Brian Minter: Add value to your garden with foliage plants

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In today’s landscapes, we often miss the brilliance of stunning foliage colour. Most foliage plants need heat to perform their best, and as we begin to warm up, it’s time to explore the possibilities that foliage can bring to our outside décor.

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Foliage plants create huge added value when used in combination with flowering plants to accent their natural beauty. They’re far more versatile than their flowering companions, require less maintenance, and are more tolerant of sun and shade situations. Once established, they’re more drought tolerant, showing less damage in stressful conditions. I love the fact that they can play so many roles in baskets, containers and even garden beds. From focal points and thrillers to simple accents and spillovers, foliage does it all.

Silver has become one of the most popular accent colours, and a new superstar is taking the plant world by storm. Senecio Angel Wings is one of the most vibrant silver plants in today’s designers’ playbooks. It’s a hardy annual that, once established, tolerates intense heat and drought, both in containers or garden beds. Growing about 10 to 16 inches in height and width, it looks like a shiny, smooth-leafed dusty miller, and its intense, vibrant, silver foliage really pops. I like to use it with simple, strong colours rather than in mixed combinations. It also plays nicely with darker foliage plants, like black sweet potato vines, purple fountain grass, the almost-black Australia canna lily and black colocasias, like Heart of the Jungle. Even from some distance, it commands attention.

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Another silver foliage plant of note is the threadlike calocephalus, often called silver bush. At home in both containers and ground plantings, it creates a gentle spillover effect in baskets. Its attractive spiky foliage accents its companions beautifully. I first discovered calocephalus 20 years ago in a public park in northern Scotland, where it had been planted with magenta geraniums. I had never seen such a brilliant combination.

By far, the most popular silver vine is Silver Falls dichondra. Growing quickly, it will often drop three to four feet from a hanging basket. It’s a stunning addition to any sun or shade basket, especially when swaying in a gentle breeze.

We don’t see it often but the tender, elegant, lacy foliage of Parfum d’Ethiopia artemisia adds class to any planter. It also has a subtle perfume that releases when the foliage is gently rubbed or touched.

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Proven Winners has branded a few jewels that have really enhanced the line of silver accents. Their trailing dusty millers, Silver Cascade and Silver Bullet, are actually perennials that are hardy to -26 C. They look great gracing the sides of containers and baskets, and as an underplanting for both annuals and perennials.

When the sun comes out to stay and temperatures rise, we all need plants that love the heat. This is when sweet potato vines perform like troopers. Traditional early Ipomoea batatas Margarita is still one of the most popular because of its vigour — its hot lime vines often grow four to six feet. Today, however, there is a tremendous selection of these colourful vines and a variety of leaf forms, including heart-shaped leaves and cut leaf varieties. They all have fairly good vigour, and the diversity of their leaf colours — hot lime, red-purple, bronze, black and soft tan — make them ideal for so many unique combinations.

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The length of their growth now ranges from very compact to extremely vigorous. Proven Winners has introduced the Illusion series, with short vines in the range of 10 to 12 inches, and the Caroline series with vines growing 16 to 18 inches. These shorter varieties are ideal for smaller containers and tiny ground bed plantings.

For a bit of height and depth, especially in containers, Pennisetum setaceum Rubrum (purple fountain grass) is the real drama queen. One of the most beautiful grasses, it has rich burgundy foliage and bunny tail plumes that dance in the wind all summer. It’s a very tender perennial grass (Zone 8), so consider it an annual to enjoy until frost.

Alocasias and colocasias, with their large elephant ear leaves, certainly make a statement on any hot summer patio. Proven Winners Heart of the Jungle is a moderate-sized colocasia that has large, rich, dark green-black leaves and grows about 36 inches tall. Colocasia esculenta Coffee Cups is a little shorter and has smaller, unique cup-shaped, dark green leaves with a touch of black. Both make fabulous thrillers in containers and ground beds, and play nicely with whites and silvers.

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Hot purples are dramatic foliage colours, and they look especially striking when combined with pinks and silvers. Strobilanthes dyerianus or Persian Shield is a heat-loving, outdoor tropical that grows about 18 to 24 inches. It creates quite a stir when planted in containers and ground beds. Each leaf is the shape of a long shield with intricate purple markings. Setcreasea Purple Heart, with its long, pointed, almost succulent-like, intensely purple leaves, loves the hot sun. Both these plants turn heads, and I like to pair them with echeverias, especially the silver, blue and pink varieties.

Some of the most overlooked foliage plants are the colourful, soft-leafed varieties of plectranthus. Both the upright and trailing forms are fast becoming favourites to use, either by themselves or in combinations, for morning sun/afternoon shade locations. One of my favourites is P. Nicolleta because of its beautiful silver leaves and nice trailing habit. Both Nico and Velvet Elvis have velvety foliage with a rich, purple underside. Velvet Elvis also has masses of blue flowers. Plectranthus Variegata is a variegated white and green, and there is also a golden variety I found in New York many years ago.

Another underused foliage plant that is well worth noting is the large family of Iresine hybrids. From hot red, yellow or multicoloured leaves, all of them deserve a spot in our containers or garden beds.

I haven’t mentioned coleus because they have become so popular and are so spectacular, folks are using them everywhere.

All these foliage wonders will make your garden creations pop. They all love the heat and now is the time to slip them into your containers for some spectacular displays.