My leafy fillers in the Winter Garden

 Lets set the stage .............

Once I had my own home and started a garden of my own I never gave foliage much of a thought.  It was flowers and more flowers and the showier the better.  Then I would look out over the  garden during the winter months and  it would look desolate - all the herbaceous was tucked away under the soil for the winter and  I could just see some dead seed heads and had some fading memories of the previous season. I was a member of the cottage garden society in those days so primarily it was herbaceous that I grew. The only piece of foliage  I had was a 7 foot boundary  evergreen Privet hedge to look out on that the previous owner had grown  after World War 2.

Thankfully I learned from my past mistakes and now  foliage does have a role to play.  Over the years I have come to realise that during the winter months it should have the leading role in my garden and at this time of year the flowers are in the chorus line.

During the past month I have really started to appreciate any colour that there has been in the garden. White is lovely for a short time but its quite a harsh colour on the eyes and I really started to miss the all the different shades of  green.   I have quite a few evergreens in the garden - sadly some look really rough just now after our worst winter in the UK for decades but others are making a great impact just now.

The Leading Roles in Foliage Follow Up

This is my first every entry for the Foliage Follow up hosted by Pam over at Digging  so  I suppose I can't start  without a mention about my heucheras.  I'm a heucheraholic and I have started collecting them as  I love their dramatic foliage. For a long time all I grew was Palace Purple and I still have that old timer in the garden but over the last few years more and more of the newer varieties from America have been introduced to the UK and its one plant I can't resist and there will always be room for just one more.  They are all clambouring for centre stage but for today I have just chosen two.  

Another star in the garden just now is the Leucothoe. I have 2 varieties in the garden.  The more mature plant is Leucothoe fontanesiana Rainbow.  For the past few weeks all I could really see peeping through the snow were some of its red branches but over the last few days it has now revealed its rainbow coloured leaves......... (and there are a few little flower buds in there too). If this isn't a show stopper just now I don't know what is.  I love it and I really wish I had it closer to a window so that I could see it all the time.

 I bought the 2nd Leucothoe last Spring so it is still quite small - in hindsight I should have bought the bigger sized pot at the local garden centre!   This cultivar only came unto the market in 2008/09 and it is called Leucothoe Axillaris "Curley Red".   I originally bought it for a container as its recommeded for container gardening but this autumn I planted it in the garden beside my heuchera marmalade and it makes a lovely contrast of textures. It has thick leathery leaves which have little ridges along them and the whole leaf curls to one side.  As each season passes by it changes the colour of its leaves.  In wintertime its leaves are a dark burgundy colour which then changes to green by Spring and throughout Summer and Autumn those green leaves start to change to deeper reds.

Some more cast members for Foliage Follow Up



They all want in on the act today but I've selected just a few more for this months show.............
I have acquired a yellow bamboo in the garden.  I did not buy it so I am not sure what cultivar it is - lets just say it arrived in the garden from just over the fence.  It seemed to like the soil beyond its boundary and decided to spread some of its roots and set up home here. I was a very grateful choreographer as I knew that my neighbour paid quite alot of money for hers and I knew just the perfect place for it.   Since then I have had to get out the saw from the toolbox to cut some of the roots as a spade is useless for that job!  and I now have 3 of them growing in the garden.

I also have lots of dwarf conifers in the front garden.  As you can see from the picture they really do stand out at this time of year and give the garden such structure.  The one mistake I did make in the back garden in its early years is not incorporating some more conifers into the plan but I felt that the dwarf ones would get lost in there amongst all the trees and shrubs and I did not want to grow one for it then to get too big and have to dig it out after many years.  I've seen too many overgrown conifers in peoples gardens in the past.

Yesterday I bought a Taxus Baccata Aurea.   Not sure yet where its final home will be ............ I only wish I had bought this beautiful conifer years ago! Another purchase was this unnamed Acer in the sale area.  I hope once it comes into leaf I will be able to tell which one it is but I bought it because of its vivid red stems. So if anyone thinks they know which one it is please let me know.

Ilex Crenata  - the Japanese Holly Bush.  Its like a little ray of sunshine in the scree bed at the front just now. Its a plant that will probably outlive me as they are known to live for over 100 years.  The Japanese love to prune these evergreens into cloud bushes. Mine's not too old so it does not need any pruning yet. I bought it in a sale last year and it was pot bound and not looking in the best of health so I have been nurturing it  and hope that this year it will have finally settled its roots and start to show some new growth. I've bought some RootGrow that David Austin recommends for his roses and other shrubs  and even tho the shrub was planted last year you can still water this unto the roots.  I am hoping that adding these mycorrhizal fungi will give this plant the boost of confidence it needs to shine on the garden stage. I would be really interested in hearing if any of you have used this product before.

and the final curtain call goes to


The PaperBark Maple - Acer Griseum 
just who could resist that wonderful bark at this time of year?

Happy Foliage Day!