Just Grow It-Penstemon 'Dark Towers'

Not too many perennials catch my eye.  Most don't live up to my standards of fairly long bloom time and season long foliage interest.  After witnessing years of under impressive performance by P. 'Husker Red' (before finally shovel pruning it), I was hesitant to try another purple foliage Penstemon.  Being that I'm somewhat of a purple foliage nut and a firm believer that one cannot have too much purple foliage in the garden, I'm always on the lookout for something purple.

On a recommendation from Monique, who has never led me astray, I bought and planted Penstemon 'Dark Towers' last spring.  It was in bloom but I didn't get a good feel for it's flowers.  However, after cutting back the spent flowers I was impressed that the foliage held up all season and remained dark-not at all the experience I had with the muddy dull foliage of 'Husker Red'.

Well the flowers definitely caught my attention this year.  And check out those dark purple stems!  Ooh-la-la!

White Flower Farm lists the bloom time on this plant as July-Aug.  It's blooming now in my garden and was blooming around now when I bought it last year.  Due to a mild winter, most plants are blooming earlier than usual around here but I have a hard time believing this will bloom as late as August.  Plan for 30" of height when in bloom.  Mine is growing in part afternoon sun and doing just fine.

Early indication is you can't go wrong with this plant.  I think it's time I pick up a few more of these bad boys and sprinkle them around other areas of the garden and I suggest you do too!

Just Grow It! Anything BUT American Sycamore

Consider yourself warned-today it's all about ranting.

The front of my house faces south.  Sixty or so years ago someone had the good sense to plant a couple of shade trees in the front yard.  Unfortunately one of them was a Sycamore.  Every day as I'm picking up debris or surveying the devastation and wondering how I'm going to find the time to pick up debris I ask myself why one of them had to be a Sycamore.  Why?  Why not a beautiful tri color beech?  Even another sugar maple would have been a better choice. 

Believe it or not at one time I actually had two of these monstrous trees on my quarter acre lot.  Had is the operative word.  Just over two years ago I finally got tired of having my patio and back garden look like crap so I hired a tree company to remove the dual trunk hundred plus foot Sycamore from my back yard.

 
Beautiful wasn't it?  Don't be fooled.  If you find yourself enamored with them visit an arboretum or stroll through a forest.  Befriend someone who enjoys hours of unnecessary work or who doesn't mind a messy yard and coerce them to plant one.  Or go to Rome.  Imagine my surprise when, on a trip to Italy a few years ago I discovered Sycamore to be the street tree of choice in Vatican City.  Now I know the real reason why the Popemobile is enclosed in bulletproof glass.  Whatever you do don't plant one in your own yard.

Timberrrrrr!

Because the back yard behemoth was inaccessible to equipment the tree contractor had to bring in a climber.  I had to dismantle part of a stone wall so a skid loader could access the back garden and remove the house rattling sections of trunk as they crashed to the ground.  In advance of the onslaught I moved as many plants out of the way as I could but had to sacrifice many others.  After the tree guys packed up and left it took weeks to clean up and rebuild the back garden.  BUT...it was worth every cent.  It was the best four grand I ever spent.

When life hands you Sycamores, make Sycamore stumps.

Trust me, these trees are a freakin' mess!  Twelve months of the year they rain bark, branches and leaves all over every surface of your yard and garden.  In the spring you can look forward to noxious anthracnose leaf litter.  In the summer it's bark.  Every time the wind blows, twigs and branches fall like rain.  No way could I treat for anthracnose or completely clean up the litter-the tree is just too big. 

In Sycamoreville, fall arrives in May and lasts through November.  Currently my front garden is covered with dried up diseased leaves.  I'm sick over it, sick of it and literally sick from it.  Anthracnose fungal spores are incredibly irritating and cause instant allergy like symptoms.  Until all the dead leaves are off the tree it makes no sense to clean up so I have to live with this look for over a month.  But maybe not next year.  Compared to the back yard version, the tree in front is smaller and located next to the road so it would be far less expensive to remove.  Even though I'd be dead before anything I plant in it's place would be mature enough to shade the house, I'd like to think that in fifty years some new homeowner won't be cursing me as a tree contractor lines up the trucks and fires up the chainsaw. 

