Late Color
As November wends it's way into December, bleak becomes the adjective to describe the landscape for gardeners in the northern hemisphere. Some of you are already looking out the window at snow-covered vistas. Views for some will be the monochrome browns and grays of bare branches, enlivened by the somber greens of most evergreen plants in winter (I'm not counting those who grow the livelier evergreens with colored foliage).
The change from late color to sepia tints happens almost overnight. Last weekend, I looked out of the window and was enchanted as the sunlight played among my plants, illuminating first one color and then another. This weekend, my garden has reached sepia stage, with only a few colors peeping out, as from an old hand-colored daguerreotype. I'm glad I took a walk around last weekend and gathered foliage that specially caught my attention. I did a marathon scanning session, to preserve the colors as the leaves began to curl and shrivel before my eyes.
I ended up with over thirty scans - eyecandy to stave off color starvation for winter frustrated gardeners. I thought I'd share some of them with you. There may be a plant amongst them that you might want to add to your garden for a little late season color.
The range of foliage color available in late fall is pretty amazing. Some are blatant; some are subtle. Some are dead until the sun turns them translucent. I think what surprised me most were the greens. Green leaves are green, right?
Wrong! There is infinite variety in the greens; golden or acid greens that turn dark as the season moves on; blue or grayed
greens that stay that way for ever (like Rue) or turn purple with the onset of cold. But, to me, the startling revelation was the dark green or blue green leaves that finish their life a sharp acid green, fading to yellow or gold.
Golden Greens
Amsonia (Blue Star or Blue Dogbane) leaves are sort of Plain Jane green all year; nothing to write home about...pleasant, but that's all. But, when cold starts to nip the air, they transform themselves into a startling chartreuse. I've read that they turn very yellow, but mine don't and I put that down to the fact that my clump is living in partial shade instead of full sun. But, it seems quite happy there and produces clusters of light blue flowers for me in early summer, when the deer don't prune it. The leaf shape makes a very nice foil for more rounded or bitty leafed plants. This is an excellent low-maintenance plant for good, moist soil in USDA zones 3 to 9 and can make a clump up to three feet (1m) wide and tall. The flowers make good cut-flowers if you sear the base of the stem to stop it from "bleeding".
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