Fireworks With Foliage

Why stay green when you can dazzle with gold or silver, chartreuse, yellow or plum?

WAS IT ORNAMENTAL grasses, startling new heucheras or tropical-plant fervor that ignited our current appreciation for colorful foliages? Flowers are the sexual parts of plants, and we're as attracted to them as bees, fascinated by their anthers and intricacies. We can't help but respond to the spectacle of a bearded iris, the blowsiness of a rose or a sunflower's jolly petal face. But when we're making gardens, a plant's contribution should be rated by its foliage. After all, this is what we see for most, if not all, months of the year.

And you don't need to coax, fertilize or deadhead for best foliage. A plant clothes itself in leaves or needles without any urging from us. I'm liking the idea of being more garden spectator than drudge, so colorful foliage plants appeal to me as much because they're easy to maintain as because they look good. We used to think of gardens as lapsing into green after a spring flower display. Now our gardens settle into summer in shades of plum, silver, gold, chartreuse, ebony and yellow, sporting everything from stripes to splotches, splashes and variegated edges. The foliage pyrotechnics are booming.

Since so many new plants have lively leaves, those described here are the ones with the most tug-at-your-eyeballs impact. Most are plants with solid-color leaves in shades so strongly saturated that if they were paint, not a single drizzle of white would dilute their strength. You can use a variety of such distinct, robust colors without overload. It's as if the deep purple of Hebe 'Amy' or the darkest smoke bushes, like Cotinus coggygria 'Velvet Cloak' or 'Royal Purple,' rest the eyes with their depth of color. Then there's the brilliant yellows like 'Golden Spirit' smoke bush or Hosta 'Sum and Substance,' which emanate blast-of-sheer-sunshine vibes.

Colored foliages also do wonders for flowers. A scarlet dahlia with black foliage, as in the famous 'Bishop of Llandaff,' is a searing carnival of a plant. Blue flowers never look so vivid as when set against the yellow foliage of Caryopteris 'Sunshine Blue.' Then there's the echo effect of matching foliage and flower, as in purple fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum 'Rubrum') where both grass blades and fox-tail flowers are similar shades of plum.

Dark foliages come in shades from chocolate to oxblood. Overhead, the pretty, heart-shaped leaves of the small tree Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy' glow purple in sunlight; vast copper beeches (Fagus sylvatica 'Purpurea') loom like a warm shadow. Shrub-sized dark notes include Physocarpus 'Diabolo' with chocolate foliage, Weigela 'Wine and Roses' with burgundy leaves, and the seriously dark elderberry Sambucus nigra 'Black Lace.' Or how about the aggressive smoky blades of Phormium tenax, its diminutive variant P. cookianum 'Platt's Black' or its brazenly striped variants like 'Sundowner'? Purple leaf grape (Vitis vinifera 'Purpurea'), black mondo grass down at ground level, and the new-this-year, chocolate-leafed Ligularia dentata 'Britt Marie Crawford' are stunning brunette notes.

Lest the garden grow gloomy, there's plenty of gilded foliage in shades from honey-blond to golden-orange. No tree is more stunningly yellow for more months of the year than the golden locust (Robinia pseudoacacia 'Frisia'). Shrubs in these sunshine tones include Forsythia 'Golden Peep,' Spirea japonica 'Goldflame' and Sambucus 'Sutherland Gold' with finely cut foliage that morphs from copper-red to golden-yellow over the summer. A little closer to the ground are the brilliantly lit Hosta 'August Moon' or 'Sun Power,' golden oregano (Origanum vulgare 'Aureum'), golden-leafed heucheras like 'Lime Rickey' and bright grasses like Bowles golden (Millium effusum 'Aureum') or Hakonechloa macra 'All Gold.' Golden hops vine is the light-reflecting equivalent of the purple grape.

Then there are blue spruces, grasses, hostas and even the pewter-toned leaves of Rosa glauca. There's the whole gaudy world of variegation and the Mediterranean silverlings to cool it all off. So many choices, so little reason to stick with green.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer and contributing editor for Horticulture magazine. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net.