Foliage Follow Up - January 2015

It's time for Foliage Follow Up. There's snow blowing around outside but I stayed safe and warm inside, photographing the wonderful foliage of my numerous house plants. And wishing I had a better flash rig. Make that ANY flash rig besides the one that came with my camera. It's high on my wish list. If only the house can stay standing without a major expense for a while so I can afford it.

Here we go: 

I've been developing an interest in Aglaonema lately. Unfortunately each grower seems to have a gazillion varieties with the growers own unique name and I can't get a consensus about which varieties mine actually are.

This one has a bit more of a pale yellow wash than shows up in the photo.

Another Agalaonema, this one has more splotches on younger leaves.

This Agalaonema looks like the one most commonly found in public spaces. I would have passed it up except it was on sale for $3.00 at the Big Box Store and I'm a sucker for cheap plants.

Another $3.00 Aglaonema. This is one of my office plants that came home for the Holiday Shut Down and needs to be carried back as soon as it's reasonably warm outside.

I have mixed feelings about Calathea. This is C. lancifolia, aka Rattlesnake plant. The underside of the leaves is dark purple. I like the foliage and it grows well but if I'm not careful about de-chlorinating the water and watching the temperature these guys seem to get a lot of leaf burn. Then again most of my Anthuriums are also suffering from leaf burn right now, too, possibly due to the extremely dry air inside. Maybe I should set up my old 55 - gallon aquarium as a plant tank... If only I could convince The Husband (and find a spot for it).

This is a bit of a cheat. That's the shadow of a bloom on my Calathea corona (again, I'm not sure of the specific variety. I wish plant sellers would do a better job of labeling).

This is a small Corn Plant (Draczenea fragrans, unknown variety with yellow-green leaves)

Cuban oregano, Plectranthus ambonicus

Dracaena deremensis Lemon-lime, an old reliable for me and a really nice looking plant

Chamaedorea elegans, a nice, very small palm that normally lives in my office at work, where the cats can't nibble on it. 

Last up, Sansevieria trifasciata var. inheritedfrommomii

As you can see I tried to get a little creative with my photos this afternoon. Anything to avoid working on preparing my syllabus for classes that start next week.

Thanks to Pam at Digging for this meme

Foliage Follow Up - October

Foliage in the October Garden is all about the changing colors, the berries, the seed heads and the loss of the gorgeous all over summer green. Sigh.

I do have some nice fall foliage in some of my shrubs, like the Clethra alnifolia Hummingbird (nicely accented by the dark green holly behind and the dark Heucheras in front),

and the Fothergillia gardenii Blue Mist,

and Amsonia Halfway to Arkansas, also just starting to turn,

as is Cornus hesseyii Garden Glow which will display red twigs (not obvious in this picture) all winter.

I don't know if anything will eat the seeds of these Asclepias tuberosa but the seed heads provide some nice interest in the fall and winter.

My Hydrangea Lady in Red (maybe) has nice dark stems shooting up above this years spent blooms. This is another plant I've been very happy with and can heartily recommend, even to a small garden.

Let's not forget the berries on the Viburnum Cardinal Candy. I hope the birds start eating those sometime over the winter.

I also have berries on Viburnum Brandywine. It's not nearly as large or prolific a plant as the Cardinal Candy but provides a nice, different look.

And let's not forget some of the starts of the late summer/fall garden - the grasses. Here are seed heads on Panicum virgatum Heavy Metal.

Thanks to Pam at Digging for this meme.

Foliage Follow Up August 2014

The in-laws are sill here so once again I'm rushing out a post without proper ID of the plants.

Technically not foliage but I love the way these Asclepias seed pods look 

Purple Basil 

Another houseplant? This Calathea is enjoying a summer outside and looks GREAT. She's going to pout when she has to come back inside for the winter, I just know it. 

Heuchera cinnamon curls 

Elderberry Black Lace (Sambucus) 

Cornus Garden Glow. If you ever see this for sale and have room in your garden I can't recommend it enough. Be forewarned, though, it gets bigger than the growers claim. 

A nice Heather 

Healthy foliage on Meadow Rue 

NOT a houseplant. I used a couple of Palms in pots in the garden this year. They got a little sunburned but they look nice.

[Palms in Pots is the name of my next 50s retro band - THIS meme is from John Scalzi and has nothing to do with plants. Normally]

Thanks to Pam at Digging for the Foliage Follow Up meme

Foliage Follow Up July 2014

While the flowers are all orange there is still some gorgeous foliage to be found this month here on The Edge.

