Tag Archive for: colourful plants

colourful foliage

Best plants with colourful foliage

plants with colourful foliage
Throw tradition out the window and plant a Festival™ Raspberry Cordyline (also known as Cordyline Raspberry Fountain in the southern hemisphere) instead of the usual clump of green. It’s a great plant with bright, colourful foliage!

Let’s talk about colour bias in the garden. Go for a walk, take a good look around and what soon becomes obvious is that most of us like our flowers to be colourful and our foliage to be green. Which begs the question: are we missing out? What follows is a short hit list of the best plants with colourful foliage. Honestly, they are gorgeous and we’d be small minded idiots not to think about introducing them to our gardens…

1. Festival™ cordylines (known as Fountain™ cordylines in the southern hemisphere): these clump-forming cordylines are remarkable on several fronts. Apart from never forming a trunk and being easy to grow, they’re available in three gorgeous colours (which includes a vibrant lime green). The raspberry version (above) is the most radical choice and is absolutely gorgeous, and the burgundy option (below) is equally lovely in a more sophisticated way.

plants with colourful foliage
Festival™ Burgundy Cordyline (or Cordyline Red Fountain™) in flower.

2. Tuxedo® Hydrangeas:  the thing that stands out about these great hydrangeas is not just their impressive flowering heads but the colour of their leaves. Instead of the usual green, Tuxedo® hydrangea is named for the deep purple to black flush of the foliage. Lovely even when not in bloom, these hydrangeas are equally well loved for their boldly coloured mop head or lace cap flowers. How much fun is it to have a hydrangea foliage colour option apart from green?

This shot of a Tuxedo® hydrangea in bud shows how different the foliage colour is when compared to the usual green of standard hydrangeas glimpsed in the background. It’s also known for its sturdy tight form.

3. Pacific™ Coprosmas. Here’s a brilliant moment to shake up the usual green vibe in the garden. Box hedging is brilliant but commonplace. Imagine planting a hedge that was just as dense, clipped and well behaved, but instead of green, it was alive with glowing hot pink or vivid red foliage highlights? If you’re keen, look out for the Pacific™ Coprosmas – Sunrise and Sunset – and plant yourself something very special and super low maintenance.

plants with colourful foliage
This is Coprosma Pacific™ Sunrise.

4. Cordyline Burgundy Spire™. One way to introduce some foliage colour and textural impact to the garden is to whip out the non-descript green shrubs at the back of the garden bed and replace them with a stand of the oh-so-glorious Burgundy Spire™ cordylines. They’ll reach ten to twelve feet high and carry chocolate burgundy blade-like strappy leaves from tip to toe.

A close-up of the Burgundy Spire™ foliage which looks good enough to eat.

5. Tropicanna® cannas. Perhaps the ultimate foliage colour plant there is, Tropicanna® canna is a marvel. The original is carnival striped in pinks, orange, gold, red and green. Its sister Tropicanna Gold canna is striped in green and gold, and their cousin Tropicanna Black canna is purple black with subtle stripes hinting at red. For those keen to embrace colourfully leafed plants, canna Tropicanna is absolutely the plant to bring your garden to life.

plants with colourful foliage
This is the first, classic Tropicanna® canna in all its glory.
Real garden

How to create the perfect garden

how to create the perfect garden
A basic green planting is easily transformed into a real garden by adding in lovely flowers like crocosmia Lucifer and the gloriously scented white-eyed pink Volcano® Phlox.

Do you ever dream of having a garden, like our grandparents, that’s filled with flowers and perfume? The surprise is that creating the perfect garden that looks and smells like the real thing is as easy as one, two, three…

1. Start small: don’t tackle the whole forty acres but pick the areas where you’re going to notice the most change. The garden nearest the front and back doors. The patio, courtyard or balcony. It doesn’t matter how big or small the space you’re working with: it just needs to be somewhere you spend time. Take real or mental pics of the space you’re working with and if you’re handy with a pencil and the back of an envelope, do a quick sketch plan of what’s already there. This helps you prepare for what comes next.

Always pick plants that have been bred to be un-fussy like Volcano® Phlox. This one is pink with red eye, and there are eight other colour options to choose from.

2. Something has to go: you usually need to pull old plants out to make room for the new. Move your evictees to another spot or give them away if you hate waste, but the idea is to give your gorgeous new plants enough soil space and head room to thrive without having to fight for fresh air and moisture. Now mark the gaps on your sketch (or take fresh pics) then head down to the garden centre.

Volcano® phlox in white and pink with red roses and orange daylilies added to the mix make for a real, scented, colour-filled garden complete with a path to take you to your secret places.

