Comments on: Forget Halloween: Try These Dark Beauties Year-Round

By: Genevieve

Genevieve — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:27:19 +0000

Fred, you’ve got a true gardener’s spirit! You are so right about how burgundy works in the garden, and yeah – in my garden it’s all about the foliage, baby. Well, except when it’s all about the flowers!! LOL.

Lauraven, ohmygosh, yes, the stink-lily!! The ultimate in goth plants… Love it.

Monica – only so much we can do to guide the next generation, sigh. I hope my little niece becomes goth or punk, too. It would drive my brother nuts!!

Pomona, yes, I have quite a few things that fell by the wayside on my bulb orders, too, more’s the pity. Thanks for the tip on that Elderberry! I’m going to check it out.

Erin, I wish that you COULD grow Razzleberri!! I’m in luuurve with it.

Susan, yes, and the funny thing is that everyone would have snickered at me back then as well had I attempted gothyness. Heh. Perky waters run deep and all that.

And OH MY GOSH I so didn’t know about Tuxedo blooming in fall!!! Really and truly!! Thank you so much for telling me, that is awesome! Here in The Land of the Rhodie we have ample spring bloom and not enough fall, so knowing that I am totally making room for Tuxedo somewhere, in a client’s garden if not my own. Just have to find someone adventurous enough to love it as I do!

By: Susan (garden-chick)

Susan (garden-chick) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:54:03 +0000

I had to read the actual plant portion of your post twice, because I was so bemused by the thought of perky blonde Gen as a goth girl that I wasn’t really concentrating!

Black plants sure are a hot topic right now. I was lucky enough to be given a one gallon Phormium ‘ Black Adder’ and Ceanothus ‘Tuxedo’ earlier this year, but did not have space in my tiny garden so gave them to clients. The Phormium is nice, but not noticeably different from P. ‘Dark Delight’, but if the Ceanothus performs well in my hotter climate in inland Northern California then I think it will be a stunner.

P.S. Did you know the Ceanothus blooms in the fall rather than the spring?
Susan (garden-chick)´s last blog ..Garden Feng Shui for Dummies

By: Erin

Erin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:15:50 +0000

Gen! You! Crack! Me! Up!

Gosh you’re funny! Great selection of plants. I grow many of them and really wish I could grow that Razzleberri!
Erin´s last blog ..The white house with the blue door

By: Pomona Belvedere

Pomona Belvedere — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:41:22 +0000

I love dark-foliaged and -flowered plants, and these are some good insights on how to use them (plus a couple of new introductions, like the brunette snakeroot). I think elderberry ‘Guincho purple’ is incredibly beautiful – haven’t grown it, but have lusted after it at the nursery. Unfortunately any heuchera without villosa heritage croaks in my garden’s heat, so I can’t use them, but if I could, I would try pairing them with some of the chartreuse ones. Right now I have coleus ‘Velvet Mocha’ which is more a sort of brown-fuchsia-wine red (sounds awful, but isn’t) and has narrow crimped leaves unlike the usual coleus, look great against a light wall.

I deeply sympathize about the ORANGE glads – I’ve thought of contrasting my acidantheras with deep-colored glads as well but the dark glads never made it to the final pass on my orders (I go through a few versions: fantasy, several hundred dollars, realistic).
Pomona Belvedere´s last blog ..Tulips NOW!

By: Monica the Garden Faerie

Monica the Garden Faerie — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:05:32 +0000

Love all the plants, of course. When I was a teen, punks were the goths, and I more or less was one, though more less than more more. I sort of wished my niece (who’s now 24) would be a Goth, but she wasn’t. Ah well!

By: Lauraven Dodd

Lauraven Dodd — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:03:25 +0000

This isn’t necessarily my favorite dark plant, but it says Goth to me like no other: Voodoo lily (Dracunculus vulgaris). Not only does it look like a Gothed-out calla, but it smells like death. Hence a common name in New Zealand of “stinking horseflesh”. It’s definitely a flower to admire from afar.

By: Fred from Loudonville, NY

Fred from Loudonville, NY — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:19:00 +0000

Hi Genevieve, For the longest time I have thought about having a double sided bush and perennial boarder that was ALL burgundy, and green-black, with touches of chartreuse, silver-gray , and white. BUT here at Whimsey Hill House, I have NO more room for such a planting. I have never seen anything like that before, and I really don’t know how EERIE it would look, but the whimsical artist in me would have loved seeing if I could make it work if I had the chance. I think the burgundy color of foliage really adds a lot of visual stimulation to the ALL green garden. I have worked it from tree high, bush level, and ground hugging on my property. As a gardener matures, they look past the thought of FLOWERS, and see that it REALLY is the FOLIAGE that makes a garden great. Perennials bloom only for a week or two, and then you JUST have the foliage to look at. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!