I do like the various colors plants put on in the fall. Two of my favorite plants for fall color are Baptisia with the charcoal grey curls and Amsonia with chatreuse pointed leaves. They are lovely together. Add the spiky chocolate seed heads of purple cone flower and the waving blades of the pinkish gold tint of switch grass and I don't miss flowers. True, it is a more subtle beauty but wonderful just the same.
Anyone else love the fall colors of plants? What are your favorites?
The grass doesn't show in the last photo. Here the switch grass shows it's lovely color.
In this photo the switch grass is clearly a pinkish tint behind the yellow green of the rhododendron. It would look better if I could find a tall blue leaved evergreen to add( but I could never squeeze it in anyway), but just out of view, in front, is a lavender plant that adds a bit of that color.
Oh man - what an eye you have, Semper. I feel positively dull, only enjoying the autumnss leaves! Although I will say, now that the blazing color has faded, I'm enjoying the smoldering embers - dark russets and golds.
But so far my garden has little to offer this time of year. DH just bought 3 red-twig dogwoods (and planted them - no, it's not terminal, lol, but I nearly fell over anyway) so that should start to change next year.
Thank you Pagancat for the compliment and finding pleasure in the foliage combinations I photographed in my garden.
The visual image of dark russets and golds as smoldering embers you offered is delightful.
I found a book years ago, before I switched to a mostly native plant garden, that promoted 4 season gardening. The challenge of planting my small garden with the idea of having some plant in each part of the garden offering something to each season, either bloom or foliage or structure, was the kind of puzzle I couldn't resist. Trying to do this with native plants added another challenge.
I have found watching a plant change through the seasons one of my greatest joys in gardening.
I tend to move plants around twice a year, late spring and fall to help the design of the garden.
The one season that eludes me is winter. I need more shrubs, evergreens and berrying plants.
I did add 2 female and 1 male winterberries (Ilex verticillata) this Fall and a rosa virginiana last year for red berries and red twigs and rosehips. This native rose has a similar appeal as your new red-twig dogwoods as the newer twigs are a lovely red and the rose hips look like berries.
The photo is of the backyard Rosa virginiana that has been in place for many years. It is a big suckering shrub rose so I ruthlessly prune out older canes to control the size and get the lovely red stems from newer canes.
Sempervirens,
Pagancat is quite right about your wonderful compositions. I am a gardener who has always planned my design for fall, since I think that if I do that I will probably have a visually interesting garden all year. But I must particularly compliment you on the last of your pictures. The textures, the colors, the shapes are wonderful. I have no evergreens, but that one in the background is spectacular and adds wonderful contrast.
I thought I had winter color until a flock of migratory birds stripped every single berry from my 14 northern bayberries, my two crabapples, and several viburnums. In the ten years I've had them, it never occurred before. It was good to know that they continued their way south well fed. I do have a lot of ornamental grasses, which are great for fall and winter.
And the rose is delightful!
Donna
That's a great way to think about it, DonnaMack - if you don't mind, I think I'll adopt that as a gardening rule. I'll call it Mack-gardening! Seriously, though - great idea.
Beautiful mix of color, Semp - love that rose. I hope my dogwood gets half as nice.
I saw those winterberry for the first time at the same place we picked up the red dogwoods - I was stunned, I had never seen them before (my desert S'west past is showing again).
Maybe the birds will leave some for me, lol. Wonder what I can put it in front of to show it off. With these beautiful red plants, I'm regretting the red brick house. Just doesn't show off my plants to the greatest advantage, and a woman has to have her priorities, right?
Ah, Sheryl, you have good taste. Red houses rock!
Donna
Well, yours certainly does! Your grasses are beautiful.
Whenever I see a little window like that, I always want to know where it is in the house, it always sparks my curiosity.
I'm afraid my house is a tich more boring, but this is before I made a mess of everything, lol....
My blueberry bushes had beautiful color . I don't know If they always do and I just noticed or this year was special .
I am always impressed with the hardy geraniums, not a plant one would think of as a fall color plant.
Were they red, or something else?
The edges bright red and the inner leaf started off dark purplish then lightened to a pail red/orange. Sure wish I had a photo. I will look tomorrow to see if there are any leaves left.
Please do!
I found a few leaves still holding on.
some color in the geraniums
I love the shape of the geraniums as well as the color.
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
Dear Semper,
I also have Digitalis 'Husker Red'. It is one of the few penstemons that persist in my area, probably because it is one of the few that does not require sharply drained soil. I'd love to continue a three season thread. For contrast to my grass picture above, here they are in July.
