Tag Archive for: foliage plants

big foliage fashion

Foliage plant ideas

The original, larger-than-life Canna Tropicanna® is a spectacular and colourful foliage plant.

Fashion flip flops – we all know that – and gardens go through the same cycles. Go to a garden show and you’ll see that last year’s geometric pavers have been overshadowed by this year’s natural gravel and stepping stones. Planting schemes shift in the same way: wild and blowsy to tight and clipped; cool flowering blues and whites through to tropical hot pinks and oranges. Some trends are longer-lasting simply because they do a job well – like using small-leaved plants to make boundaries seem further away to therefore make a garden space seem bigger. But like any trend, there’s a moment when it’s pushed the other way. Look around and you’ll see large-leaved plants being flaunted, for some big foliage fashion. They’re all about celebrating nature, marvelling at the architecture of the leaf and in some cases, the riot of colour on show. So let’s meet some of these big leafed beauties for some great foliage plant ideas…

1. Canna Tropicanna® is the first plant anyone thinks of for foliage that’s big, bold and seriously fun. We all know the classic version with its clown-pants striped rainbow colouring on those pennant leaves – a gorgeous sight in the sunlight. And there are two other versions: one with more stripes but in lime greens and gold, and then a mysterious dark one where the stripes are just discernible as licks of purple on black. These are brilliant planted anywhere because they look wonderful.

big foliage fashion
This is Canna Tropicanna® Gold, also big and gorgeous (if a teeny more restrained than the original Canna Tropicanna®).
big foliage fashion

2. Monstera – the plant with a cool name is also super easy to grow. It’s a great solution to areas where there’s not much light and the space to grow is more vertical than along the ground. A narrow sideway can be transformed by a planting of these with subtle lighting at night to accentuate the wild foliage shapes.

photo credit: brewbooks

3. Agaves are funky and regal in the same package. They are fleshy but crisp, large plants in that great grey-green that makes your garden look professionally planted. Drop three into any existing bed and the look will instantly look designer. And when they flower, you’ll find out why they’re called swan-necked: they put up massive arching flower spikes for several months. Very “wow!”

4. Elephant Ears (Calladium) have a serious following because they are big, beautiful and, if you pick the right variety, colourful. They’re also an indoor option for gardeners where winters are real. Fill your glassed-in space with these and you’ll feel like you’re on holiday in Rio.

big foliage fashion
photo credit: Forest & Kim Starr

How to use foliage plants

glamorous foliage
This is Coprosma Pacific™ Sunrise – proof that glamour doesn’t demand flowers.

Are we so shallow to think a plant must have flowers? And that a foliage plant is just a work-horse in the garden? Hopefully not – because we’d be missing out. Bred in Europe, the Pacific™ Coprosmas are certainly as dependable and solid as a work horse. Plant them pretty much anywhere and they will deliver what you want: healthy, lush growth with no effort on your part. Flowers aren’t their thing however, so can these fantastic foliage plants also be a glamorous addition to the garden? Stop and read on below to see how to use foliage plants in the garden and you’ll quickly answer “yes”…

A great looking pot plant: when a gardener plants something in a container, it’s like they’ve turned on the spotlight. The pot usually sits somewhere noticeable – like beside the front door or out on the patio – so whatever’s in that pot needs to put on a good show. And it goes without saying that it shouldn’t die, but instead thrive and keep on looking good for as long as possible. Enter the Pacific Coprosmas. Plant either one of them and you’ll be very confident that they’ll put on a lustrous performance thanks to their tough constitutions and glossy, painterly foliage.

glamorous foliage
This Coprosma Pacific™ Sunset, just home from the garden centre is looking ready to be admired poolside, and it’s not even in its new patio pot yet.

Worth a place in the landscape design: take a look at the work of any good professional, and you’ll soon work out that they don’t tolerate time-waster plants. And by time wasters we mean plants that promise a lot but aren’t great on delivering without a lot of pampering, something a professional horticulturalist hasn’t the time to deliver. No surprises then that Pacific Coprosmas get used a lot. They have substance and a good ‘form’ (aka shape and bushiness), they deliver a colour punch where needed, and they demand pretty much zero maintenance. Copy the professionals and dot them through a mixed planting or use them to create a sweep or block of colour in a massed planting.

Dotted through or planted in sweeps, these professional plantings make good use of Pacific™ Coprosmas.
glamorous foliage

And if you need to plant a hedge: Pacific Coprosma offers up an interesting option, where the hedge can be planted to be a feature in itself. The glow of these coprosmas means that you can edge a path or create a wind break, and instead of it being a standard invisible green hedge, it becomes part of the forefront in the garden picture.

glamorous foliage
Hedges or even topiary, Pacific™ Coprosma offers up lots of options.
Strappy plants

3 reasons to use Strappy plants

3 reasons to use strappy plants
Just one strappy plant has restored some style to this unstructured garden planting: it needs to be lovely though and this is the Festival™ Burgundy (Red Fountain™) cordyline.

