Show #18/2805
A Beautiful Hot Summertime Garden

You Can Have Color In A Shade Garden

People think that foliage is green. It also is burgundy, it's bright chartreuse, it's purple. It can even be bright green and upright and shiny. Foliage is available in a multitude of colors and shapes. People are afraid to use foliage because it isn't flowers. But, it looks good and if you have an area that gets beating hot sun in the afternoon and shade in the morning, foliage sails through where flowers couldn't take it. As an example, the Copper Plant will be taller than Jimmy by the end of the summer, it'll be 8 feet tall, straight up and it doesn't need staking. It can be cut back, it doesn't matter, pinch it, it gets bushier, it just grows up. Big, blonde Coleus will take 107 degree full, hot Texas sun. Low humidity, high humidity, it doesn't matter, it just grows. If it gets too big, beat it back with a weed eater, it'll come back. It roots in a glass of water, you can't kill the plant. The Sweet Potato Vine is another example and it is grown all over the country. It's a wonderful, tough plant and comes in purple, pink and chartreuse.

Coleus is great and grows in shade, allowing one to get foliage and color in shade. And, it's available in bright colors. The bright green Sweet Potato Vine or Coleus provides a spotlight in the shade. Plant them with some yellow flowers, some lemon hollyhock and white impatiens, and that dark corner will pop.