colorflash astilbe

Happy fall! 

So last week, I walk into my cousin's house to drop off a birthday present, and the place is all decorated for Halloween, top to bottom. A black witch-and-bats decal set drifted its way spookily up the stairway wall. Faux black ravens sat perched atop four wall sconces in the family room. The entryway's two console tables featured perfect little vignettes of a witch's cauldron (with lit, fluttering-fabric flame), scattered fall leaves, Gothic candlesticks and even a bottle of wine with a black-and-white spider-themed label (my cousin, of course, made it with her own custom label-maker).

So I drove to my house and went down in the basement, shuffling around for fall decorations. The pickings were slim – just two plug-in Halloween Jack-o-lanterns, designed for the seasonally-lazy like me. 

That's when it hit me – I could make my own – out of everyday, cheap or foraged materials. Here are some of the ideas I came up with. Feel free to steal a few and save yourself some time and cash:

 Foraged florals

For this autumn-themed floral arrangement, I just hit up some of my garden and forest favorites for flowers, leaves and berries. In this vase are my amber-colored Next Generation Flower Carpet^® roses, red sumac panicles, the rainbow-tinged leaves of ColorFlash^® astilbe, rose hips (the small orange berries – found 'em in the woods behind our housing development), Tropicanna^® canna and Tropicanna Black leaves and Festival^® Burgundy cordyline (the long, dark-red, strappy foliage used as an accent – see pic below).

The 'ol bowl o' fruit trick

Everyone has a bowl, right? And everyone needs to eat more fruit, right? And don't they always have a big honkin' bowl of fruit in the middle of those magazine shots of designer kitchens? Plus, the colors and organic, rounded shapes are always needed in great design. Plus, I have to admit, it's a lot easier to justify to myself (and my husband) that I didn't blow money on fancy decorations. I just wanted to buy my loving family some wholesome, healthy fruit (sniff)! (In the fall, it should be noted, try to go for fall colors and textures - the reds of apples and pomegranates, the rusts, oranges and yellows of mangoes, the purples of grapes and plums and the golds and browns of pears. I prefer no green, especially the lighter spring greens (although I've seen plenty of designers successfully pair them with purples and plums in fall. Plus, seasonal fruits and vegetables that are green like artichokes,grapes, apples and pears are, in fact, seasonally appropriate).

Mini pumpkins in the bookshelves

Here's an old decorator trick I picked up from my home-and-garden writer days. Just buy a few mini pumpkins in different colors (I bought a bag of them for $3 at a farm market!) and switch them in for other items in your bookshelves (or your mantel, or entertainment center, or console table, etc.) I wouldn't advise using the gourds shaped like swans or geese or whatever they're supposed to be. They just look kinda weird and fall over.

Pumpkin vignettes

After trying to put a pumpkin each in front of the brick-based lampposts flanking my driveway and just having them look … awkward, my husband suggested we simply set them in the now-pooped, kidney-shaped landscaping beds on our front lawn. I laughed at Hubby's humble little attempt to come up with something aesthetically pleasing. But I was hardly able to blurt out, "you're an engineer … you don't DO design!" before he came up with the prettiest little pumpkin vignettes in the whole wide world (one big, red, warty thing with a cluster of smaller pumpkins and gourds around it – $36 total, from our traditional day-at-the-pumpkin-patch with Maya, now 3). I might still use the plug-in-pumpkins on the porch for Halloween, but from now on, I will use this fall design scheme in my yard. And probably take all the credit for the idea.

Haute highway weeds

Even the humblest of roadside plants can look sophisticated when grouped en masse (used just by themselves; no mixed bouquets). At least that's the Euro-chic way to go about it. I found these reeds, with their plumy, silvery-grey seedheads, swaying in the sunshine on the wetland trails behind my sister's property. But I've also seen them growing on roadsides everywhere. (Note: I wish I'd brought garden gloves or thought to pull my sleeves over my hands when I picked these – I sliced my finger on either the thick, sharp leaves or broken shards of bent stem.) 

Well, that's all I've got for now. I think there's definitely something to be said for bringing some of the outdoors in. Try it for yourself this season – if nothing else, just to get outside and take a walk through nature!

"What can I add to my new shade garden – that is, besides hostas and ferns?" my cousin asked last week, after showing me this hidden retreat she just carved out of the woods in her back yard:

She had already gotten creative with a corner planter box of bamboo:

And this large-leaved guy she said was elephant ears (colocasia), but I'm not so sure (anyone know?):

And so started my latest obsession: finding ways to funkify that ho-hum shade garden. I hit the garden centers, talked to some gardening friends and read some recent articles on the topic. Here are some of the tricks I learned:

1) Bring on the begonias

As noted in a number of recent articles (like this shade gardening plants story at Canada.com), tuberous begonias can add brightly colored blooms to the shade all season long. (Indeed, my Bonfire^® begonia (below) lights up my shady front yard like fireworks in the night sky). And in cold-climate gardens like mine (Zone 6a), it can be overwintered indoors.

