Shirl, of Shirl's Gardenwatch, was getting the word out on a great idea, when I read her post encouraging garden bloggers to participate in a garden-bloggers foliage event. It seems Emma Townshend at A Nice Green Leaf has invited us to, on June 30th, "put up pictures of your best foliage combinations, wow us with your giantest leaf, or delight us with a technologically advanced slideshow showing the general verdancy of your plot. . ."
Here's my contribution to what I think is a fabulous idea. Foliage is king in our garden.
Silver maples - three mature ones assure a dry, mostly-shady gardening environment under their canopies. Silver maples are messy trees and they drop tons of helicopters that sprout baby maple trees everywhere. I dislike silver maples, but I wouldn't trade their cool shade and the birds that perch and nest in them. I've been learning to cooperate with these large, mature trees and their shallow roots for the past four years. This is a young garden, growing slowly in it's challenging environment. Foliage texture, color, and shape rather than flowers, are the primary players in this garden. These are some of my favorites.
heuchera 'caramel'
ivy in a hanging basket
dill, cilantro, green and purple basil, and parsley started in an Aerogarden and transplanted into a container.
elephant ear - the largest leaf in our garden by far.
celandine poppy
caladium
astilbe
one of the mystery hostas
Viburnums have such a wide variety of leaf colors and shapes.
caladium
Rozanne, object of my affection
variagated angel's trumpet. huge leaves, graceful form, beautiful whether blooming or not. After the green elephant ears, this angel's trumpet has the 2nd largest leaves in my shady garden. At present, this is my favorite plant. I have a cutting from it as well, shorter, but with foliage as large and beautiful. And a sucker, but that one's plain green. Big leaves though, so far. There's a story to tell of my introduction to angel's trumpet - devil's trumpet as well. I'll get to that sometime. Oh, did I mention, I love this plant! Mother and children survived over the winter under my nifty sodium grow light, and have taken off since coming outside and being placed in the oh-so-calculatingly carefully determined officially most sunny spots in our garden. So far no buds. I'll keep you posted.
