The Bronze Age: 7 Ways to Add Drama with Dark Foliage
Photography by Clare Coulson, unless otherwise noted.
At the Chelsea Flower Show last month one plant kept popping up again and again, dotted through show gardens and on nursery stands and displays.
1. Contrast with pastels.
rubra was one of many star plants on Sarah Price’s gold medal winning Nurture Landscapes garden at the Chelsea Flower Show; planted here with irises, fennel, salvia and silver leafed perennials.
2. Cover bare ground.
There’s possibly no finer bronze foliage than that of shade-loving epimedium which has delicate heart shaped leaves surrounding exquisitely pretty flowers. Cut the evergreen foliage back in spring to ensure a fresh mound of foliage.
Many dark colored shrubs lend themselves to being clipped into neat topiary shapes.
4. Deploy statement leaves.
Rodgersia ‘Bronze Peacock’ has large palmate leaves that, as the name suggests, are a stunning color as they emerge before turning green in summer, when tall pink flowers emerge.
5. Paint a border with heucheras.
Perfect for a slightly shady spot, heucheras come in hundreds of painterly shades including coppery tints through to bronze and deepest purple including ‘Obsidian’ and ‘Plum Pudding’; ‘Bronze Beauty’ has delicious palmate foliage with tall cream flowers in late summer.
Actaea simplex atropurpureum Brunette is popular for good reason its dark lobed foliage in deep purple bronze alone makes it worth growing in the damp shade and moist conditions...
6. Add late season interest.
Photograph by Jim Powell.
...in which it thrives but in late summer its elegant pink white bottle brush flowers light up borders and can also be left in situ for interesting winter structure too
With their strappy architectural evergreen leaves that can reach huge proportions, Phormiums can create major presence in planting schemes, seen here in Graham Smyth’s garden in British Columbia.
Photograph by Christin Gaell,.
7. Go large with impact plants.