Over the weekend, I had an opportunity to spend the greater part of a day with my daughter at the Silverton Fine Arts Festival. This was an absolutely delightful way to spend a day – what man wouldn’t be proud walking around a public event with his beautiful daughter attached to his arm? We enjoyed the multi-cultural cuisine, the live music and, of course, the art.
There was one artist whose work we particularly enjoyed. Her paintings were of simple shapes crafted into whimsical animal characters painted in bright, rich, primary colors. I loved the geometry of her designs and the intense colors reminded me of my garden.
The primary colors, Red, Blue and Yellow are found throughout the plant world. I do believe that when most folks begin to think of color in their gardens, they immediately think flowers – which are certainly filled with bright and exciting color. But, as I may have mentioned a time or two in previous posts, that color is really quite short lived in the garden, and entirely absent after the first killing frost of autumn, and does not return again until spring, leaving behind a dreary landscape through the winter months, when our emotional health might benefit most from the uplifting effects of color.
Last time I shared just two plants which add volumes of red color to the garden from spring through fall. Unfortunately, red is difficult to come by naturally in the dead of winter, though some deciduous trees and shrubs do offer bright red stems and twigs of deep purple to bright orange and red.
This time, I want to share a beautiful combination of plants which represent the three primary colors. First, for my red selection, and frankly, this is probably more of a deep dark purple than red, but it serves my purposes here beautifully. Berberis thunbergii ‘Concord’ is a dwarf Japanese barberry with deeply rich, dark purple foliage and stems. The amazing color begins in spring as the tiny leaves appear and continues, without fading, through the hot summer months. Finally, in autumn, the red color becomes brighter until leaf drop when tiny red berries are revealed which may persist into winter.
I’ve mentioned many yellow conifers over the nearly five years that I have been sharing my gardening stories on this blog. Within the conifer world, there are a great number of yellow plants available, from low spreading ground covers, to tall narrow pillars of gold, to subtle butter-yellow highlights and even plants that push their new spring growth in bright yellow and then fade to dark green each year. Some of the brightest I mentioned in a recent post, and today I’ll feature Juniperus horizontalis ‘Mother Lode’ because it is simply one of the purest and brightest yellow conifers readily available today and is suitable for growing in most regions of the USA.
Finally, when I need a go-to blue for garden design, I immediately think Blue Spruce. The first one that tends to come to my mind is Picea pungens ‘Montgomery’ because it is a premium dwarf tree with reliable bright blue color, is much slower growing than its parent species and yet it will grow and fill in space with great blue color and traditional Colorado spruce form, while remaining perfectly scaled for smaller gardens. A maturing 25 to 30 year old tree may reach 10 to 15 feet tall rather than the 25 to 30 feet of its species parent.
When you plant groups of conifers, in combinations of these colors, with assorted shades of green, in a vast assortment of shapes, forms, textures and sizes, you can expect year-round garden interest and pleasure.
Ed-
Conifer Lover