Settings to change background colour have been removed from xfce4-notes plugin but you can still set it by running in terminal
xfconf-query -c xfce4-panel -p /plugins/notes/global/background-color -t string -s "#219466" --create
You can also let the default gtk theme to be used to be used for background color
xfconf-query -c xfce4-panel -p /plugins/notes/global/background-color -t string -s "" --create
reboot after running it