Advanced search

Plant Life Valerie Easton

Sturdy Understudies

If it's drama you still crave, trade your tender tropicals for these

Weather happens. And last winter it happened continually, plunging our gardens into a November deep-freeze followed by unprecedented amounts of rain lashed by howling winds. It's only now in early June we can tell for sure which plants are mush and which might recover from the deluge. I've composted my beloved tree fern and just last week gave up digging around for any sign of my Melianthus major. In a garden as small as mine, these two dramatic plants have left gaps as startling and forlorn as a missing front tooth.

So here's the question: Do we replace what we lost with plants that can withstand the worst vagaries of Northwest weather, or do we continue to play the zonal denial game? Gardeners have a notoriously slow learning curve in such matters. We know a single glimpse of a gaudy new canna or a pastel-striped phormium is enough to make us forget all about the weather.

I recently had my resolve in this direction reinforced by a trip to Los Angeles, where I saw banana trees and tree ferns that really do grow into trees in a climate that suits them. I saw Melianthus major in full bloom, dripping blood-red blossoms. It wasn't a pretty sight, but reminded me how rarely these plants ever bloom in Seattle. Huge agaves, luxuriantly fat clumps of purple fountain grass, elephant's ear (Colocasia esculenta), papyrus and jasmines made me realize that perhaps, by persisting in trying to grow plants that need more warmth, we're indulging in a more subtle form of torture than, say, poodle pruning, but torture nonetheless.

Or maybe it's just about the money, time and emotion we waste nurturing these plants, only to watch them die during a tough winter. No amount of bubble wrap can save a tender plant in a truly rotten winter where the poor things are as likely to drown or be blown over as to freeze to death.

So what about hardier replacement plants that still give that theatrical, warm-weather effect we crave in our gray climate? I'm a big proponent of Northwest natives, but let's face it, few have the juice and style to transport us beyond the boundaries of our all-too-familiar climate. An exception are mahonias, with their layered profiles, jagged leaves and fragrant winter caps of yellow flowers. Plant a few Mahonia x media 'Arthur Menzies' or 'Charity' and you've got a start toward a hardy backbone of year-round drama.

You'll succeed at the replacement game if you think in terms of what a plant contributes to a garden. If, for instance, you lost a jasmine last winter and are already missing its intense perfume, you can drench your garden in tropical scent over an even longer season with an early-blooming daphne like D. odora and a summer-bloomer such as D. x transatlantica 'Jim's Pride' or 'Summer Ice.' Add to the mix a few Oriental lilies and your garden will be so rich in heady perfume you'll never miss the jasmine.

Is it the blast of color you'd miss without the semi-tropicals? At the dark end of the spectrum, Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy' with plum-colored, heart-shaped leaves and the ferny purple-leafed mimosa Albizia julibrissin 'Summer Chocolate' are gorgeous. And nothing is more blatantly gold than the gargantuan hosta 'Sum and Substance.' Then there are dahlias and daylilies in searing colors to heat up the summer garden. Don't overlook agapanthus with its sword-like leaves and long-blooming balls of flowers.

The sheer magnitude of the foliage on cannas and bananas defines the tropical look. You can get a decent facsimile with large-leafed rhododendrons or a monster gunnera. There are hardy phormiums and agaves whose sharp blades punctuate the garden as surely as the non-hardy forms. Ostrich ferns, ornamental rhubarb, rodgersias, ligularias and verbascums are all big-leafed, showy plants that are able to survive, thrive and best of all return, whatever a Northwest winter delivers.

So, did I buy another tree fern? Nope, I replaced it with a cute little Mediterranean fan palm (Chamaerops humilis). Hope springs eternal on the melianthus, and I've planted another, burying it deeper this time. I didn't like the color of the flowers, anyway.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer and author of "A Pattern Garden." Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net.

Buy a link