Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Flowers against a white house

I heard a long time ago that if you've got a white house, it's best to plant flowers with a deep, rich color in front of it because pastels will get washed out against the brightness of the white.

I think this bears out in this example, where a vibrant pink purslane and Mexican petunias plus a deep blue pot really pop in front of the white of this wall.
Taken a few weeks after planting,
with purslane beginning a lovely cascade
Sulfur butterfly on a Mexican petunia in September

The Mexican petunia is a really useful plant for a beach bum gardener, because they take very little care, have lush dark green shiny foliage, and don't seem to mind a sweltering summer at all. And they bloom profusely!

Just don't plant anything that's cherished and delicate near them because they can be invasive. This is good from the standpoint of cutting down on any weeding; they'll choke stuff out for the most part. One drawback is they have no scent, and if you like a neat lawn, they'll be dropping their flowers daily. But hey, for the non-persnickety, these plants are a godsend, as is purslane, which also thrives in the heat of a Southern summer and blooms profusely.
Another vibrant deep purple flowering plant that does well in the Southern heat is spiderwort. Kind of an ugly name for a pretty plant. It likes to bloom earlier than the Mexican petunia, along with primrose and oxalis, May through June. Spiderwort is also very low-maintenance, has the height of Mexican petunia, and both work well underneath a crepe myrtle. One thing that works well is to plant both Mexican petunia and spiderwort in the same garden and let them take turns blooming.

This is the same garden in Spring when the spiderwort is blooming.

Persnickety points on spiderwort: forget bringing in cuttings; the flowers will shrivel in a heartbeat. In addition, when you mess with them or near them, they'll stain your clothes and skin purple. I've never tried to use them as a die, but I just wonder if it would yield a rich, deep purple. I imagine so. Finally, spiderwort doesn't have the lush foliage of the Mexican petunia, so it can get to looking pretty scraggly, and it's a little more stingy about its blooms, often giving a show in late afternoon or when it rains but pouting in bright noon sunshine.

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