Perennial garden design poses many challenges for gardeners as we endeavor to create the illusion of continuous color, but the ever-changing palette throughout the growing season is well worth the research and constant relocation of plants required to achieve this elusive goal. Nearly every day in the perennial border presents a unique portrait with peaks and valleys in the bloom sequence. Attractive textural and colored foliages serve to bridge the gaps and act as the primary players throughout the growing season. Many new varieties of plants have the good fortune to display leaves that offer multi-tinted hues.
On this cool, gloomy, Sunday afternoon, after hours of watching our Olympic athletes pursue their dreams for gold medals, I ventured outdoors for a brief stroll and found my eye continually drawn to the bright golden foliage which, despite overcast skies, seemed to glow and command attention throughout my landscape. In my earlier years, I had an aversion to plants with gold foliage, especially when viewed in individual containers on nursery benches. To my eye, they appeared sickly, as if suffering from nitrogen deficiency, but in recent years I have come to recognize their value to brighten, enhance, and offer contrast in a sea of green leaves.
In the realm of woody plants, there are numerous gold-colored evergreen and deciduous trees and shrubs to provide a colorful contrast to the green, blue, or burgundy foliages in our foundation plantings and shrub borders. Gold-tinted evergreens include the elegant ‘Skylands’ oriental spruce, junipers, like the spreading J. ‘Mother Lode’, and several types of false cypress (Chamaecyparis) such as the delightful thread-leaf cypress, C. pisifera ‘Golden Mop’, C. obtusa ‘Fernspray Gold’ and the compact C. obtusa ‘Verdoni’. Many homeowners have already discovered the radiant glow of variegated yellow and green euonymus cultivars including ‘Green and Gold’ and ‘Moonshadow’. A handsome, gold and green striped Yucca known as ‘Gold Sword’ also provides an evergreen accent.
A number of lovely deciduous shrubs can be used to add the “Midas Touch” to your landscape, serving as a singular focal point or repeated in several locations to provide rhythm to your design. The Spirea family presents several handsome introductions including ‘Ogon’, a feathery shrub with early spikes of tiny white flowers, or the later-blooming cultivars ‘Gold Mound’, ‘Gold Flame’ and ‘Magic Carpet’, all of which form dense mounds. The disk-shaped leaves of a gold-tinted smokebush, Continus ‘Golden Spirit’ are stunning turning multiple shades of coral, orange, and red in autumn and Caryopteris ‘Sunshine Blue’ offers yellow leaves and feathery blue flowers beginning in August on a 3-foot shrub. I prefer to use gold-tinted trees and shrubs as accents rather than as mass-plantings which can become overwhelming.
In the shady border, where foliage color and texture tend to predominate during the summer and fall, radiant gold leaves give the shady garden pizzazz! A relatively new introduction, Dicentra ‘Gold Heart’, exhibits the appealing blossoms of old-fashioned bleeding hearts against a backdrop of bright gold leaves and maintains its foliage much longer than the green-leafed species. A sensational spiderwort, Tradescantia ‘Sweet Kate’, provides eye-catching yellow strap-like leaves with deep violet blue flowers and is more clump-forming than its weedier counterparts. Numerous hosta cultivars are available ranging in color from lime green to pale gold, depending on the amount of sunlight the plant receives. Personal favorites among the numerous offerings of handsome gold hosta cultivars include ‘Gold Standard‘, Daybreak’, ‘On Stage’, ‘Golden Scepter’, ‘Piedmont Gold’, ‘Sunpower’, ‘Dancing Queen’, ‘Fire Island’ with bright gold leaves and red stems, and a vigorous miniature called ‘Dragon Tails’.
A handsome companion to the broad leaves of blue, green, or variegated hostas, the decorative Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa) adds a fine-textured contrast: H. macra ‘Aureola’ is streaked yellow and green and a newer addition, H. ‘All Gold’ is a glittering solid gold. Growing l to 2-feet tall, plants gradually spread to form soft, mop-like mounds that sway in the breeze like waves on the ocean. A golden sedge, Carex ‘Bowles Golden’ provides a more upright clump, its narrow blades edged with a deeper green.
The attractive leaves of coral bells (Heuchera) offer colorful accents throughout the growing season and into the winter months. Many new varieties of Heuchera and Heucherella have been introduced and each season the color palette expands with unique combinations. Newer cultivars that feature bright yellow or lime-green leaves, including ‘Lime Rickey’, ‘Citronelle’, and ‘Electra’ with red veins, glow in the shade while Heucherella ‘Stoplight’ and ‘Gold Zebra’ offer a shocking combination of bright yellow leaves with stunning red central blotches.
For sunnier locales, look for Veronica, ‘Aztec Gold’ or Campanula ‘Dickson’s Gold’ which form low-growing mats and blue blossoms. Perhaps the hardiest sun-lover is the mat-forming Sedum ‘Angelina’ with needle-like foliage that becomes cinnamon-tinted in late fall and winter; best of all, this sedum keeps its foliage throughout the year. It should be noted that the foliage of many gold plants, especially those with soft, deciduous leaves, may burn in hot afternoon summer sun and may look best given sun only until midday.
Touches of gold-tinted foliage added to container gardens give these portable gardens great visual impact. Gold sweet potato vines and lemon-tinted licorice plant, Helichrysum ‘Limelight’ are valuable additions to trail over the edge of planters while upright selections such as the two-toned yellow and green leaves of Duranta, gold coleus, and Canna Tropicana Gold with dramatic striped green and yellow leaves serve as thrillers in containers and are particularly effective when paired with purple foliage.
Try a few gold-leafed plants in your landscape. Their radiant foliage will add a magical touch of color and will transform a dull, monochromatic planting into a vibrant, exciting panorama.
Suzanne Mahler is an avid gardener, photographer and lecturer who has been developing the 1.5-acre property surrounding her home in Hanover for more than 30 years. Her weekly gardening column ‘Green Thumbs Up’ has appeared in GateHouse Media New England newspapers for more than a decade. She is a member of two local garden clubs, past President of the New England Daylily Society, an overseer for the Massachusetts Horticultural Society and is employed at two garden centers.
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