I feel like a baby again ..... I always look for the flowers in a garden first, naturally. At least it seems natural to me. But for whatever reason, I've now got my sights set on a foliage only container. I've ordered Heuchera, and I forget what else, but other heights and textures. And I think part of the wow must have to do with abundantly healthy plants. I mean a zinnia looks okay even if it's just got a couple flowers left, but I don't think hosta with just a couple leaves left would come across too well. Is it just contrasting shapes and colors and textures while echoing other shapes and colors and textures? But the only color is green?! Or do we mean dark forest green and lime green and yellowish green and green with red streaks and ad infinitum? I think I mostly understand it theoretically, but I would adore seeing some pictures of what folks have done.
xxxx, Carrie
foliage arrangements .... how do you make them interesting?
It's not a container, but check out this pic that Joan posted in the photos forum! http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/555779/
I did a container this summer out front that was mostly about foliage, but not all that green -- different trailing coleus and 'Purple Majesty' millet.... yes, there's a 20 inch container somewhere under there! The color on the millet was more striking earlier in the summer -- here, the leaves are faded, greened-out, and quite grasshoper-chewed!
See, there I made my first mistakealready . I was thinking it would be all green, and with your coleuses and your purple majesty millet you had hardly any oh... leaf green in that container. [ You're sure there's a container in there somewhere?]
xxxx, Carrie
There are so many different shades of green and variegated green that I think you'd probably have lots of choices, Carrie. Coleus are great because of their many colors and patterns.
I love the height and texture of the millet, critter. Will have to try that some time.
Here's one of my "mostly foliage" container. The sweet potato vine has been trimmed twice but it is still overwhelming everything else. That's another thing that needs to be taken into consideration--the growth rate and habit of the plants.
Quyen, is that a begonia peeping out the left corner on the before picture? And when we speak of a 'sweet potato vine', do we mean the kind where you root a cutting from an actual sweet potato like we all used to do as kids? I like it, anyway. As I think I said before, it's stunning because everyone looks so healthy, glossy, happy and well!
xxxx, Carrie
ed. for spelling!!!!!
This message was edited Nov 18, 2005 3:14 PM
Yes, it's a begonia. I wanted an orange, lime green, purple combination but had a hard time finding the coleus witht the deep purple that I had in mind. Finally I just had to stick what I had into the pot because they were outgrowing their little 3 " pots. I'm still looking for that purple coleus, though. It's called Black Magic.
The sweet potato is an ornamental one, I think. The name is "Terra Lime". The leaf shape is ordinary but I love the color.
carrielamont, I've posted these pictures of the two 'foliage only' containers I did earlier this summer, but will post them again to give you some ideas. I entered them in Fine Gardening's 'Foliage Only' container gardening contest and the first one with Hosta 'Stained Glass' was chosen for one of the ten that will be featured in their magazine next spring :) Just shows what a beautiful Hosta can do for a container.
And this one featuring Brunnera 'Jack Frost' in the middle
I had so much fun with these two that I planted one this fall - intended to be a birthday present for my mother-in-law, but I liked it so much, I kept it for myself :)
rcn48,
Congrats on your inclusion FG! Those are all beautiful. But you're right about the 'Stained Glass' effect on the whole arrangement. You did a really good job with varying textures as well as colors in that pot.
Thanks mickgene - I had so much fun with them - they are now wintering over on our deck and hopefully will look as good next year. Unfortunately both the Sambucus 'Sutherland Gold' and Cimicifuga 'Pink Spike' in the Hosta combo fritzed out in the summer heat, but in the spring the gold foliage was a gorgeous 'color echo' to the Hosta and the Cimicifuga's burgundy foliage really picked up the color of the Heuchera 'Silver Scrolls' .
Wait wait wait. I was getting ready to say, what are all those plants in there and then Mickgene starts rattling off all these names!
OK. I know Heuchera, and recognise the red spike is some relation of my indoor dracaena, but I never heard of hosta in a container! Then some of those tall things look an awful lot like bushier, tidier cousins of some native wildflower that 'volunteers' next to the patio [I'm trying to re-educate myself regarding that harsh Weed word]. I'm still trying to absorb the beauty and complexity of that first one. Rcn, I remember when you posted that, I do! Because I was struck by how beautiful they were with NO flowers! That first one was consciously, whether sub- or un-, in my mind all these months, for when I saw it, I felt a blast of recognition! So congratulations, rcn, because you touched something, not only in the judges who were looking for foliage only, but in me, who was looking for pretty flowers.
Now, down to business. How many different kinds of plant are in that first container? The Heuchera is familiar, as I said, but what is the tall well behaved background, and what are the very pale cascading things flanking the Hosta that really want to go up but have to go down?