Here’s something you might not know about strappy plants – they’re a brilliant fix when you find yourself faced with a gardening disaster. Take these 3 reasons to use strappy plants. We’ve all been here: this is how strappy foliage can dig us out of the hole (pun intended)…

1. Inserting some style: at some point the most rigid landscape design loses its edge. Plants grow. Or they self seed from somewhere else. Or we find ourselves with new plants – gifts or brought home from the garden centre on a whim – and we tuck them in amongst the rest. Some gardeners are happy with this d-evolution but for too many of us, we wander out one day and it suddenly hits us that our landscape has shifted. It’s become blurry. It may be charming but it has lost its punchiness and style. The fix is simple. Find a strappy plant that you like the look of, something you know will perform without fuss like a Festival™ cordyline (known as Fountain™ cordyline in the southern hemisphere). Position a few where you think they’re needed (they’ll add texture and focus), then plant them into the garden. Problem solved.

3 reasons to use strappy plants
Picture this blue glazed pot with only the osteospermum daisies. A bit ho hum. But add in a Festival™ Cordyline – and it’s a very different vibe.

2. The tragic granny-look mixed planter: if you are a container gardener – a keen collector of pots filled with lovely plants – it’s tricky maintaining a stylish or even funky vibe. There are a few tricks you can use, like growing whatever you like but in matching containers… all classic terracotta, or glazed blue, or modernist concrete. (The flipside version of this looks awesome too, but it is a bit boring for hands-on gardeners: an eclectic collection of pots but with the same plant growing in all of them.) The most common problem is the big container filled with a mix of plants which is starting to look like you’re minding it for your Great Aunt Bernice while she’s in hospital. The fix is easy. Pop in a strappy foliaged plant and your mixed container’s edginess will be restored. Problem solved.

3. The ugly view: surely every gardener faces this problem at some point? We are charged with blocking the view of the neighbor’s ugly garage, or too-public hot-pool. And to make things more difficult, we often don’t have much room to work with – literally. So the next time you’re faced with a very narrow planting footprint and you need something to leap out of the ground and provide cover fast, embrace something like the strappy tower Burgundy Spire™ Cordyline. Not only will your functional problem be solved, but you’ll have done it with a flourish of design flair.

3 reasons to use strappy plants
Cordyline Burgundy Spire™ is a great strappy solution for when an ugly view needs to be covered by something lovely and stylish.

Stop! Appreciate the foliage

Look past all those flowers for a moment and take notice of and appreciate the green foliage and nicely shaped bush. These are the flower-free reasons Flower Carpet® roses are so garden worthy.

Strange as this sounds, one of the reasons why Flower Carpet® roses have become every-gardener’s-best-friend comes down to the leaves, so sometimes we need to just stop and appreciate the foliage. That’s right – not the flowers but the foliage. Let’s be clear: no-one is saying that the flowers aren’t the main reason that the Flower Carpet rose has such a big fan club, and that’s because the flowers are the main reason. But it’s the green part of the plant that’s priceless in a behind-the-scenes way…

1. Looking healthy: Flower Carpet® roses look like they’re bursting with good health. Whether you’re standing in front of one in early spring admiring all those buds, or mid summer being wowed by the show of open blooms, or even during the colder times of the year when it’s easier to focus on the foliage, the result is the same. Pretty much year ‘round, these roses have robust, shiny green leaves that look like they’re hardly ever bothered by bugs or disease. Which is a fact, because part of the reason why Flower Carpet roses have been given awards by the rose boffins, is because their foliage is so healthy. Awards aside, it also means we home gardeners don’t need to worry about fighting off the aphids and black spot that attack our other roses. Plant a Flower Carpet rose and the battle is over before it began – we’re free to stand back with nothing to do.

2. Hanging in there: The other major bonus factor to do with Flower Carpet® rose foliage is the way it hangs around in most gardens all year around. If you’ve grown other roses you’ll realise that this is a massive tick in its favour. As gorgeous as any old style rose bloom is, there’s no getting around the fact that for a few months each year in winter, most rose plants look like wet cats. They are all bony and have no ‘fur’ aka foliage. In short, they are ugly. Not so the Flower Carpet rose. In winter, it sits in the garden as a very respectable green bush, as pretty as any evergreen shrub. Of course their wow moment comes in the warmer months when it’s flower time, but they never look as terrible as a gangly granny rose. We should say however that there are two situations where Flower Carpet roses aren’t catwalk ready: 1. the day after you’ve given your Flower Carpet rose a casual all over trim with the hedge clippers, and 2. if you live somewhere where winters encourage the menfolk to grow beards, as growing in these regions even Flower Carpet roses will decide to shed their leaves in winter.

Appreciate the foliage
The great thing about Flower Carpet® roses is that they look this good even when they are not in bloom.
Appreciate the foliage
When checking out any plant, make sure you stop to appreciate the foliage behind the flowers because it’s smart to get a plant that’s the complete package.