And then, in July through October, depending on the grass they bloom.
They're not to everyone's taste, but I love them
Donna
I'm with you, Donna - I think they're great.
There's a lot of different Ilex around here - there has to be one that's native. I will look into that, thanks for the suggestion.
Does the winterberry stay as a bush? I saw two small trees today that were covered with small red berries and no leaves - I've no idea what it could be; any type of cherry would have dropped it'sfruit by now, I would suppose. I bet that home will have a lot of birds this year!
DonnaMack,
Do you want to continue with the 3/4 season gardening in this thread or should I start a new one dedicated just to that?
Grasses are wonderful multi season plants and your groupings in the last two photos are full and varied. It must be wonderful to see them when there is a breeze and they wave in the wind. Motion and back lighting really brings out their beauty. They are truly 3 season plants in my opinion. The only down time is late winter-early spring when they are cut way back. Do you have a winter photo of them?
Pagancat,
The straight species of Ilex verticillata( winterberry) can get to 10-15 ft, so it will look look like a large shrub or small multi stemmed tree. Since I have a small garden I got small cultivars, "Red Sprite" for the 2 females (mature height 3' X4') and the male cultivar "Jim Dandy" 8ft. Just a wild guess on the 2 small "berrying" trees you saw I'd say they might be crab apples. Some of the cultivars have very small fruit and those are the ones the birds eat quickly. A local school had 2 on their property and the birds visited in flocks.
Oh, look what I found blooming now for the first time behind my gazebo.
Witch Hazel, Hamamelis virginiana.
The other witch hazel I have, Hamamelis vernalis, is a late winter bloomer and the blooms are very small and copper color that don't show well, but the fall color of leaves are clear yellow. They are still holding on now.
This message was edited Nov 23, 2008 8:36 AM
Ah - bingo - another tree I've been considering for a while now. Congrats on the new blooms.
So, I gotta ask - is this the best season for your garden, Semper? I should say, your favorite?
,
Iike the idea of a new thread, although I like what we're doing here. I leave it to you.
This weekend I was trying to get images I took of grasses in snow off our old computer. It's having issues, so my hubbie is going to look at it over the holidays. There are a lot of terrific images there.
One small tree I should mention for three seasons (indeed four) is the acer gresium, or paperbark maple. It's hardy to zone 4. We picked up one about five years ago at Milaegers in Racine, where they had a bunch of baby ones, It was so small we had no trouble plantung it ourselves. It is a very slow growing tree and maxes out at about 25 feet. But it has exfoliating bark from a very young age, a nice structure, pretty spring color and beautiful fall color. They said it would grow 4 inches a year but our growth rate has been double that. The amazing thing is that no one seemed to "get" how amazing it was. They were selling six foot trees for $35.00, couldn't move them, and cut the price in half. They are now selling the same size for over $200. When we asked a landscaper a few years ago how much one would cost he quite $825 (!!!!!!)
Here it is earlier this month.
Donna
If you like roses, there are a small handful that look great late in the year. I usually grow old garden and Canadian roses. But Iceberg was still blooming early this month, and looked charming. I had to stop deadheading it to harden it off, and it still looks great.
For a sense of proportion, here are the grasses near the acer griseum.
Lovely plants and designs DonnaMack.
I especially like the combination of the white rose backed by the pine with the grasses. That is a very elegant design with textures and flowers combined. The paperbark maple is also well placed and looks good with the grasses. Actually grasses are wonderful most seasons.
I would love to have the room to grow Pinus strobus, the big white pine with long needles, as a backdrop in my yard. And your photo of the pine with the rose and grasses has given me an idea. Although I prefer the straight species I just might be able to fit one of the dwarf or narrow cultivars. A lovely pine behind the fall blooming Witch Hazel would really set the blooms off. I wonder if I can get away with a line of 3 or 4 weeping (pendula) pinus strobus at the fence line. I see them more as an accent plant in gardens. Any opinions on this?
Pagancat, I think Fall and Spring are my favorite seasons in the garden. In the spring the native ephemerals like blood root, trilliums, trout lily,and rue anemone are eagerly awaited in the back shade garden. But I also really appreciate how plants change during the growing season. It always amazes me how the garden changes dramatically from season to season and I enjoy having the front garden start out as a mind mannered bulb garden that ends as a grass native plant garden.
Right now I still have winter pansies blooming. They are always good for 2 seasons, fall and spring. Lavender is almost a 4 season plant. Thyme and tricolor sage still look good even after a week of nighttime freezes.
