Don't be fooled. Inside this thin coating of sweetness is a fiery core of total insanity.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Foliage Followup -- October 2014

The day after GBBD is always Foliage Followup, hosted by Pam at the blog Digging. Check out her post here, and don't forget to look in the comments for links to other bloggers who are also celebrating the role of foliage in the garden. I have almost as many shots of cool foliage this month as I did of flowers yesterday!

Back in the spring, Peter The Outlaw Gardener and I met a handful of Portland bloggers -- Loree (Danger Garden), Scott (Rhone Street Gardens) and Heather (Just a Girl With a Hammer) -- at Cistus for a shopping spree. Scott and Heather managed to sneak an Echium onto our cart, in with my purchases. I noticed it in time, and decided to buy it anyway. I love it, and it has thrived for me. It's going to have to skedaddle into the greenhouse soon, though.

Echium candicans 'Star of Madeira'


Cardoon foliage

Eucalyptus

Ricinus communis 'New Zealand Purple' is taller than my banana.


For most of the growing season, my Yucca filamentosa 'Color Guard' has simply been green and cream, but now that the rain and cool weather has returned, it has decided to add a little touch of pink to the center of each leaf.

Yucca filamentosa 'Color Guard" overcome by Delosperma


I adore the pin oak leaves in autumn as they turn, first orange, and then rust brown when they finally fall. The leaves are one reason I can forgive the pin oak its annoying growth habit of letting its branches hang very low. 




Turning pin oak leaves framed by a hanging grapevine wreath on the Folly




In a previous Foliage Followup, I posted pictures of my variegated Hydrangea macrophylla 'New Wave' from Cistus. For a while this year, the leaves were just green and yellow, now they've added their characteristic white, with a touch of silver to the green areas.

Hydrangea macrophylla 'New Wave'



Every year at this time I'm reminded why I keep my red twig dogwood in the garden. The leaves as they turn look like stained glass.



Hakonechloa macra and Brunnera 'Jack Frost'

In the spring when I was planting up the new front garden, I decided to plant various types of ground cover directly in the gravel, to grow together into a sort of tapestry. I love the effect so far, I hope they thrive.




And, although technically they're not foliage, I had to include a couple of pictures of dried seedheads, which offer their own kind of beauty to the fall garden.

Syneleisis aconitifolia

Aruncus dioicus/Goatsbeard

Calendula

Are you celebrating foliage in your garden today?