Greens for backgrounds just as important as brilliant blooms
The gardeners among us are looking forward to the blooms and colors of spring and summer. As beautiful as the flowers are, they shine more if a constant background with some neutrality helps set them off.
In my own garden I achieve this with grasses, sedges, shrubs, ferns and the foliage of spent blooms. It’s so much more inviting to set off a beautiful bloom against a fresh green plant.
I love a cluster of grasses through the many seasons — fresh spring growth, tall waving summer plumes, crisp fall straw-like stems. I leave the cutting back of grass clusters until spring to allow insects and small wildlife to nest, protected, in winter. They need to be cut back before the new green growth starts to appear but not too early so as not to disturb living things. I have often interrupted the slumber of solitary bees and toads with my garden clean-up.
There’s an old rhyme which will help you determine what your clump of greenery is. It goes like this: “Sedges have edges, rushes are round. Grasses have nodes all the way to the ground.”
One of my favorite ornamental grasses is call Miscanthus silver feather and it makes a sizeable clump without any encouragement. Growing to 5 feet or so it waves in the breezes and adds another shape to the garden scheme. Definitely back of the border.
There is a variegated form as well but I find it difficult to control. The upright but shorter Calamagrostis Karl Foerster gives a sturdier, rigid appearance. Fescues tend to be small and are useful as edgers. The blue fescue is charming and makes a low clump.
Chasmanthium also known as northern sea oats has a truly interesting seedhead. At the top of nodding stems are flat russet sea oats. This can be an interesting focal point in your beds.
The pennisetums are mid-sized in height and I especially like the rubrum which has burgundy highlights. The seedheads on this variety are soft like bunny tails with arching stems. The pennisetums are treated as annuals here.
My garden has so many different ferns. A few are native and some not but all are reliable and useful as fillers. The anthurium or lady fern is soft and delicate, easy to propagate. Cinnamon fern sends up a stiff brown seedhead as the season moves along. Osmunda cinnamomea produces a lovely vase-shaped clump. I love the native adiantums. They look different than the stereotypical fern shape but spread out on wiry stems in the woodland. Matteuccia or ostrich ferns can grow quite large and seem to like wet places most. They are the same ones we harvest for the spring treat of fiddleheads.
The Japanese painted ferns add color themselves in cream, burgundy and green shades. Some are very pale with the cream dominating and others highlight the red tones. They are hardy and spread easily. There are so many sports of this type of fern. I find I need to edit aggressive ferns but this is not a difficult chore as they come up easily. And don’t forget the many varieties of hostas whose leaves stay fresh till frost.
Among the foliage plants which also bloom for a short time are peonies, kalmias, iris and roses. I especially like peony foliage which is clean and fresh all summer and rarely has pests or disease. The iris are accent points with their spears reaching skyward and a cooler green shade. Kalmias or mountain laurel has shiny clean foliage after the blooms fade. They add another interesting height to the design as well. Rugosa roses have bright green leaves but are loved by Japanese beetles.
As these foliage additions grow, they help to disguise the maturing foliage of spring ephemerals which must remain to nurture bulbs and roots. You’ll find the various forms and shades of these background plants can be as lovely as the colorful blooms. You can appreciate designs and the nuances they offer. So, when you are shopping for bedding plants don’t overlook the very useful greens that are as important as the flowers we are drawn to.