Instead of silver bells, how about silver foliage?
Right after Christmas, my thoughts turn to garden planning. With the melody of Silver Bells still fresh in our minds let's sing, “Silver leaves, silver leaves - don't they look great in the garden? Adding light, preventing fights, soon it will be spring again.” Or maybe I should leave the song writing to Livingston and Evans and stick to garden writing.
Plants with silver foliage brighten the perennial garden by day and night. In daylight, silver foliage catches sunlight. At night, gray leaves reflect moonlight. They are beautiful when partnered with plants with red, orange, pink, purple or blue flowers and play the role of peacemaker when planted between color-clashing blooms. Here are some silver perennials you may want to add to your spring wish list.
The genus Artemesia gives us plenty of silvery specimens. They prefer average, well-drained soil in a spot with full sun. Deer and rabbits rarely bother them.
Powis Castle is a bushy plant with fine-textured, silvery gray foliage that grows 2 to 3 feet tall and wide. Looking almost feathery, it spreads slowly by rhizomes. Silver King is similar in size, but has larger leaves and a more upright habit. It spreads quickly by rhizomes.
Silver Mound is a smaller cultivar – just a foot tall and up to 2 feet wide – with soft, silver, very fine, but quite dense foliage. Valerie Finnis grows 18 to 24 inches tall and wide with narrow, silvery-gray leaves. Both of these are clump-forming.
Shade gardeners can enjoy silver foliage, too. The genus Athyrium offers several varieties of ferns with silvery fronds. Grow them in moist, well-drained soil that has been amended with organic matter.
The silvery-green fronds of a Japanese painted fern (Athyrium niponicum var. pictum) are washed with burgundy. Plants grow 18 inches tall and 2 feet wide. Branford Beauty is a larger fern, growing 3 feet tall and 4 feet wide. Its purple-tinted, silvery-gray fronds grow stiffly upright. Ghost is another fern with upright, silvery-gray fronds but on a smaller plant.
Another perennial for shade, Brunnera ‘Jack Frost' sports silver leaves highlighted with green veins and margins. Clusters of small blue flowers bloom in spring on plants that grow 18 inches tall and up to 2 feet wide. They grow best in rich, moist, well-drained soil.
Snow in summer, botanically named Cerastium tomentosum, is ideal for hot, sunny spots in the garden. Very small, gray leaves grow on this ground-hugging and ground-covering perennial. Diminutive, white, star-shaped flowers bloom in late spring and early summer.
English lavenders (Lavandula angustifolia) are in a large family of silver-foliaged members. A mainstay in herb gardens, they are also perfect for sunny, well-drained perennial borders. Hidcote grows up to 2 feet tall and wide. It shows off dark violet-blue flowers. Munstead is slightly smaller – 15 to 18 inches tall and slightly wider – and boasts dark lavender flowers. Both varieties have fragrant flowers and foliage.
Phenomenal, introduced in 2012, is taking the gardening world by storm. It has exceptional garden performance and grows up to 32 inches tall and wide. Its flowers are lavender.
Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) features fine-textured, gray-green foliage held on silver stems. Violet-blue flowers bloom in summer on plants that grow 4 feet tall and 3 feet wide. Plant Russian sage in full sun and well-drained soil.
Another sun lover, lamb's ear (Stachys byzantine) has fuzzy, silver-gray leaves that beg to be stroked. Eighteen-inch plants grow best in full sun to light shade in well-drained soil.
• Diana Stoll is a horticulturist, garden writer and the garden center manager at The Planter's Palette in Winfield. She blogs at gardenwithdiana.com.