A few weeks ago some of the leaves starting changing, turning a screaming red at the tips.
Now it looks like this.
WHAT. Some of the green is deepening to a dusky purple that looks so nice with the hot carmine leaves.
I love! I read somewhere on the internet that its color can vary from year to year, though I can't find where anymore.
This spring I kept looking for 'Jane Platt' and finding only Fothergilla x intermedia 'Blue Shadow,' which has the most beautiful blue foliage. I am definitely making room for one of these next. Even if the fall show is half as good as Jane Platt I'll be happy.
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| Image source: Rick's Custom Nursery |
I bought my Jane Platt from Gossler Farms Nursery, if you feel the need to add one to your garden.
I'm also deeply in love with my Spiraea japonica 'Magic Carpet.' In spring it is the most wonderful zinging chartreuse.
It mellows a bit in summer.
And then in the fall it turns every color imaginable.
I hesitated to add this shrub to my garden because it's used so widely in grocery store parking lots here. It's really tough and can take a lot of abuse, though it tends to get sheared into unsightly blobs by landscapers. I will never understand the need by landscaping crews to shear everything into blobs. I know it's fast and easy but it looks terrible.
When I am dictator people will prune with hand pruners until they've been deemed worthy of using tools of mass uglification like hedge trimmers. Anyway. I'm glad I added it to my garden because the color is totally doing it for me.
I just picked up another spirea for the front garden at Xera Plants recently: Spiraea betulifolia var. lucida. I waited until it lost almost all of its leaves to get my act together to take a picture, so this doesn't really show off the kaleidoscope of colors this native boasts. It's stunning.
One of my Epimedium 'Black Sea' went rogue and turned completely red.
. . . While the others look like this. If I could get them all to spread out, bulk up, and turn that blazing red color next to the Hakonechloa grass, I'd be the happiest of campers.
You know what else would make me happy? If I could go back in time and not buy this Sedum cauticola 'Lidakense', AKA "Clown whore sedum."
(Shudder.)
