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Variegation on the Green Theme - Part OneRead the article this discussion is about
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» CarolWallace - I need that Alocasia! Think how striking it would be with my black colocasia! Maybe with Silver Dragon liriope at its feet. (I've been trying hard to come up with a "symphony in black and white" and the best I have managed is a container of very dark coleus and very white senecio.Anything but green has been my creed for years. Pay attention to interesting foliage and no one notices if nothing happens to be flowering. -- posted by CarolWallace » Marge_Talt - Re: I need that Alocasia! In response to message posted by CarolWallace::-) I needed it, too...found it and am purring over this teeny bit of plant life, envisioning a huge plant in future. The one I saw in Raleigh must have been 12 or 15 feet tall - of course, it was being grown in a huge (and very hot and steamy) conservatory - the butterfly garden; full of exotic butterflies and tropical plants. I know mine will never reach that size, but I have hopes for it to get as large as my Colocasias. 'Silver Dragon' would compliment it (if you could see it under a full grown Alocasia:-) Something you could try - if it's hardy for you - is the Ophiopogon 'Nigrescens' and Pulmonaria 'Excalibur' or ' Diana Clare' - both of whom are really silver/white...I keep meaning to do this, but forgetting to divide 'Nigrescens' and move it at the right time. If 'Nigrescens' isn't hardy for you, you could grow it in pots and sink them around the Pulmonaria for the season....now, that would be black and white:-) Anything but green! I agree absolutely...variegated foliage is as good as flowers - and lasts longer:-) -- posted by Marge_Talt » CarolWallace - Re: Re: I need that Alocasia! In response to message posted by Marge_Talt:My Colocasia never gets as huge as the ones at Longwood Gardens - but they usually get to a respectable 5' tall or so. Not this year, It was so late before things warmed up enough for me to get them out of pots and into the ground that they are only about 18" high. No 'Silver Dragon' - if I had one - would only help hide the bare spaces. ;-) I don't have one because it doesn't appear to be hardy here. I had an 'Excalibur' but it didn't survive the drought. I won't commit myself to saying 'Nigrescens' is hardy here. I have a very small clumo that has comeback for several years and finally expandedinto a second very small clump. But given that this baby had come back several years, I bought more and planted them out and they all died. But I do have a winderful pot of healthy specimens right now that I am using to create some designs using black. We made a raised bed and filled it with compost - very loose - and I simply bury several pots of plants in differet combinations, photograph them, then redo the mix. Good combos get tucked into containers when I'm done. About the only green I am using is a variegated artemisia which is gold and green splashed. I don't know if you'd count 'Margarita' with its glowing chartruse as a green. But it sure is great fun to play with foliage color! -- posted by CarolWallace » Marge_Talt - Re: I need that Alocasia! In response to message posted by CarolWallace:Mine don't either. Last year, I put them in the ground in a mud hole and they topped 5'. Tried an experiment to leave them in the ground - covered with dry mulch, leaves, plastic, styrofoam and more leaves...didn't work; all rotted nicely as that mudhole they loved in summer proved just too wet for winter:-( Had, prudently, saved a small bit of each; now again in pots and doing nicely, but they never will reach huge size in pots and digging them out of that mudhole would be just too much each year. C'est la vie. Yes, come to think of it, 'Silver Dragon' would not be hardy for you. Since this is a spicata, they don't really clump up, so you'd have to have a lot of them to provide a thick enough cover to hide something, I think. 