Color in the garden with no flowers!

I just received a trade magazine in the mail yesterday. The cover article was about foliage color and this made me start to think about what we are selling and what I am using in my Garden Crew work.

For me it started weith the development of some hybrid coral bells with attractive foliage several years ago. Purple Palace was the first one with, suprise, purple foliage. Since then there have been dozens of introductions of attractive foliaged coral bells for the partial shaded area. Purple, silver and chartruse are some of the colors.

Then grasses started becoming more popular. Popular for the foliage color and the striking texture and plumes. Specially popular is purple fountain grass that grows to about 4' tall. This is almost hardy here, depending on the weather it might or might not come back. One of the advantages of Purple Fountain Grass is the speed with which a #1 size grows. so even if it has to be replaced it comes back quick.

Blue Oat grass, which is hardy here, and a coupe of variegated leaf grasses are also popular. Next sedges started becoming popular including Golden Morowii carex, brown fox sedge and numerous others for the foliage color and texture.

Other new and old foliage plants include coleus, liriope, Emerald Gaity euonumus, Tinkerbell dwarf agapanthus.

Our pot artist Amy uses lots of foliage plants for color. She does blend them with flowering plants so you can get color all the time. Come in and check our our selection of outdoor foliage color.