I bought two gorgeously dark Cimicifuga [Actea] simplex Brunette and planted them in a partly shady area - this one kept some dark pigment and developed these complexly colored leaves. The other one is mostly green (bleh). They're supposed to get big, which is good since they're in a shrub border with lots of Viburnums.

I'm not sure if this Panicum  is Heavy Metal or Cloud Nine. I bought both and can't really tell the difference in my garden. Still, it's nice and [very important] it's dog-resistant. Even when My Little Predator tried to dig it up to get at something hiding deep inside the plant.

Ah, Physiocarpus opulifolius Diablo [ninebark]. Go ahead, tempt me, you sexy thing!

What's mid-summer with Hostas? I'm a fan of the jumbo sized leaves on these two: Guacamole (on top) and DamnIForgotToRecordTheName (on bottom).

Sambucus [elderberry] Black Lace

And a surprise appearance by Baptisia australis. Not normally known for their foliage they do form a nice shrub sized clump during the summer. Unless it pours down rain. In which case they flop over like drama queens.

This is Gaura lindheimeri Guadi Red. I bought it to bring some more dark pink genes into the gene pool of the volunteer reproducing Gaura in my yard. It hasn't bloomed yet but I really like the colors in the foliage.

Ferns are always good for foliage photos. Lady in Red on top and Ostrich on bottom (note the dots on the underside of Ostrich's leaves? Those are the spore producing structures)

 And let's end this month with a close up of a very nice Canna leaf (possibly Tropicanna). 

Thanks to Pam at Digging for this meme

Make Up Monday

Last week on Garden Bloggers Bloom Day and Foliage Follow Up day I was working hard to get plants in the ground before the rains came.  I managed and the rain arrived on schedule so everything got well watered in.  So today I'm going to post a few more pictures to add to the photographic celebrations of all things garden.  See if you can guess which pictures go with which day.

Tulip humilis Odalisque, actually a bit more of a purple-red than it appears on my monitor

This one is a Darwin Type Tulip (either Hollandia or Cum Laude) that I included for a specific reason.  Look closely at the bud(s).   Do you see how the two stems are conjoined?  I have a Siamese Twin Tulip!

Tanacetum coccineum James Kelway.  This is why I label my plants.  How else should I identify this one from just the freshly uncurling foliage.  Pretty cool looking, though, huh?

Tradescantia Sweet Kate.  What's that?  I'm cheating?  I've already posted this plant this spring?  No I haven't.  No, you're mistaken.  Wait, don't check!  Oh, all right I'm busted.  But I really like the spring foliage of this one and I couldn't resist.  Do I get credit for posting a NEW photo of a plant I've already posted?

If I'm going to get busted for reposting I'm going to repost some more.  Here is my Brunnera Jack Frost.  I think I might have even posted images last week but it has really burst into bloom over the weekend.

Last year I dug some wild violets from a neighbors yard.  Amazingly I didn't have ANY (I had a nice chemical stew toxic lawn instead.  This one looks like it can't make up its mind which color flowers to produce.

A mated pair of Red Lily Beetles on (guess what) a lily.  Uh-oh.  These beetles are supposed to be voracious destroyers of lily plants.  I guess I won't be growing lilies.  Too bad.  I planted several varieties last fall.  But I won't grow a plant if I HAVE to use pesticides.  I was using them as a fill in anyway, in a spot that will be filled in by a pair of shrubs in a few years.

Still.  Darn it.  I like lilies.

This is one of my Physocarpus opulifolius (ninebark) Coppertina shrubs.  Below is the other.

See a difference?  There is a HUGE difference between these two.  The lower one kept some leaves all winter (dried up but still attached) and is more open in habit and has some yellowish greenish color in the inner portion of the leaves.  The upper one is much darker leafed, lost all its leaves in the winter and has stems and leaves closer together.  I bought them at different times so there is a chance they are different varieties.  Or what I'm seeing could be individual differences (they are planted next to each other so the conditions are similar).  It'll be interesting to watch over the next few years and see what happens.

Lastly one of my favorite new discoveries.  This is Cornus hesyii Garden Glow.  The foliage will stay nearly this color all summer and the stems were red all winter.  It does have some buds so I'll get to see the blooms (and hopefully fruit) this year.  Honestly I don't care about the blooms on this plant.  This bright chartreuse foliage looks like this in a shady spot next to the back of the house.  What a wonderful punch of color. 

Now it's time for a quiz.  Which pictures are for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day and which are for Foliage Follow Up?  One of them is a trick question.

(I bet my students would like a quiz like that!  Instead it's Cellular Respiration week.  They thought photosynthesis was bad, I know a lot more about this topic.)