What’s the obsession with caramel-leafed heucheras and variegated, well, everything?
“Flowers are fleeting. Foliage is forever – or at least longer,” wrote Karen Chapman and Christina Salwitz, authors of the book “Fine Foliage: Elegant Plant Combinations for Garden and Container,” in an email.
Foliage can stand to go solo or can act as a picture frame for floral favorites.
“In many less sunny climates, if you only rely on flowers, the garden is only showy for a small percentage of the year,” the authors noted. “Where’s the fun in that?”
If you’re interested in creating dynamic perennial gardens, containers and/or mixed borders that don’t require hours of planting flats upon flats of blooming annuals every season, cruise past the racks of short-blooming mums and head toward the back of the garden center where the perennials and shrubs are tucked away. There you’ll find plants with leaves in every color of the rainbow. It’s not just the burgundy, black or multi-colored leaves that deserve your attention, though.
“There’s a big range of colors across the greens,” said Sheri Chisholm, co-owner and designer at Flora Landscapes in Wilmington. “You can find plants in shades of olive, lime green, blues, grays – there’s a lot of contrast just within the color green.”
Design made easy
All of this sounds lovely, but it involves design – a dreaded word for many gardeners. If you’re serious about upping your game in the garden, it helps to find a book that clearly and succinctly explains design in a way that “regular” people can understand and implement. I’m a fan of a practical book, one that you can open to a specific project and have all the information you need to hit the ground running. This is where “Fine Foliage” stands above the rest. (Salwitz dedicated the book “To ‘foliage-a-holics’ everywhere … gardeners who find design inspiration first in the leaf, then in the flower.”)
The highly structured book is divided into three parts. The first is an overview on how to use the book to easily create your own beautiful foliage combinations in the garden. The second and third are two-page spreads of plant combinations for sun or for shade that give detailed information to either a) recreate each combo exactly as shown or b) create similar foliage combos.
The book is 7-by-7 inches, the perfect size to tuck in your purse or under your arm while you shop. Most of the plants mentioned in the book will grow in our area.
Local favorites
Wilmington designer Chisholm places a high priority on foliage in her designs for Flora Landscapes clients.
“I’m just not an annuals girl,” she said.
Her recommendations for high performers in our area: “Kaleidoscope abelia is great because you have the yellow foliage on red stems, and it’s evergreen. It provides tons of visual interest, whether or not it’s flowering.”
Conifers also have lots of variation in color.
“I just designed a conifer garden with ‘Blue Star’ juniper, ‘Golden Mop’ Chamaecyparis and Andora juniper, which turns a bronze color in the winter,” Chisholm said.
She urges us not to forget about trees.
“‘Ruby Falls’ is a weeping redbud with red foliage, while ‘Silver Cloud’ has white foliage,” Chisholm said. “The New Hanover County Arboretum has a spectacular mimosa tree with red foliage. It’s called ‘Summer Chocolate.'”
Beyond color
Chisholm and the authors of “Fine Foliage” note another layer of design – leaf texture.
“Mix fine, medium and coarse textures of foliage,” Chisholm said. “For coarse textured plants I recommend fatsia, elephant ear, hydrangeas, hosta and cast iron plant,” she said. “Fine textured plants include ferns, ornamental grasses, podocarpus, conifers and amsonia. Everything else is lumped into the medium texture group.”
Focusing on foliage will also help you design a garden that stays exciting throughout the year.
“Go for plants that have more than one personality trait. For example, a plant that might have some great foliage color that happens to be evergreen and changes color in winter is a huge advantage,” Chapman and Salwitz wrote. “Blending three distinct textures of foliage will also take you a long way in your quest for long-lasting seasonal interest.”
Rule of threes
“The way you’d design a flower arrangement, that’s the same way you design a landscape” Chisholm said.
That is, you follow the rules of threes: three colors, three heights and three textures.
Chapman and Salwitz recommend testing your combinations in the shopping cart before taking them home.
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