How to have colour in the garden without flowers
Last week we touched on one or two design issues relating to flower colour.
This week I'm going to give you a few tips on adding colour to the garden without resorting to herbaceous perennials. This is important to us as dry climate gardeners, because with few exceptions, herbaceous plants demand a lot of water.
Firstly, we can use flowering shrubs which are both relatively thrifty in their water needs, and flower profusely. As a rule of thumb, shrubs can be grown using a third less water annually than flowers. So here are some bushes which have prominent flowers, and are suitable for a dry climate, albeit requiring some irrigation through the summer months. Alyogyne huegelii, Brunvelsia pauciflora, Grevillea sp, Jasminum,.(some) Melaleuca (some) Plumbago auriculata, Rhaphiolepis indica, Rosmarinus officianalis, and Viburnum tinus.
Secondly, we can make use of plants that have colorful foliage. For grey foliage, Leucophyllum frutescens is excellent, as well as many varieties of Juniper such as "Grey Owl". If you want to add some gold into the composition, try Melaleuca "Revolution Gold". I also recommend a stunningly beautiful shrub called Durante erecta "aurea", although this requires more water than the others mentioned.
There are of course quite a number of plants, both woody and herbaceous, whose foliage is reddish purple. These often have the term "Atropurpurea" after the species name. For shrubs, Berberis and Vitex are grown successfully in the Mediterranean countries, as is the rather over-used Prunus pisardii. A superb shrub/tree is Euphorbia cotinifolia, although beware of its poisonous sap.
There are also many ornamental grasses or grass-like plants, which have colourful foliage – Bluish-greys as in Festuca glauca, reds, bronze and golds as in some varieties of Carex.
A word of caution. Beware of over planting colourful or variegated foliage plants. Green should always dominate. Use the exceptional plants as the term exceptional implies – sparingly!
I look forward to sending you next weeks' newsletter. Till then enjoy your garden
Jonathan Ya'akobiJonathan@dryclimate gardening.com
This week I'm going to give you a few tips on adding colour to the garden without resorting to herbaceous perennials. This is important to us as dry climate gardeners, because with few exceptions, herbaceous plants demand a lot of water.
Firstly, we can use flowering shrubs which are both relatively thrifty in their water needs, and flower profusely. As a rule of thumb, shrubs can be grown using a third less water annually than flowers. So here are some bushes which have prominent flowers, and are suitable for a dry climate, albeit requiring some irrigation through the summer months. Alyogyne huegelii, Brunvelsia pauciflora, Grevillea sp, Jasminum,.(some) Melaleuca (some) Plumbago auriculata, Rhaphiolepis indica, Rosmarinus officianalis, and Viburnum tinus.
Secondly, we can make use of plants that have colorful foliage. For grey foliage, Leucophyllum frutescens is excellent, as well as many varieties of Juniper such as "Grey Owl". If you want to add some gold into the composition, try Melaleuca "Revolution Gold". I also recommend a stunningly beautiful shrub called Durante erecta "aurea", although this requires more water than the others mentioned.
There are of course quite a number of plants, both woody and herbaceous, whose foliage is reddish purple. These often have the term "Atropurpurea" after the species name. For shrubs, Berberis and Vitex are grown successfully in the Mediterranean countries, as is the rather over-used Prunus pisardii. A superb shrub/tree is Euphorbia cotinifolia, although beware of its poisonous sap.
There are also many ornamental grasses or grass-like plants, which have colourful foliage – Bluish-greys as in Festuca glauca, reds, bronze and golds as in some varieties of Carex.
A word of caution. Beware of over planting colourful or variegated foliage plants. Green should always dominate. Use the exceptional plants as the term exceptional implies – sparingly!
I look forward to sending you next weeks' newsletter. Till then enjoy your garden
Jonathan Ya'akobiJonathan@dryclimate gardening.com
posted by Jonathan at 10:14 AM
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