The rosemary in pots didn't freeze yet and some of the strawberry leaves have colored up with red.
Semper,
I really like the wonderful juxtapositions in your picture. So much winter interest! I have rarely seen perennials used so beautifully in winter!
The idea of the pines with the witch hazel. The image is very inviting. It would be stunning, yet subtle. And, by the way, the pine and the grasses are not mine. I installed my garden, and then the people next door, when they installed a lot of plant material, asked their landscaper to bear my plants in mind. I did the same, and when they installed the white pine (there were once three, but lack of care reduced it to the one that endured, which you see in the photo), I realized that I could use it, and the grasses added later, as a backdrop. And I wanted the flowers to be all white. So I installed a Madame Hardy damask rose (which is once blooming) and put one Icebergs (continuous blooming) on each side. I later added white annuals (borage, double feverfew, salvia cocinea snow), and white lilies.
Here is what they looked like a year ago. The Iceberg in the photo above is the one on the right, a year and a half later. Notice the white pine. The tree to the left that you can only see partially is a Yoshino Cherry, and when my neighbor asked for a suggestion of a tree for her yard, I proposed a silver linden (tilia tomentosa).
I am very fortunate to have a neighbor with a much larger house and budget who takes my preferences into considerations. She actually asks for suggestions for plants and trees, while being careful not to duplicate mine. Gardener heaven!
Donna
Grr... I *had* a small paperbark Maple, until my big colt ate it. Ah well, maybe again!
I'm hoping to duplicate the same effect that you're showing with the backdrop pine with my redbuds. I've noticed it happening naturally often here -we have a lot of wild cedar that will pop up behind the redbuds and the purple blooms are stunning against them.
I think the Witch Hazel will have the same effect - that will be wonderful. I have to go look up Pinus strobus - I think they grow a lot here....
Thank you DonnaMack. The colors in the garden are starting to fade a little here as the weather is becoming harsher. I just realized, with the help of this thread, how much my profession as a colorist for a design firm has clearly influenced my gardening. I always felt the influence from the garden on my art but didn't see such a clear example the other way before.
The white roses are lovely. The iceberg rose really grew in one year. I like the idea of your white rose garden with white annuals as accents with the pine and grass backdrop. I am also drawn to choosing white flowers and plants that have variegated foliage with white touches in my shade garden.
You are very lucky to have neighbors who gardens with your garden, plants and experience in mind.
Sorry you lost your paperbark maple Pagancat. The redbuds will look perfect with the pines behind. It is wonderful to be able to reproduce natural combinations of plants in your own garden.
The Mediterranean White Heather at the base of the grasses on the side walk strip is evergreen and can bloom all winter starting in October. The other evergreen ground cover is moss phlox that blooms in the spring,
How interesting- what does a colorist do?
But it certainly does show in your choices and positioning of plants.... artful.
LOL - that's good - the white heather is evergreen.
Pagancat, as a colorist I picked the colors for designs and groups of fabrics. It is fun to see how colors affect patterns and work together. So I might have picked the colors for your sofa and coordinating drapes and pillows. After a pattern is designed I might do 6 different color combinations and the public gets to choose from the ones that are successfully sold to venders.
The Lonicera sempervirens is still blooming and will have the lovely red seeds until the birds finish them off.
No kidding. I guess I really didn't have an idea of how much work gos into those displays. Can you come over and help me, lol?
I think I've spent too much time going backwards - finding that something "doesn't go" after it's been planted and bloomed - instead of actively searching for things that will enhance another planting.
Probably the biggest problem is that I'm a plant freak - I see a plant, I want it, I get it and it really doesn't have a place anywhere with all the rest of the singular plants that I saw and liked.
Thanks for making me think about it. Got any more you'd like to inspire me with?
Ah, that's where you get your eye for not only color, but texture! Would you kindly share the names of your white flowers and plants that have variegated foliage? I have a shady section with which I am still struggling. I have alchemilla mollis, Athyrium niponicum ‘Pictum’ (Japanese painted fern), athyrium filix-femina, heuchera sanhuinia 'Firefly' but I could never establish virginia bluebells or myosotis. I thought I'd divide my ladies mantle and grow some more Firefly, but I think I'd really like to have plants as you describe them.
Pretty please?
A pic from April of 2007.
Donna
Pagancat, some of my best plant combinations are accidental and the others the result from moving plants around - a lot. One of my friends laughs at how I move plants around like furniture.
