Each month after Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, Pam at Digging hosts Foliage Follow up to help us remember the importance of foliage in our gardens.
Here's some of the foliage that caught my eye in my garden today.
Musa basjoo. I've never protected these in any way but now that the trees around them have grown and made this spot a little shadier than it used to be, it takes the banana a lot longer to attain height in a season when it's killed to the ground. Jennifer says that the Old Farmers' Almanac is predicting a colder than normal winter this year. Sure hope that they're wrong. Maybe this year the banana should get a little protection.
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Acacia dealbata is also still in a pot but they aren't always easy to find round these parts. Probably will need to be pulled in during the coldest months, too.
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Phytolacca americana 'silberstein' Can't wait until those seed heads turn deep burgundy and the stems turn magenta. Hope to get lots of seed from this and see if I can grow more!
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Here's some of the foliage that caught my eye in my garden today.
Musa basjoo. I've never protected these in any way but now that the trees around them have grown and made this spot a little shadier than it used to be, it takes the banana a lot longer to attain height in a season when it's killed to the ground. Jennifer says that the Old Farmers' Almanac is predicting a colder than normal winter this year. Sure hope that they're wrong. Maybe this year the banana should get a little protection.
This foliage makes a former Alaska gardener feel like he's deep in the tropics.
Gosh, it's swell to garden here!
Manihot grahamii or hardy tapioca is supposed to be hardy to zone 7 but winter has killed it a couple of times for me. I'm thinking that this little one, still in it's pot will need to come in for its first winter. Have you had success with winter survival of this plant in a soggy zone 8 climate? The way the wind plays with this foliage is pretty sweet!
Acacia dealbata is also still in a pot but they aren't always easy to find round these parts. Probably will need to be pulled in during the coldest months, too.
A stalwart and year round presence in my garden are the small conifers. (Oh to have space for a backdrop of towering cedars and doug firs!) Lots of them live in pots and get shifted into large planters outside when the brugmansias and tender bananas come inside for the winter. Here are Chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'Van Pelt's Blue' (my favorite of the blues and surprisingly hard to find.) and 4ever gold arborvitae. The latter would be much more gold in color if it got more sun.
I hope you join in the celebration of foliage and post images of your favorite foliage!