Silver Linings

When you need something easy, light or showy, think shimmery for solutions

SILVER-LEAFED PLANTS are among those few things in life both sensible and glamorous. They aren't nagging-mother-in-our-heads good for us like oatmeal or warm socks. Yet they don't fall into the achingly desirable yet decidedly impractical category like strappy stilettos or tiny, fast convertibles. Silverlings are akin to low-fat cheesecake that actually tastes good, or a tank top that flatters. And they're much easier to come by.

For years I avoided most silver-toned plants, thinking they cast too much of a chill. It seemed wiser to amplify our skimpy ration of sunshine with yellow and golden-leafed plantings. But lately I've come to appreciate the sophistication of silver. Maybe every garden needs the yin and yang of sunshine and moonlight, best captured with gold and silver plants. Or maybe it's simply a practical choice for our new weather realities, for many of the most drought-tolerant plants reveal themselves in their silver-toned foliage.

Along with cactus and succulents, silver-foliage plants are the camels of the plant world, carrying their own drought protection with them. These plants are unabashedly hairy; and it's the wooliness that protects the plants from heat by maintaining a layer of humidity close to the leaf. The profusion of hairs also creates that gorgeous silver glow, bouncing sunlight off the leaves of helichrysums, salvias, verbascums and artemisia. The hairier the plant, the drier conditions it prefers.

I was won over by the humblest and most ordinary of silvery plants. Many years ago on a misty May morning touring gardens in Raleigh, N.C., I ran into my first lamb's ear (Stachys byzantina). The leaves are thick, soft and furry, and the flower spikes are like wooly dreadlocks standing upright, swirled with purple bloom at the top. As appealing as their name, lamb's ears are as impossible to keep from fondling as those of your favorite dog.

Lamb's ears betray their mint-family heritage in being so easy to grow. You can stick them in wherever you have a difficult place and they thrive as edgers and ground covers. Lamb's ears prefer hot and dry, but I've planted them in semi-shade in clay soil and they still grow happily into a downy, silver mound. In difficult conditions, the straight species is most adaptable, but a number of variants are on the market. The cultivar 'Big Ears' has, as you might expect, much larger leaves. It takes more shade, so is ideal for planting beneath roses or shrubs. S. byzantina 'Silver Carpet' never flowers, which eliminates the work of removing spent flower stalks. But it seems a shame, because bees so love the nectar atop those fuzzy, late-spring flower spikes.

Variegated silvers are shyer of the sun, often preferring shady conditions. Breeders seem to turn out new plants splashed or speckled with silver every year; they've been especially successful with pulmonarias, whose early-in-the-season soft leaves seem particularly partial to silver coloration. From Pulmonaria 'Excalibur,' with shimmery silver leaves merely outlined in green, to P. 'Mrs. Moon' with silver-spotted foliage, these shade-loving ground covers with their blue or pink flowers light up the garden in March when we eagerly await signs of spring.

Then there are the architectural silver plants that make such a statement in the garden, such as Melianthus major and cardoons. Usually drought tolerant, always showy, these sculptural shards of silver form a cooling backdrop to hot-colored flowers or contrast with dark-leafed plants. Surround cardoons with lavender, rosemary, senecio and artemisia for a stretch of showy, dry-garden silverlings in textures from jagged to lacy.

A whole world of silver plants is out there. Explore the possibilities with the new book "Elegant Silvers: Striking Plants for Every Garden," by Jo Ann Gardner and Karen Bussolini (Timber Press, $34.95), a fresh and thorough look at all plants silver.

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