thousands celebrate St Patrick’s Day on the 15th to 17th of March, but the island’s relationship with the colour goes much further than that.

“Peasants always painted their doors and windows green because this was the cheapest paint, while sailors added blue because that was the colour left over after painting their boats. That’s why coastal houses are painted green and blue and those that lie inland are green.” These are the words César Manrique wrote about the relationship islanders had with green paint in his Unseen Architecture book, currently the subject of an exhibition at the César Manrique Foundation in Tahiche.

The blue used on Lanzarote has never been strictly defined and can vary from the deep blue of Lanzarote’s flag to the much paler sky blue of the Canarian tricolour, but the green is much more clearly recognisable.

A number of paint manufacturers have marketed “Lanzarote Green” as one of their main colours for decades, and the paints offered are the tough, durable emulsions designed for painting windows and doors.

In 2017, Pantone announced its colour of the year as Greenery, a deep, verdant shade of green that many identified with “Lanzarote Green”. In fact, many of the green doors on the island are rather lighter in colour than the Pantone shade, but local hardware shops are usually well aware of the exact shade required.

The green is used for doors, windows and shutters all over the island, but without doubt the most attractive centre is Teguise, where sleepy whitewashed streets are livened up with green doors, some gleaming with a fresh lick of paint, others faded and weathered.

Manrique also used green extensively, especially at the village of the Monumento del Campesino and the Pueblo Marinero in Costa Teguise. But these aren’t the only greens on the island.

Cueva de los Verdes means “Cave of the Greens”, but the origin of the name is uncertain. Some claim it arose because of the shades of green that can be found within the cave, while others claim that a local family whose surname was Verde used the cave to quarter their livestock. What is certain is that the current entrance to the cave, designed by Manrique to have many lush plants, is one of the most attractive oases of greenery on the island.

In contrast to these deep greens is the Lago Verde – the Green Lake at El Golfo, a lighter, almost luminous green, caused by algae that live in the small lagoon. The colour of this lake can change according to the conditions, the light and the time of year, but it remains one of the most vivid emblems of the island and has been used as the location for many films – Raquel Welch was most famously filmed bathing in the lagoon.

And even without St Patricks, March is often one of the greenest months on Lanzarote, as winter rains give way to spring greenery on the hillsides and in the valleys.