Fine foliage & reflections
Forget flowers, why don’t we? Let’s admire instead the silver, feathery soft leaves of ‘Powis Castle’ artemisia. My kids and I like to rub a leaf between our fingers and enjoy the strong fragrance. In a sunny spot this plant has spread out 4 to 5 feet in diameter since I planted it last fall. In late winter I’ll prune it back by half to keep it from getting leggy.
Wheeler’s sotol (Dasylirion wheeleri), or desert spoon, has strappy, silver-blue leaves edged with white spines, and it’s a real beauty at maturity, forming a blue sphere of shimmering leaves.
Mine has a long way to go to achieve that look, but even so I admire its glaucous color and its xeric toughness. I wish I had room for several of these.
On the other end of the xeric spectrum is this ‘Black Marble’ taro growing in my stock-tank pond. Its leaves are quite pretty—marbled with lime-green and greenish black. But it suffered during our summer heat, even in a shade-protected spot in the pond, the edges of its leaves crisping in defeat. Now that it’s cooler and the sun less intense, this taro is feeling rejuvenated. I understand the feeling, but I’m afraid this plant is just not Texas-tough.
Dwarf papyrus, another pond plant, is tough enough. In fact, it’s a bit of a thug, sending out stems with rootlets along the surface of the water, looking for someplace to get a foothold. I nip those off with my pruners. But the upright green stems and seedheads like exploding firecrackers always look fantastic. With the cooler weather some are beginning to turn gold.
Their reflections are magical.
Oh look, our house is going for a dip in the pond too. Hmm, I think the back needs a more interesting paint job. What would go well with the sandy warm brick of the front and sides, I wonder? Any colorists out there? The exterior needs a restyle to lift it out of its rut. I’m dreaming of new windows, a roof or pergola for the deck, and new paint.
All material © 2006-2009 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
Yep, this is the time of year that I start dreaming up new projects. Funny though your dreams always seem to show up in your garden. This is good.
Oh Pam, those reflections are so perfect, not a ripple in the water at all. Sorry about the Taro, I thought they were Texas tough, or maybe just the green leaf ones are, thuggish in the ground at our Woodlands garden. I was waiting for you to say that you and the kids are not tempted to rub the leaf of the Dasylirion like you do Power Castle! 🙂
Frances
Wonderful foliage photos. I have two Powis Castle — one a lot older than the other. The newer one is huge!! I love it.
Love the Powis Castle and wouldn’t mind a big stand of it here! It seems to have a lot going for it…texture, color and fragrant leaves… Lisa is right…you dream and then create! My stock tank is still sitting upside down in the garden…but it has helped clarify that I do want the 6 foot round one instead! A local paint store has a colorist on staff and he came over to help me figure out colors for both the interior and exterior. He suggested two colors that I would never in a million years think of and both look spectacular.
Sotols are among my favorite plants! Good points about foliage and texture (was just working on a similar post!!), often overlooked for flowers.
Who needs flowers indeed? I love your blue plants. I also have two kinds of Artemisia, ‘Powis Castle’ and ‘Silver King’. Both thrive here, so much so, that I must cut them way back. I grow the SK next to Russian sage. The effect at the back of the neglected garden is lovely. The problem with visiting your blog is I want one of everything. Love ya, Dee
The foliage photos are wonderful, as are the reflections in your little pond. I hope the house didn’t sustain too much water damage. 😉
Oooh… I LOVE the second last photo, of the papyrus shadow in the pond! Lovely.
Hey, if that ‘Black Marble’ isn’t Texas-tough, I will volunteer to baby it along up north–that coloring is awesome. I’ve never seen a dark-leaf taro with such pretty silvery-blue-green sheen to it before. I think I’m in love!
My first thought is a touch of brick red (brownish orangey red) on the front of your house….it would look great with all the cobalt you have in your pots. Nice photos….
you definitely need a door with color – orange, red, purple, or lime green, depending on what you do with the other paint colors on your trim!
I’ve been trying to decide whether to rip out what is left of my aretemesia border planting or to prune it. Guess I’ll follow your lead and just leave it for a pruning. My granddaughter loves to scrape the silver-blue off and show me the green hiding beneath.
We visited the Alamo last weekend and the grounds were absolutely perfect. It made me wonder how much damage last summer’s drought did to other Central Texas gardens. Were the effects in Austin just temporary? I apologize if you have posted on this – I just haven’t had much time in the past few months to do much blog reading!
