Red fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum ‘Rubrum’) has been around for nearly two decades. By around I don’t mean like your sister. I mean it has been readily available – that sounds kinda like your sister too. What I mean is you could find it for sale fairly easily (your sister again, I’m sorry). Let’s just move on. This year a variegated form of red fountain grass became available called ‘Fireworks’.

This version has vertical stripes in shades of cream, pink, and red through the burgundy leaves of the grass. The cream doesn’t last too long and changes to the pinks and reds. My plants didn’t get quite as big as the old variety but that could have been nurture rather than nature. ‘Fireworks’ fountain grass is definitely worth repeating.

Cannas are one of my favorite plants. Period. I love their foliage and their flowers, sometimes one more than the other. It just depends on the cultivar. This year I planted ‘Orange Punch’. Grow this one for the flowers. They are intense. The individual blossoms are quite large and a stop-you-in-your-tracks fluorescent orange with a bright yellow throat. An added bonus is the way the flowers are presented. Unlike the usual upright canna flower spike, ‘Orange Punch’ flower spikes curve downward or to the side as they develop. You get a sort of weeping flower stalk. Very nice. Foliage is green with a hint of burgundy at times. Mine topped out at around 4-5 feet tall, a very easy size to use in any garden situation.

Bananas are a favorite garden plant for me as well. And more and more are being made available (My lands! Your sister again. It’s simply uncanny). One of my new favorites is Musa ‘Siam Ruby’. To be truthful I tried it last year in a pot but this year I was able to put a couple in the ground. At first glance the untrained eye would suggest another zebra banana. But it is not. ‘Siam Ruby’ is a deeper red color and more of the leaf is red. It also pups very nicely so hopefully you have a few more next spring.

I hope all of you experimented a bit with the garden as well. There is no reason not to try a new plant (or seven) each year. Just think how much your sister has experimented. She’d be so proud of you.

To be honest I am at a bit of a loss for ideas for this week’s blog. Well, not at a loss for ideas really, but at a loss for ideas that the muse can turn into a blog. The muse is being a rhymes-with-witch this week. Some weeks I can pound one of these out in a couple hours. Other weeks are like this one, three days off and on and I’m still not there. And the blog is hardly something I can afford to spend too many hours on. So it finally came to me to describe in a bit of detail this summer’s design for the circle bed in front of the Museum. I can’t let you into my head for the entire thought process however. It is a far too dangerous place. There are things in there that even I’m afraid of.

Each year as I begin designing my gardens I hope for some bit of inspiration from which to build a complete thought. There might be an individual plant that starts the design development. A desire to use a certain color might be the catalyst. I might even copy a design I have seen elsewhere. Probably not copy exactly but use many elements. A comment from someone may be the guide to a plant or plants that the idea forms around. Last year the truly fabulous Pam Stokes asked something and from that question came an entire design. The question? “Why don’t you ever plant those black elephant ears?” No reason. I just had not used them here at the IMA. They were a staple at home and in clients’ gardens.  So I decided there was my first plant.

Now, what would look hot with it? I had done containers and small designs using black and chartreuse foliage with red flowering plants. Ideally the flowering plants would also have black or chartreuse foliage. I had all the color elements needed for a design. Now all I had to do was decide which plants (making sure I had a mix of foliage textures) and how to arrange them.

For the black elephant ear I chose Colocasia esculenta ‘Black Runner’. It has a beautiful matte finish to the upper leaf surface (none of the green that often shows in other cultivars) and an equally beautiful silvery gray underside. Plus as the name suggests, it sends out lots of runners with new plants at the end. That sort of thing can kind of knot the whole look together. And the pups as we call them can be used to fill any unexpected gaps. What else could I use? Another plant with good black foliage is an ornamental hot pepper called ‘Black Pearl’ (Capsicum annuum). Even the fruit is jet black before it ripens to red. When the peppers turn red they appear to be lit from within. That adds some of the red I was wanting as well. The smaller leaves also give texture contrast to the large leaved plants in the design. Another good choice for black and red is Canna ‘Futurity Red’. This fairly short (3-4’) plant has good black color to the foliage and arrest-me-red flowers. Unfortunately there are a limited number of plants with true black foliage so for my other dark leaved plants I would have to accept some not quite true black leaves. A just introduced cockscomb (Celosia cristata) named ‘Chinatown’ had promise so I ordered seed. The foliage turned out to be more bronzy than ideal but had that look of stained glass with sun filtering through. The plants also had bright red plumes for flowers. For my tall center element the only plant I could think of was castor bean. They get huge and are available in a very deep burgundy. The palmate leaves would also contrast with the entire-margined plants.

What about my chartreuse elements? I had Xanthosoma ‘Lime Zinger’ and Colocasia ‘Elena’ both on hand. They would be the perfect color contrast and the perfect texture echo to the ‘Black Runner’. Salvia elegans ‘Golden Delicious’ would give me chartreuse foliage and red flowers come late summer. I used to want everything to start blooming as quickly as possible but over time have come to appreciate the later blooming plants. When the same plants have been blooming for months it’s nice to have a new element appear in the garden. What else? I had some variegated ginger. The Alpinia zerumbet ‘Variegata’ had long narrow pointed yellow and green striped leaves making it a texture echo and color contrast for the Canna ‘Futurity Red’.

I had all my major elements so I could start infilling. Some ‘Big Red’ coleus in red and yellow. Duranta ‘Lemon Leaf’ and Talinum ‘Kingwood Gold’ for chartreuse foliage. Musa zebrina with burgundy and green foliage. Alocasia plumbaea ‘Nigra’ with dark slate-green leaves and burgundy stems.  Some Colocasia macrorrhiza with plain green leaves but oh-so-tropical.  And then because my castor beans were so small I simply had to put something in the center to hold the space. I chose one my largest single stemmed bananas. It wasn’t what I had planned but it did the job. Adapt or die my little future designers.

Despite long weeks of slow growth I finally got a planting I really liked.

In fact one day I got so happy about the results I just felt like celebrating. First I checked to see if the coast was clear.

Sure enough, there went Chad on a death march to another exciting meeting in the big house. He’s so lucky he doesn’t have to work outside on sunny days with blue sky overhead and a breeze in the trees.  Then it was grab the pole and express myself. Gotta dance!