Specialty Gardening: Plants that show good Fall foliage color , 1 by sempervirens

sempervirens wrote:
Thanks for the kind compliments DonnaMack and Pagancat. I wish I had more space for plants as the photos of both of your lovely homes show.

DonnaMack, the garden in your photo has a lovely flow and texture. I think it is wonderful to plant native berrying bushes for the birds. 14 Bayberries must be a spectacular sight.

Pagancat, the most effective plants to show off your red twigs would be some type of evergreen to back it. I'm not familiar with the native evergreens in Tennessee though. I have a small suburban property and I'm stuck with 4 yews( non native and boring) as foundation plants. The best I can say of them is they are evergreen and take heavy pruning but I would never choose them. In fact I grow vines( native honeysuckle Lonicera sempervirens and Forsythia through and between them so they are disguised until the winter. I am counting on them though for a backdrop for the red berries next year.

I have some nice native ilex glabra (inkberry) that looks like boxwood, is evergreen and has small blue berries for the birds. It fits well because you can choose among many cultivars as far as size goes but I don't see it native to your state. I'm not sure it would be the best choice for you.

GardenGus, Nice photos and colors on the blueberry and hardy geranium. I use alot of the native geranium as ground cover and also like their leaves. I have a lovely white flowered variety that adds sparkle to the shade garden. The only flaw with the native geranium maculatum is the shorter bloom time. I do have the non-native hardy geranium Roxanne, Jolly Bee and the old stand by Johnson's Blue. The first 2 are good weavers, they can be trained to weave through other plants and through small shrubs to have the effect that the shrub is blooming.


This photo is from October showing the inkberry with the fall color of Penstemon digitalis "Husker Red".
The Penstemon is a good 3 season plant.
That might be a good topic for another thread, Plants that have multi season interest. What do you think?


This message was edited Nov 25, 2008 7:42 AM