Whoa, May can overwhelm you with colors! Not only do you have all the excitment from the annuals going on, you also have a plethora of perennials, a truck load of trees and a sh… whole bunch of shrubs. This May showcase is going to focus on not only the colors of plants, but the ability to use them not only for their flashyness but for their foliage texture as well.
This month we’ve gone kind of patriotic with our color scheme using reds white and blue. Using these colors in non stereotypical ways such as foliage and flowers we create a perfect landscape that will give you four seasons of color!
Using the Colorado Blue Spruce and the new ‘Obsession’ Nandina we’re able to create a fantastic color contrast as well as a foliage contrast. Not only do the needles on the spruce soften the nandinas ferny leaves, the ferny leaves of the nandina make the spruce seem a little less formal and more fluffy.
Using the Colorado Blue Spruce in your landscape will assure you blue foliage all year round. In the winter the bright steely blue needles stand out against a typically grey landscape. Lime your soil to assure your spruces happiness.
The new ‘Obsession’ Nandina is a very improved variety of older, less composed Nandinas. These will keep themselves in shape with minimal effort on your part and will give you some fantastic maroon/red foliage during its active growth season. Not only will it give you some soft texture in the landscape, it will tolerate poor soils and neglect.
Most people think of Mandevilla as a messy annual vine that will be a pain in the butt to remove from an arbor or fence at the end of they year. Remember, not all mandevilla are created equal, such as this fantastic bush mandevilla. Using these in the landscape as opposed to other mounding annuals that won’t bloom as well when the weather gets hot. These spectacular red flowers will hold up better than hibiscus and withstand more heat than geraniums!
The Sweetspire is great shrub on all fronts. Not only does it give you some awesome long plumes of white flowers in the spring (all of May), it turns a spectacular shade of red in the fall. This color red really pops against a backdrop of blue (like seen in the spruce). Did we mention they’re very fragrant and very easy to grow. They’re native to the eastern reaches to the US. Woo hoo!
