Foliage Follow-Up

After Bloomday we have Foliage Follow-Up. If you thought I had a lot of blooms to show yesterday, I have even more going on today!

I'll jump right in with Perilla, sort of a weed in my garden this year. It's so pretty when grown in quantity though, its dark ruffled leaves adding not only color but interesting texture.

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It makes other colors really jump out too!

As does Persicaria 'Painters Palette':

This grows in several places in my yard too -- but I put it there myself. Love it!

When you're talking about foliage in my garden there's no avoiding the bamboos, so let's see some of the examples that are in the hellstrip:

Pleioblastus fortunei

Sasaella bitchuensis

Pleioblastus shibuyanus 'Tsuboi' 

Pleioblastus distichus

For a break from bamboo, how about some begonias?

I can't resist -- back to bamboo, with Chimonobambusa tumidissinoda:

So feathery, it looks fantastic in its big pot. Looks great with the Yucca too:

It's all about textural contrast right?

I've said it before, but if you're not growing papyrus then you're missing out on a very rewarding plant!

With all of the fine texture of the bamboos, the Musa basjoo hardy banana is the perfect contrast:

That's Shibatea kumasaca in the foreground. I love that bamboo's short, wide leaves!

The Pleioblastus viridistriatus under the bald cypress...

...never disappoints even after its springtime vibrance mellows a bit:

All sorts of foliage:

That's Passiflora incarnata on the trellis. Nice foliage when it gets thick, but the flowers will soon be getting all of the attention.

Mugo pine gets overlooked, but adds so much down low:

Ready for more bamboo?

Hibanobambusa tranquillans 'Shiroshima' in front...

...with green Indocalamus 'Solidus' behind. Nice combination!

That's more Shibatea kumasaca with larger-leaved Sasaella bitchuensis. I think if I could only grow the shrubby bamboos and no other plants I could still be a happy gardener as the different forms work so well together.

What doesn't work with bamboo though?

At the pond's edge the Petasites japonicus is starting to feel the pressures of summer:

(When the leaves droop into the water the fish nibble the margins, as you can see in the leaf at the bottom of the image...)

Nibbling is a big problem in the pond this year, as the fish and deer are eating pretty much anything that floats. The water lilies have been defoliated, the water hyacinths aren't able to spread as they keep getting munched, the frogbit must be getting eaten too, and any duckweed I add is gone in 10 minutes or less.

This is actually a good thing because one of my goals in the garden this year was to keep more open water in the pond...

Big leaves (Canna), small (Fargesia 'Rufa'), and whispy grass (Pennisetum):

This is one of my favorite vignettes in the garden right now. Ah.

The castor beans got a late start this year it seems -- these are all volunteers:

Even though they're less than 3' tall right now, they're still wonderful. (I've never grown this many here at once -- let's see what happens!)

On the driveway there are some cool things happening in the pots, starting with the golden lotus bananas (Musella Ensete lasiocarpa) that I got from Gerhard this year:

This one is pupping already! Love the foliage, a bit rounder and more blue than the Musa basjoo.

One of the most exciting things happening here though...

...is the Amorphophallus konjac. Remember when it bloomed last year but then didn't produce foliage? It produced four separate stalks this year!

It's a little forest of konjac! Well, not so little as that's a 24" (60cm) wide pot!

(If these all bloom next year I'm going to have to lend this pot to the Missouri Botanical Garden or something -- I won't want to smell them around here!)

Another surprise this year:

Poinsettia makes a very attractive patio plant! This was looking pretty terrible after the holidays, but some fertilizer, sunshine, and it's fabulous now!

There's probably so much more to show, but let's end with ferns:

That's sensitive fern on the left and lady fern (I believe) on the right. Things got jumbled up a bit here.

The Japanese painted ferns are impossible to misidentify though:

This is not the 'Godzilla' cultivar, which is still growing in a pot. (I'm pretty sure I know where to plant it now...)

Canna 'Tropicanna'

If you like foliage, see much, much more over at Pam's Digging blog for more Foliage Follow-Up!


And let me know if you want to see more bamboo, as I only photographed a third of it at most...

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