Last October the freak snow storm we experienced in Connecticut wreaked havoc on the Sycamore.  During the night I kept waking up to the sounds of loud cracking and crashing.  When the sun came up I couldn't believe the devastation.  Fortunately my house was spared but my front yard was impassable.  Mature shrubs were crushed and reduced to rubble.  When the bucket truck sent by the power company arrived to trim the remaining branches dangling precariously over the power lines to my house, I was informed in conversation that Sycamores were messy trees.  Ummm...ya think?

Just Grow It! Colocasia esculenta 'Diamond Head'

When designing mixed containers I always start with one centerpiece plant, often referred to by container gardening aficionados as the "thriller".  List topping thriller choices in my containers include bananas, elephant ears, cannas, fountain grasses, and acalphas.  If I was asked to choose a favorite though it would have to be elephant ears-Colocasias and Alocasias.  Despite their popularity in my garden, even the more common varieties of Colocasia like 'Black Magic' and 'Illustris' can often be difficult to find, and expensive.  Unfortunately I haven't had much luck wintering them over so I always grab them when I see them in the spring and buy more than I think I'll need (as if it's possible to ever have more elephant ears than one needs). 

A couple of years ago I was strolling through my friend Monique's fabulous garden with a glass of wine when I was stopped dead in my tracks by a huge gorgeous mass of glossy deep purple foliage undulating in the summer afternoon breeze.  Like a beacon is was guiding me across the garden, beckoning me to come hither.  Even from a distance I could tell it wasn't 'Black Magic'-but what was it?  I just had to know.  And more importantly where could I get one?

As it turned out, it was a variety of Colocasia I had never heard of called 'Diamond Head'.  Monique found it at some obscure back road garden center she happened to pass on the way to somewhere else.  Believe it or not but we often find unusual plants by stopping at off the beaten track roadside stands and seasonal greenhouses.  Unfortunately she was only able to get one plant that year.  Last year I was finally able to find it for sale.  In mid May I purchased a teeny plant in a 4" pot and planted it in a mixed container along my back border.  The picture below was taken June 30th.  It was already a star.

On October 6th, despite taking a bit of a hit from Hurricane Irene at the end of August, the plant was a monster and still going strong.  A definite winner!  In late fall, I dug it out of the pot, tossed it in a plastic bag in the basement for the winter, watered sparingly and crossed my fingers.  By some stroke of luck it survived to grace my garden another year!  So...we have luscious bold foliage and season long interest on a focal point plant-star qualities in any garden.  Just grow it!

Just Grow It!-Pennisetum purpureum 'Vertigo'

I've always been a foliage fan.  In the early years I gardened mostly in shade where interest was created using foliage color, form and texture.  As my garden expanded into areas of more sun I found that I struggled with design.  At first I was excited about all the flowering perennials I could now grow-taller stuff, sun loving stuff, no flopping or leaning stuff-a horticultural boondoggle!  Well it didn't take long for me to realize that most of the sun loving perennials only bloomed for a few weeks and then had to be cut back leaving holes or untidy border areas.  And although I had more sun, I still didn't have full sun and the sun I did have on my small suburban lot dotted with large deciduous trees changed dramatically throughout the season.  I started adding small variegated shrubs and unusual later blooming perennials but I still wasn't getting the desired effect.  What was missing?  Bold was missing.  All the foliage just seemed so fine textured.  Where were the hosta substitutes for sun?  Enter tropicals and unusual annuals.  Bold, colorful long blooming plants that add interest for the whole entire season.  Over the past five years or so the focus of my garden has been on these plants.  Every spring I comb through nurseries and greenhouses throughout southern New England gathering cart loads of my old favorites and searching for my new favorites.

Late last spring I came across a small pot of an annual Pennisetum I had never seen before.  The leaves were more broad than the usual common varieties and the color was deep purple/black.  Being a total sucker for dark foliage, I snapped it up.  Since all my containers were planted I ended up planting it in the ground.  For the first few weeks it didn't grow much and I started to think I'd been bamboozled (certainly not the first time with a newer introduction).  Obviously I was wrong-once this baby took off there was no stopping it.  The picture below was taken in early October.  This year I'm going to look for it early and plant more than one.  If you're looking to fill a hole in a border or add a dramatic container accent I highly recommend Pennisetum purpureum 'Vertigo'.