The drought isn’t over yet, unfortunately. We’re still way behind in rainfall and still on drought restrictions, and many trees died over the summer. That said, the fall rains have definitely perked up Austin gardens and green spaces. I’ve been amazed to see how quickly certain plants can rebound after being so stressed. Hopefully, El Nino will bring lots of rain this winter, and we won’t have to go through a third super-dry summer. —Pam
Thanks for the treat Pam! I need it right now, tough day. I am afraid I am not “Texas tough.” The ‘Black Marble’ taro is wonderful and I love the reflections in your pond. Hopefully ours will be one of the first projects we tackle in the spring.
I think that certain shades of blue would look great with your brick and pick up and intensify the color of your glaucous plants. When my next door neighbors moved in, they have very similar brick on their house painted the house a gorgeous saturated shade of medium blue. It looks great and it’s the perfect backdrop to the crossvine on the fence in between our yards.
Pam, GoodnEvil turned me on to Powis Castle last spring, and it has become one of my favorites. Such a fine, airy, fernlike appearance and texture for such a hardy plant! She also told me that each of my cuttings will create a new plant by just sticking it in the dirt, so I’m spreading Powis Castle everywhere in my garden! To me, it’s a beautiful filler as well as background for so many things. Thanks for showing it off in your fine photo. It makes me appreciate it just that much more.
Thanks for all the comments, everyone, and for suggesting colors for my house. I will mull it over for a while until we’re ready to repaint. —Pam
Hello Pam,
Such beautiful plants. We grow Desert Spoon. I love the cool gray blue colors as well as their low-maintenance. I often pair them with Purple Trailing Lantana.
Hi Pam.
That reflective dwarf papyrus shot is a stunner – fireworks in the sky! I can see this shot in the GGW photo competition in the future? Wonderful.
You touched on a lot of my favorite plants in this post…artemisia, sotols, and papyrus…can you have too many. My artemisia count on the “silver Hills” is now up to 15! A great pairing with California poppy. It does go in and out of looking errrh? then oohhh, as the plant does have to cut back significantly a couple of times a year. Leah thinks I have too much of it, but personally I like the cooling effect it renders, something my blistered eyes appreciated after this years Mars-like summer!
Oh and do not get me started on those slow coach sotols!
ESP.
I love the silver blue foliage of the sotol. The one I have, and had to remove from my garden because it grew too big, has lighter green leaves. I wonder what variety yours is. Artemisia is such a great plant too, and deer proof. I think we are getting closer to the stock tank. D was complaining about all the mess on the steps from the senna in the entry garden. He would be happy to see it go and I have been suggesting a stock tank there! Yours are such great features.
You could go for a greyed blue-green — I’ve seen that combined with blonde brick here — or an adobe red. I think the latter might be better as your blue-green plantings and blue containers would stand out against it. OTOH any reds or pinks near it would probably look dreadful. Not sure what detail colour you could use for window frames with a red — perhaps mission brown, or a strong blue, like the containers?
Just discovered your blog recently, and really enjoy it. I’m intrigued by your pond, as I’ve been wanting to do one for years. I would love to know more about it. Have you done a post on it in the past?
I certainly have, Mary. Click here for a how-to on making a stock-tank pond. —Pam
The photos are beautiful !!
The reflection on the pond is really magical, it’s lovely …
The gray leaves and blue, are one of my favorite plants and Wheeler’s sotol is unknown to me, but
it’s beautiful and I think I look in the garden center.
Love the upside down house! And yes, it’s wonderful to have these beautiful foliars that stand out regardless of the season.
The black marble taro is gorgeous! Except for a bit of black mondo grass,a pennisetum moudry and a dark delight phormium, the black plant rage seems to have passed me by. I’m thinking it’s time to jump on the bandwagon.
I don’t have too many black plants either, Susan. Just this and ‘Black Pearl’ ornamental pepper. But I was sorely tempted by a black beautyberry I saw at San Antonio Botanical Garden today. —Pam
Black Marble taro! (I assume this is a colocasia.) Looks great, and I am thinking of seeing if I can acquire it for next summer.
Yes, it is a colocasia, Elizabeth. The one I originally wanted was ‘Black Magic,’ but I couldn’t find it. This one may be prettier anyway. —Pam
Artemisia is one of my favorites, and gray in the desert plants is outstanding!
Great post, I love the reflections.