How much does it matter which variety of what you put in? I mean obviously, once it's done, it mattered 100%, but I guess my question is really, how much do you plan out what it's going to look like before it's finished? It'snot like painting, where you can change the intensity of the color after you've begun. Do you have rows and rows of plants, and pick exactly which one to use?
How important is symmetry? I would have thought balance, but never would have guessed symmetry, but you've got one of these on each side, one of those on each side - were you planning that all along? Did you have to prune them to 'feature' what they were supposed to feature?
Well, that's all the questions we have time for now. There are a million more yet under my hair!
Thanks.
xxxxxxxx, Carrie
I just wanted to add something I remember seeing posted at DG earlier this year.... I think it came from a dahlia person, about composing container plantings...
You need a "thriller" (like that 'Stained Glass' hosta), a "spiller," and a "filler!" I've been keeping that in mind as I pot things up now.
Cute, critter, and easy to remember. [I have to whisper this part, but I always thought Hostas were kind of dull.]
xxxx, Carrie
This message was edited Nov 18, 2005 3:12 PM
So far, I count AT LEAST six different verieties of plant in that top picture. In the second picture, I stopped counting at six but there might be more. I only see five in the third, but I refuse to wear bifocals and there may be more.
So one goes to a nursery or greenhouse, gets a bunch of interesting plants, plays around with them until they look right, and then goes for it? I've done that with cactus/succulent mixes, but there, you figure the individual plants are more or less static, and have not too much interaction with each other. In rcn's AND in Quyen's, there's obviously interaction between the plants. As Quyen points out, you have to keep the size of the growing plant in mind. Which is rarely a factor in cactus dishes!
My mother has a few friends who are in and out of the hospital, and keep giving her those foliage combo dishes that are designed to last a week without water or light, LOL. These friends give them to her, and she gives them to me when one or two of the plants are dead or dying. My job is usually to kill off the remaining varieties, by putting them in the sun! Also they ALWAYS come in a container without holes! Bah! That was my previous experience with mixed foliage plantings.
Do you ever do these from seed? I know on the back of Burpee seed packs, they often have a cartoon of what they think the enclosed seed would look good with in a container - but they are always other flowers, of course. And I don't think they mean you to sow them directly into the final container!
xxxxx, Carrie
Carrie, shoot I just spent almost a half hour typing in the names of all the plants with hyperlinks to PlantFiles and I clicked back by mistake and lost the whole thing!!! Instead of trying to repost all of it, here's the link to the thread where I first posted the containers http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/541501/. Yes, they are very symmetrical and another time I'm going to try something different with my "thrillers, spillers and fillers" in a more interesting pattern.
The third container was planted with foliage from Lowes, almost all are Exotic Angel selections http://exoticangel.com/Varieties/VarietiesCare.htm. One of their ferns at the top, Calathea 'Rosey Roseo Picta' on the right, one of the ivies planted around the edges, a white veined Fittonia in the middle (which has already 'fritzed' out - I can never keep these guys alive), a Rex Begonia on the left -not sure which one but you can never trust the Exotic Angel selections to be true to name, and the dark red spiky thing in the middle I can't remember.
Hope this helps! We're off to Florida this morning for a week and hoping I'll find plenty of new 'babies' to bring home :)
carrielamont, You'll notice some of those plants in rcn48's pots are actually shrubs or ultimately large perennials that won't make the container a viable one to keep for years, unless you're into root pruning. Therefore, my appoach to using such plant is putting them into containers for their first year in my garden. So plan early and get the pots done as early in the season as you can to get the longest period of enjoyment out of it. But then - and this is the best part - in September during prime fall planting season, put them in the ground to enjoy them for the rest of their lives and then start over with the container next year! I've done this for the last couple of years as a way to avoid "wasting" so much money on annuals. It also gives you a way to enjoy some of theses plants when they're smaller and, therefore, less expensive but hard to see in the spot you'd want to plant them in your landscape. This year, I used a lot of daylilies, hostas, heucherae, and miniature roses (which have miniature flowers but not necessarily miniature mature sizes for the plant) in my pots. And with the "1st year sleep, 2nd year creep, 3rd year leap" rule, you may actually be able to keep some of the slower growers in the pots for 2 years.
Mickgene, what a superb idea! Here I was thinking they were ALL annuals or, shoot, are they half-hardy perennials or tander perennials or what! Anyway, DAYLILIES? In a container? I also see that this is a little like planting a perennial groundcover (spiller :) ) over the roots of my houseplants instead of gravel or something. I love miniature roses - they're so ummmm flexible. Once I learned that the ones they have in the grocery stores in February aren't the only kind, I've slowly been going nuts for them! I have a polyantha fairy pink in a big planter on the patio! [alone] [It's a spiller and a thriller all by itself - who needs filler!]
RCN - have a wonderful trip and have fun baby scouting. Gee, some people have to go to foreign countries to find babies they can take home....LOL
xxxxx, Carrie