Some of the foliage in the garden at the moment is nearly as bright and colourful as the flowers. The Coleus Henna is looking wonderful after a bit of a rocky start when the weather was so hot. I have a pot full of 6 of these plants and they really look wonderful en masse with nothing else to distract.
I like this monthly meme as it makes me look past the flowers and appreciate the foliage more. I hadn’t realised that I had hostas which had so far escaped the dreaded slug/snail attack which is quite an achievement this far into the year. I don’t know what hosta this is as I have had it for years and the plant, or its parents, has moved house with me at least three times. It is interesting as the variegated stripes are stronger on some leaves than others.
Like the Coleus I am rather pleased and surprised by the Castor Oil Plants. This is the first year that I have grown them successfully from seed and like many of the annuals they seemed to sit for a while doing nothing but in the last couple of weeks with more rain they have shot up and the glossy foliage is a wonderful contrast to the dahlias around them.
I am beginning to realize that I have quite a few purple hued foliage plants in the garden. Like the flowers this seems to be a garden I am drawn to. Above is Actea simplex, another plant I have had for years. When I bought it its name was Circumfuga but it has been renamed and now there are lots of named varieties so I really don’t know what this plant should be called.
Finally, one of my Japanese Painted Ferns, Athyrium niponicum, I love these ferns and they are surprisingly increasing in my garden as I keep buying more, each one slightly different to the other – well that’s what the nurserymen say but I’m not so sure!!
For more foliage follow-up posts visit Pam’s blog Digging
