Re: space deserving plants
- Subject: Re: space deserving plants
- From: E*@aol.com
- Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2002 01:03:10 EST
In a message dated 11/2/02 10:46:17 PM Eastern Standard Time,
monica@theturcottes.com writes:
> The question is: What are you favorite combos of foliage? Do you combine
> the green-blues with the silvers only or the greens to the yellows only
> together? do ever the two palettes work together?>>>>>>>
>
> I don't like yellow foliage with exception of the sweet potato with the
> lime leaf. Any palette works together if you like it. I like cramming
> plants too close, I always think it will be too closely planted but I do it
> anyway. You can whack away too much foliage and cut down others. It is
> always what pleases you when you choose.
There is a good long basics message from Marge. A few other things to avoid
dead spots is to use plants that either stay good looking all the growing
season (paeonia, dictamnus), or plants that once bloomed with take cutting
back to the soil line, fertilizing and being happy to return as a nice mound
of foliage (campanula, veronica, salvia,nepeta)
Leave some wandering drifts of permanent good foliage as stachys, I like the
one called "Big Ears". In the stachys you can plant alliums which seem to
have five minute leaves and there will be no voids. Add a few big rocks and
move them around if you need a better look. Grow annuals in a row somewhere
and move right next to a fading perennial, that is immediately next to it and
give a small pocket of good soil and water to push along. Cosmos for hight,
many more for all sizes. Some repeat of one plant binds the borders
together. Spiky iris foliage is good surrounded by alchemilla with a short
lived bloomer in middle as you can grow and shear alchemilla at will. The
shrub cotoneaster is a good filler and can stand a lot of clipping.
Think permanent plant and put the less good looking ones right into the
parted places in stachys or contoneaster. Allow some self seeders as poppies
to live in you perennial garden. I love greys of every kind and there are
many of them. Most artemesia can be sheared off to fit around flowering
plants and return to larger size as the summer goes along. Red/purple leaves
are also good but harder to find as stable as greys. The shrub called sand
cherry ( better name gone from head tonight) can be clipped into a small
plant, don't be afraid of the pruning shears.
No garden is perfect, you spend every summer planning the perfect garden and
you learn something every fall about perfection. But you get better at it
every year and in the end it becomes clear that it is you that needs to be
pleased. When you go shopping in nurseries or catalogs in spring change your
thinking to all season growth and good foliage and notice what remains in
good shape in your area.
Throughout all the foliage patches, lilies look good and like cover of nearby
shrubby plants. It is all, I think, quite personal with keeping open to
changes while you select.
While one part of the garden can be blazing away another can be a mix of good
foliage with perhaps some late lilies coming on. I am sure there is plenty
of good advice from others as well there being a wide range of plants brought
up on this list.
Claire Peplowski
NYS z4
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