Marvelous maroons for March Foliage Follow-Up

March 16, 2017


One of my favorite spring-blooming shrubs for bright shade features raspberry flowers and maroon leaves. It’s Chinese fringeflower (Loropetalum chinense ‘Sizzling Pink’), and its richly colored foliage contrasts beautifully with blue-green paleleaf yucca (Y. pallida) in a purple pot. Variegated pittosporum ‘Cream de Mint’ adds shade-brightening foliage at ground level.


A slightly different view shows more of the fringeflower flowers. In back, a shiny, silver culvert pipe-turned-planter helps brighten the shade and brings out the gray tones in the loropetalum leaves.


More maroon appears in a low pipe planter in the front garden: a trio of ‘Burgundy Ice’ dyckias. Talk about fab foliage! I love its color and starburst form, although this spiny plant easily draws blood with vicious teeth. Orangesicle flower spikes in spring make it even better.


The deer think so too. Those dyckia flowers lasted, oh, about a week before the deer found them. So it goes!

This is my March post for Foliage Follow-Up. Fellow bloggers, what leafy loveliness is happening in your garden this month? Please join me in giving foliage its due on the day after Bloom Day. Leave a link to your post in a comment below. I’d appreciate it if you’ll also link to my post in your own — sharing link love! If you can’t post so soon after Bloom Day, no worries. Just leave your link when you get to it. I look forward to seeing your foliage faves.

I welcome your comments; please scroll to the end of this post to leave one. If you’re reading this in a subscription email, click here to visit Digging and find the comment box at the end of each post.
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19 responses to “Marvelous maroons for March Foliage Follow-Up”

  1. Those buggerin deer. You do have some nice foliage combos. I will have to look around today to see if there is anything to mention here. Not a lot is up. It still looks so wintery here.

  2. I am a fan of maroon foliage as well Pam and especially when there are blooms too! Those darn deer need to leave your dyckia flowers alone! I do like the Chinese fringeflower and the colorful foliage on the dyckia. It’s also nice to see your warmer weather! My March Foliage Follow-Up here: http://landscapedesignbylee.blogspot.com/2017/03/garden-bloggers-bloom-day-foliage.html#.WMqz5W8rKUk

  3. Jean says:

    I am so sorry about your dyckia flowers. How frustrating! I alway knock on wood that we don’t have deer (though a couple months ago I saw three running through the neighborhood, and we’re just a couple blocks from the courthouse!).

    I did a Bloom Day post but included a succulent and a link for Foliage Follow-up: http://www.diggrowcompostblog.com/2017/03/garden-bloggers-bloom-day-march-2017.html.

    I’ll be in Austin in a few weeks – hope to see you then!

  4. Anna Kullgren says:

    Aaahh – I have managed to kill that lovely Loropetalum – not once, but TWICE! It is such a beauty! Love the Dyckias spiky darkness, but have yet to try them. With all my shade, I would probably kill those too. So far, with the exception of one Agave, only yuccas have managed to tolerate what I have to offer. So, I get to admire those thorny spikes vicariously! They are wonderful even without the flowers – which I’m sure were lovely too. Damn deer!

  5. Evan Bean says:

    I like the combination of purple new growth and pink flowers with the greener old foliage on the Loropetalum. My purple Loropetalum seedling is brown after this winter.

    I got a little carried away with photographing new growth for my Foliage Follow-up: http://practicalplantgeek.blogspot.com/2017/03/foliage-follow-up-march-2017.html

  6. Kris P says:

    I’ve tried and failed to grow Loropetalum twice. I blamed my difficulties on our drought but I just saw a very nice display of the plants in full bloom with other relatively drought tolerant plants so perhaps it wasn’t only a water issue. As it’s hard to ignore flower power in my garden right now, my foliage picks this month were all selected because they also offer floral interest at some point in the year: https://krispgarden.blogspot.com/2017/03/plants-with-great-foliage-and-flowers.html

    • Pam/Digging says:

      Well, the drought could be to blame, I imagine, especially if your loropetalum wasn’t as well established. I’ve killed at least three of the low-growing cultivar ‘Purple Pixie’ and think the problem was lack of water. I guess I found the right spot for this one though. —Pam

  7. ks says:

    I just want to weep when I think of what the mow-blow peeps do to the Lorapetalums here. Yours are what they should look like!