'Excalibur' does have to have water. It is no way as tough as old 'Mrs. Moon', but when it's happy, it sure is a lovely thing. I got a very similar one - same species as 'Excalibur', named 'Diane Clare' - also extremely nice. Leaf may be a tad narrower than 'Excalibur', but it's hard to tell the difference, really. Well, supposedly, 'Nigrescens' isn't hardy for you, but plants always fool people foolish enough to say the will or won't do something or other. Given that it's evergreen and tolerates a good deal of shade, I don't see why you couldn't overwinter it inside in a window. Might turn greenish, but think it ought to survive since it does not need a cold resting period. I do not find it to be a fast grower, myself, and it's more of a spreader than a clumper for me. Odd bits seem to travel away from the mother clump. Pretty clever of you to do that raised bed to create vignettes...good idea! I've got that artemisia - 'Oriental Limelight'...pretty sure that's what you've got as it's the only green/yellow variegated one I know of. It bears watching as the species is one of my noxious weeds - AKA mugwort. So far, mine has traveled a bit, but not too much. I've got it in a place that's a thin layer of rotted wood humus over clay filled with gravel from the driveway - thanks to an overenthusiastic dude on a backhoe...could strangle him often. But, all that gravel seems to be keeping that artemesia under control. The species travels via white underground roots....any bit of which grows a new plant. 'Oriental Limelight' is a pretty plant, tho'. I really put 'Margarita' in the yellow foliage class - love that plant. Have it in containers with other stuff, flowing out all over the place. A really neat combo is it and Canna 'Tiger', whose stripes are almost the same color as 'Margarita'. It sure is fun to play with foliage color - I'm totally loving the many varieties of sun loving coleus out now - wish I could keep them over winter, but I have dismal luck in that dept. In the house, they get bugs and the greenhouse is too cold for them....sigh. Speaking of your black and white combos - well, it ain't exactly white; it's actually this incredible silver - but there is a tender perennial out now, Dichondra argentea 'Silver Falls', that I'm very taken with - supposedly hardy in z 7-8, but I rather doubt it here as it's a desert plant and wants it on the dry side. The image in the link doesn't do it justice...it's much more silver than it looks in this one, which was the best I could find in a quick search. I have it in a pot with a coleus; think it's 'Duckfoot' and Strobilanthes, whose silvery bits 'Silver Falls' echoes...I'm quite taken with the combo. Only problem is the other two have gotten so big, 'Silver Falls' isn't getting all the sun it ought to...gotta do something about that. -- posted by Marge_Talt
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Marge, Thanks for the neat artcile and excellent pictures! The links are wonderful and the one about Tricrytis is exactly what I've been needing for a friend who does not do internet! And I love your link to the Garden Community Page and SuiteU. Thank you so much! BTW, leaves that appear totally silver like those Lamb's Ears Stachys byzantina all species of lavender are covered with fine hairs (tomentum, ie tomentose). These hairs trap moisture, especially dew and humidity, so need to grow primarily in direct sunlight. If not they become terribly infected mostly with fungi and then other organisms of decay. (Sounds nasty does't it?) Such a temtation to plant such material with such gorgeous leaves in shade...I know from experience it doesn't work. :=( These plants can't be propagated under mist systems for fear of decay! Georgene -- posted by Georgene A. Bramlage » Marge_Talt - Re: Thanks for the neat article! In response to message posted by Cercis:Hi Cercis....thanks for your kind words! I'm delighted you enjoyed the article and found some useful bits. Actually, that link at the end of my articles goes to the page for becoming a member of the Suite....do you think I ought to make it a link to the garden community page? Hmmm...maybe I can add one direct to the community page as well. Yes, many totally silver leaves are an optical illusion caused by the leaf hairs you mention. You have no idea how hard it is to scan such a leaf and have the silver show up - all you get is the actual green leaf color in a scan:-) Stachys byzantina does do much better in sun than shade although it will grow in a fair amount of shade. I have it all over and would not be without it although it always succumbs to the mugs by this time of year and a nice wet year like we've had this year means I have many clumps of mush where it's rotted out. It is nasty but I wouldn't be without this plant as I love those fuzzy leaves! You're right, too, about propagation of these silver leaf plants - I have better luck in pure sand sitting in a tray of water...you can't even enclose them in a plastic bag or they rot. Interesting thing, tho' is that the silver leaf Pulmonaria also have rather fuzzy or maybe I should say 'bristly' leaves, yet in my climate require shade and a lot of moisture.. and don't rot from it....interesting. -- posted by Marge_Talt
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Georgene A. Bramlage
