Silver Foliage Plants Gardening
Silver Foliage Plants for Contrasting Flower Garden
You can make your garden look stunning throughout the year by using silver foliage plants along with green coloured or multicoloured plants. There are plants with silver foliage which can be used as ground cover, shrubs to be used as hedges or succulents to use on your rock garden. Silver/grey is a neutral colour and it can compliment any type of garden plants. These plants are preferred by many gardeners as they need very less water and are easy to maintain. They grow well in areas with drought like conditions.
Suitable for Dry Areas
If you are living in areas with water scarcity or with hot and dry weather, you can include more silver grey foliage plants in your garden. They can thrive in drought like conditions as the leaves have a waxy texture or tiny hairs which prevent water loss by reflecting the sunrays. This will reduce the transpiration rate and help the plant to conserve water. You don’t have to water these plants regularly.
Different Roles
The grey silver foliage plants can play different roles in your garden.
As Focal Points
You can use these plants alone as focal points in your garden or you can use it with other plants to create the best spot in your garden.
- Breaking Monotony
It is monotonous to see single coloured plants in the garden. You can avoid the monotony of the garden by adding excellent contrast using different silver coloured plants. These plants can blend well with green, red, blue, purple and yellow.
- Delineating Different Areas
You can use them as border plants to delineate different areas in the garden.
- Yearlong Beauty to Garden
Grey and silver coloured plants can add beauty to your garden, even when the flowering plants stop blooming.
Common Grey/ Silver Foliage Plants
- Artemesia Ludovciana or Silver Queen
This plant has narrow silver white leaves. The stems are upright and have insignificant flowers. Artemesia genus has more than 300 species of plants suitable for a grey garden.
- Perovskia Atriplicifolia or Russian Sage
The grey coloured leaves are aromatic. It produces lavender blue flowers.
- Hymus Pseudolanuginosus or Woolly Thyme
This plant is suitable for creating ground cover and has grey foliage with felt like texture.
This plant has spiked silver coloured foliage arranged in whorls. The flowers are coral pink or red in colour. It can be used as an eye-catching shrub in the garden.
- Nepata x Faassenii or Faassen’s Catmint
It has hairy greenish grey foliage. The leaves are aromatic and have medicinal properties.
- Partridge Feather Scientific name: Tanacetum Densum
Low growing woolly texture 6 to 8 inches in height reaching 2 feet wide. A low water using a plant that spreads into a lovely silver white near blue ground cover has contrasting small yellow button type flowers early summer.
Maintenance
The silver or grey coloured leaf plants have the natural adaptation to live in dry and arid conditions. You need to plant them in areas with full sun and well drained soil. When there is too much water the plants will become dull and leggy. You can add the best finishing touch to your garden by carefully incorporating grey or silver coloured plants in the appropriate areas in your garden. You can use these plants to elevate the beauty of your garden without much effort.