Or, you can forget the flowers and go for the colorful foliage of rex begonias, which can take part- to deep shade. (Here are a few pics I took at the Garden Factory in Gates, NY, although Logee's has a great Web site where you can buy or just explore the wide variety of funky foliage offered by rex begonias):

2) Try the "Three Hs"

That stands for hakenochloa, heuchera and hellebores – three shade lovers that give you your money's worth in the shade. Below are pics I took of these lovelies at Bristol's Garden Center in Victor, NY.

Hakonochloa, or Japanese Forest Grass (below) is hardy in Zones 5 through 8 and the yellow-green variety is especially great for brightening up dark spots:

Heuchera (coral bells, below – my apologies if some of these are tiarellas or heucherellas – I sometimes get them mixed up), has been the darling of shade gardeners and foliage lovers for at least a decade now, with its shades of amber, lime, purple, burgundy black and more:

Then, of course, you can't leave out hellebores (who could, anyway, with a Perennial Plant of the Year designation in 2005, shiny, (mostly) evergreen foliage, a broad spectrum of bloom colors (including white, yellow, burgundy, pink and even black), late-winter/early spring blooms and an adaptability to a wide variety of climates and conditions, including shade?). This here is the beautiful 'Green Corsican' early-spring bloomer from the Helleborus Gold Collection.

(For unmatched variety when it comes to hellebores, by the way, be sure to visit Sunshine Farm and Gardens. I once sat, mesmerized, all the way through a talk by its irreverent, tie-dyed shirt owner, Barry Glick. He's passionate about hellebores and a really funny guy … he and Plant Delights owner Tony Avent should get together and go bowling).

3) Funkify your foliage

Many tried-and-true shade or woodland plants now offer colorful or variegated foliage that's a new twist on an old favorite.

Here, for instance, is ColorFlash^® Astilbe (burgundy and purple leaves) and ColorFlash Lime:

“I got my greedy little hands on ColorFlash Lime,” wrote “bloomingwriter” blogger in a May 29, 2010 post, “Focusing on Foliage (mostly).”

And About.com Gardening Guide just called ColorFlash astilbes “a personal favorite of mine” in a May 21, 2010 post on bromeliads.

 “As if astilbes weren't wonderful enough, with their lacy foliage, colorful, long-lasting flower plumes and minimal maintenance needs, ColorFlash Lime has added a whole new dimension,” she wrote in an earlier post, “ColorFlash Lime Astilbe: A Perfect Plant Made Even Better.”

“Two-tone gold /lime leaves are edged with a slightly darker lime border. This burst of sunshine works well as an accent plant, particularly in partially shaded borders. Paired with its pink feather duster flowers, it commands the eye.”

Variegated-white varieties of tried-and-true shade plants are also a way to brighten up dark areas. Here are just two of the many variegated shade perennials I found while browsing through Bristol's:

Variegated pachysandra (a little bit classier, in my opinion, than the overused, plain-green pachysandra everyone had at their tract houses when I was growing up in the '70s):

Variegated Solomon's Seal:

4) Add tropicals or houseplants

As I mentioned in my previous post about using tropicals in the garden, houseplants (many of which actually thrive in low-light conditions) are a great way to jazz up the shade garden.

"Nearly all indoor foliage plants will benefit from outdoor growing conditions if they are protected from the hot midday sun, in such locations as a spot under a tree or on the north side of a house," says University of Minnesota extension agent Deborah L. Brown in her article, "Gardening in the Shade." Pots may be sunk into the soil to conserve moisture, she writes, "but with frequent watering they also could be set right on the soil surface, an ideal way to make use of those shade areas that are compacted with tree roots."

Some houseplants with fabulous foliage that I'd love to try include croton, bromeliads, tradescantia (Wandering Jew or spiderwort), triostar stromanthe and elephant ear (alocasia).

Tradescantia (the purple stuff):

Croton (the rainbow-colored ones):

Triostar stromanthe (image courtesy Monrovia):

 Bromeliad:

Elephant ear (alocasia):

5) Sneak in some "throwaway annuals"

"Annuals work well, except in dense shade," says Brown (see "Gardening in the Shade" article above). "Browallias, coleus, wax begonias, dwarf salvias, and other shade-tolerant annuals will begin blooming soon after frost danger is past if you start with robust young bedding plants."

Browallia (image courtesy EM Canada):

Well, that's enough for now. There are so many options I have to split this post into two parts. Look for the next five tips next week! And please let me know if you have any great suggestions for beyond-the-ordinary shade garden plants!