Who doesn’t remember
the summer the Wave petunia took our gardens by storm? Is the
sun coleus next? Will it paint bold strokes of bright colors in
our gardens? Will sweet potato (Ipomea) make a comeback now that
breeders have made it better behaved? Will gardeners continue
to use lots of tropical plants to create that island feeling in
their backyards?
There is no shortage
of predictions, from the colors that will dominate to the kinds
of plants we’ll likely being using. In the end, the makeup of
our gardens is likely to be driven by the usual forces that shape
our gardens: impulse buying, selection of plants — new and old
— and fashion, with Mother Nature having the last word, of course.
The most interesting
prediction came from Color Marketing Group, an international,
nonprofit association of more than 1,700 color and design professionals.
CMG says our gardens with be predominately blue. That’s a tall
order as few true blues exist in nature despite catalog descriptions,
making me suspect that none of those 1,700 professionals is a
gardener. In fact, most flowers described as blue in the catalogs
turn out to be a shade of lavender.
For bluish hues, gardeners
have always relied on a handful of annuals and perennials: various
salvia, scaeveola, and lobelia, my favorites, as well as ageratum,
iris, delphinium, hydrangea, aster, Virginia bluebell, scabiosa,
and balloon flower (Platycodon grandiflorus).
This year there are
three new introductions promising to add to the blue palette:
Salvia ‘Blue Angel’ plus two petunias that earned the All American
Selections award. Being a salvia fan, I’m most intrigued by ‘Blue
Angel.’ It’s said to reach a robust 2 feet in height and display
electric blue flowers continuously.
'Merlin Blue Morn'
is a distinctly different petunia. Its blue and white flower is
described as pure white in the center with a soft transition to
a velvety blue at the petal edge. The bicolor pattern is an attention-grabber,
even from a distance. The branching plants will spread 18 to 30
inches and attain a mature height of 15 to 20 inches. 'Merlin
Blue Morn' sounds ideal for hanging baskets and patio containers.
'Blue Wave' petunia has velvety, dark blue 2-inch blooms. It’s
a trailing plant capable of spreading 3 to 4 feet like a ground
cover. Mature plant height can be 4 to 7 inches.
Another not-so-new
way of incorporating blue is with ornament and lawn furniture.
A well placed bright blue Adirondack chair, a garden stake with
a blue crystal, or a large blue container might just do the trick.
In any case, blue is
an accent, not a dominate color. This year’s gardens are much
more likely to take advantage of strong splashes of color that
work well with the tropical look. That strong color will come
from annuals, which compliment the periodic, more subtle colors
of perennials, shrubs, and trees.
My prediction is that
the new vegetative coleus is going to be a big hit. Its wide variety
of patterns and colors adds a new dimension to color in the garden.
To get a good idea of its range, visit Glasshouse
Works. (See Garden Edition,
March 2003, for more information about coleus.) Short ones
work well at the base of canna; large ones are robust enough to
hold their own with ornamental grass or elephant ear. The plant
itself is almost foolproof — many can thrive in sun or shade —
and its only weakness is too much moisture.
Any plant that adds
color and a tropical feel is going to be much sought after in
the next few years. One such plant is phormium or New Zealand
flax (Phormium tenax). Western gardeners already know and
love it. When I recently toured Seattle gardens, it was frequently
use as the centerpiece in a container. The plants have the same
flowing, fountain shape as other sword-leaf plants such as yucca
and agave without the stiffness.
In the recent past,
phormiums were giants, growing to 7 and 8 feet. But recently breeders
have introduced more civilized sizes and colorful cultivars. Many
have yellow or rainbow-striped variegation. ‘Maori Maiden’ has
a slightly arching, medium-sized habit with 1 1/2-inch-wide apricot-to-rose
colored leaves with green margins. ‘Maori Queen’ has olive green
leaves, and red margins that fade to a cream color. ‘Maiden’ tops
out at 3 feet; ‘Queen,’ at 4 feet.
