I know I try to grow too many things but what are you gonna do? There’s so much stuff out there. Eggplant, cotton, sedges, magnolias, peppers, bananas, elephant ears, lantana, variegated corn, and cannas. Ooooooo, my, my, my. The cannas. How can I deprive myself of the pleasure of knowing them all? Dahlias. Give them up? I don’t think so. And my Agaves. Sweet Mother of Succulents. How could I not surrender myself to these thorny muscular spears of the plant world? There’s so many of them but it’s hard to beat the straight species Agave americana.

You know you shouldn’t touch the tip of that leaf. But every once in awhile. That little voice in your head tells you “Go ahead. You know you wanna”. You just have to lick the tip of your finger and feel that hard sharp point. Oh yea. Hurts sooo good. They are not even high maintenance.  And their cousin Furcraea foetida ‘Mediopicta’ – no spines.

Or their half brother the XMangave ‘Macho Mocha’.

Okay, some now say this is just plain old Manfreda not a hybrid of Manfreda and Agave but I like the word Mangave.

I usually don’t plan to buy as many plants as I do each year. But they keep introducing new ones. I have to have the new ones. When you think about it really it’s no different than the folks in MIS or IT here upgrading their software or equipment. They don’t use the same stuff year after year. Admittedly there are times when the plant upgrade amounts to a downgrade. Like in the technology world, sometimes new things in the plant world get introduced before enough testing and evaluation has taken place. But, when you are a plant slut you’re not always worrying about a long term relationship with your purchase. It merely has to satisfy your need at that moment. Like the oil fern I bought this summer, Microsorum steerii.

I think it’s going to be high-maintenance. And that’s going to lead to problems. I’m going to forget to water it and it’s going to whine and carry on about how I just don’t care anymore. Well, la-dee-dah. When I said I loved it I didn’t mean I wanted to marry it.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all about instant gratification or a one-season stand. There is permanence within plant sluttiness.  I added several woodies to my collection this year.  I’m trying two Magnolia grandiflora (that’s southern magnolias, y’all) cultivars that are supposed to be hardy to zone 5 – ‘Kay Parris’  and ‘Bracken’s Brown Beauty’. Or was it ‘D.D. Blanchard’? Anyway, the important thing is I have them. I also purchased two cultivars of Sciadopitys verticillata, Japanese umbrella pine, one of them chartreuse of course. Continuing the group of 2 theme, I got another Picea orientalis ‘Skylands’. See, I’m all about pairing up.  Sometimes though, three is even better than two. Like the triangle I’ll create with my Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Fernspray Gold’, XCupressocyparis lawsoniana ‘Gold Rider’, and the new Picea orientalis ‘Skylands’. Yes, each is different. But they are also all three upright pyramidal (more or less) chartreuse evergreens, giving the eye that repetition it craves so badly. And I get to add three more plants to my collection.

Now it is coming to that time of year when we do our major designing for next year. I’ll be looking at dozens of catalogues and websites searching for those perfect plants that solve all my problems at the IMA. And looking at all those perfect plants that cause my problem at home. Sing it Ado Annie.

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!