One of the main approaches I've seen in collectors gardens is to simply provide bare space around each plant ,well mulched, and have them beautifully labeled. You might consider featuring some of your plants this way as the accent is more on well grown, unique , individual plants.
DonnaMack, I would be happy to provide a list of shade plants, particularly with variegated leaves and white flowers. I just need a little time to compile it. There are also some interesting threads on the Shady Gardens forum you might enjoy.
Two plants off the top of my head that are very effective in the shade garden are Heuchera villosa "Autumn Bride" (autumn white bottle brush blooms) and variegated solomons seal together. I'm sure I posted this or a similar photo already in the Shade garden so forgive the repetition please.
Mmm - very nice. Didn't you also have the Anemone japonica 'The Bride', or was it someone else here? I've been looking for it since it was mentioned.
I like your suggestion, thanks!
I have some seeds for that polemium, hope they look as nice as yours.
Pagancat,
You're welcome. But it wasn't me suggesting the Anemone japonica because I've been trying to rid the garden of them for years and finally think I've succeeded. They were too aggressive .
DonnaMack, and all others interested here are some of my favorites for the partial sun to shade garden. 1.Heuchera "Green Spice" - leaves variegated with silvery white (good easy plant), tiarella -white flowers and repeat bloomer if deadheaded (easy),............2. Allegheny spurge(this is our own native pachysandra and a far superior gentle ground cover that doesn't overwhelm and look like plastic like the Asian variety) with white spring flowers and variegated leaves-green and silvery white(easy),...............3.rue anemone (anemonella thalictroides) delicate white blooms and beautiful short colombine like leaves that last the season,............4.hepatica acutiloba &americana- 2 kinds sharp and rounded leaf- both with white and sometimes pink flowers,............ 4.iris cristata-native shade iris small purple or white flowers with short strappy leaves that will spread moderately as a ground cover,..........5. bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) white daisy flowers with amazing leaves that start out reddish and grow taller when the flowers fall and if watered and kept cool and shaded look like small waterlily leaves and last all season,........6.Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) green and white and sometimes maroon hooded flowers and later clump of red seed pods. I grow the bloodroot with the Jacks and they both spread into large clumps. together. Then there is....7. patridgeberry (Mitchela repens) a low button leaved groundcover you can use allover to grow the spring ephemerals through to mark their spot and protect them when dormant and....8. bishop's cap (Mitella diphylla) very tiny sprays of white flowers .....9. phlox-creeping(stolonifera) and wood (divaricata)- for the latter particularly the cultivar "Montrose Tricolor".......10. Dicentras- (spectabilis ) non-native spring blooming only -the white is more elegant & native (canadensis), (cucullaria),(eximia) and (formosa), the latter 2 can bloom on and off all season and the finely cut leaves remain,...........11.Jacobs Ladder (Polemonium reptans) particularly the only variegated cultivar that has lasted for me "Stairway to Heaven",......12. Hellebore, all varieties but a particularly nice cultivar is Ivory Prince.......13. ginger (Asarums) beautiful leaves.
The photo shows partridgeberry(Mitchela repens) groundcover in left corner, Dutchman's breeches( dicentra cucullaria) and Allegheny spurge in early spring.
Semper,
What a wonderful list! We have very similar taste. I have several sanguinaria canadensis plants (got some wonderful ones from Munchkin Nursery that were not only huge when I got them but propogated nicely) and grew polemonium cearuleum and alba from seeds obtained from J.L Hudson. You have so many plants I've considered, like hepatica and arisaema (thank you for the cultivars) and I like the idea of white dicentra - I never cared for the pink.
One of my favorites is Epimedium × versicolor 'Sulphureum'. Just to the left of it are the starts of thalictrum delavayi 'Album'. It needs a bit of love but it has come back for three years.
Donna
Thanks DonnaMack. It is very pleasant to find people that have a similar sensibility in the garden.
The Epimedium "Sulphureum" you show is very attractive.
I only have a pink flowering variety received as a pass along plant.
The delicate yellow blooms of your epimedium might look good with Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum) which also blooms yellow and has strappy leaves and larger blooms. I'm not sure of the timing but it would be nice if they bloomed sequentially I have mine in the sunny edge of the shade garden under planted with purple phlox subulata and backed by red tulips.I believe mine is a hybrid not straight species because I don't have the lovely maroon mottled leaves or maybe I have it in too much sun. Sorry I couldn't find a photo of it in bloom.
But I do have a photo of the "Green Spice" heuchera with white blooming Siberian Iris and variegated leaved Iris.
