FOLIAGE

"Lamb's Ears"
Stachys byzantina
"Helen von Stein"
Gatehouse garden, Shaw Island, WA.
16 July 2022.

"One of the most exciting things about planning a garden is the many and varied ways there are to play with color––from the blending of great masses of color to high-lighting the gemlike gloss of a single blossom.

Even more subtle is the palette provided by the tones of the foliage. Plants have leaves not only in every imaginable shade of green, but in shades of red, purple, blue, gray––even white.

Breadseed poppy pods
Papaver somniferum
after the drama queens 
were finished with 
 the Fourth of July.
Shaw Island, WA.

When you see its full design possibilities, foliage becomes much more than something that sprouts out of the stalk below the flowers, and the color scheme of your garden is not limited to a sea of green with bright spots of color in it. You can have a garden with almost no green at all––or with no flowers."

Barbara Damroach. Theme Gardens.

Formosa Lillies
with backdrop of 
glaucous Abies needles.
Shaw Island, WA.