3. The fun bit: at the garden centre, take a look around. From your pics and sketch you’ll know how many plants you’re there to buy. As for what to get, here’s a great list to start with. You want easy care, scented, colourful and bullet-proof. Roses. Phlox. Lavender. Heliotrope. Daphne. Honeysuckle. You get the idea. But do a quick check online to make sure that the plant in your hand is one of the well-bred varieties (you don’t want a fussy old variety that won’t deliver). For example, look for Volcano® Phlox which is sturdy, long flowering and super tolerant of powdery mildew that plagues other phlox.

And that’s it. Collect and tuck your real garden plants into nooks and crannies and your garden will give you as much pleasure as a child’s visit to their grandparents’ place.

A guide to grow alstroemerias

a guide to grow alstroemerias
This particular alstroemeria has fabulously vivid flower colour and as a bonus the leaves are a variegated vision. It’s called Alstroemeria Rock & Roll.

We all like alstroemerias (aka Peruvian lilies). Alstroemerias are a florist’s favourite because they are lovely and last forever in a vase. They’re also low maintenance and look good in the garden. So here’s a guide to grow alstroemerias…

1.They’re idiot proof: anyone can grow them. Alstroemerias like soil that’s not boggy and not bone dry. They’ll thrive in full sun through to part shade, and if you throw a little fertiliser at them in spring they will give you more growth and flowers. Pick your spot, plant them, water them and enjoy the show when the flowers start in spring and keep on coming through to late autumn.

There are many different flower colours available thanks to the work of alstroemeria plant breeders.

2. The plant breeders have been busy: which is great because there are now many different height options and flower colours to pick from. That said, the current standout is the award winning Alstroemeria Rock & Roll®. It’s a nice shaped plant – compact, bushy and clump forming. The foliage is two toned, opening yellow and green then turning white as the leaves mature. The flowers are dark red and together with the foliage, make fantastic cut flower arrangements.

a guide to grow alstroemerias
Up close, a look at the two-toned foliage of Alstroemeria Rock & Roll®.

3. Deciding where to grow them: this is the fun bit. If you live above street level and have a balcony garden, plant them in a large container where you can enjoy them for months on end. Even if you have a large garden, containers set beside the front door will be show stoppers when you add Alstroemeria Rock & Roll to a mixed planting. Or if you’re after a long-term show of across the warmer months, planting them in a mass is a masterstroke move. Not only will your landscaping look phenomenal but you’ll be able to share the love with gifts of bouquets of flowers.

a guide to grow alstroemerias
Here is Alstroemeria Rock & Roll® growing in an Australian trial garden: this photograph was taken in June (which is winter in the southern hemisphere) so it’s remarkable that the plants were in full foliage and with a respectable number of flowers too.

New Garden Trends

new garden trends
For the latest garden trends, pick the plants you love and thrown them all into the mix together. Throw out the rulebook because it works!

Walking around the latest garden trade shows in Europe, it doesn’t take long to spot that something BIG is going on in the way of new garden trends. The format isn’t new, but how it’s being interpreted is completely pushing the boundaries…

We’re still seeing hedging plants – because they are still the best way to create screened garden spaces. Edging plants are also still part of the picture as well – plants that sit at the front of garden beds. And there’s also the bit in between which is filled with other plants. So far – so ordinary. But here’s where the rule book has been shut, and fearless experimentation has taken over.

To start with, the hedges are no longer demure green, subtle backdrops for the garden. No way. Think instead of plants which function as a screen but also have a lot more going on in the way of foliage colour or flowers. Red leafed Photinia. Flower spangled Fairy Magnolias®. Funky foliaged spinning gums and the strikingly bold foliage of Fatsia or Castor Oil plant. In other words, a background hedge that is bold and attention grabbing.

garden trends
A hedge of beautiful Fairy Magnolia® Cream magnolias.

Then the same sort of deal is happening at the front where the edging plants grow. Rainbow bright Pacific™ Coprosmas. Gorgeous new Hebe Surf™ series. Flower Carpet® roses. Again the new garden trend is for remarkable plants. So we’ve now got a lot going on in both the background and the foreground. But wait, there’s more to come.

new garden trends
Flower Carpet® Scarlet roses edging the garden.

The garden bed in between gets the same treatment, but here there’s complete freedom to pick whatever. Grasses planted with Heuchera. Brightly coloured annuals. Variegated ivy, ferns and barrel cactus. It’s almost as if someone’s decided they like this plant, and this, and also this and then popped them all in together without waiting to be told that’s not how it’s done. The results are bold, surprisingly good and inspiring…

new garden trends
Coprosmas like Pacific™ Sunset are smack on the new garden trends because they are such showy performers.
Strappy against the big and bold. The trick is not to overthink things and be confident even when combinations are unusual.