Foliage Color Palette – Silver. Have you ever gone in to a fabric store and had the clerk snip samples of fabrics to help you with design ideas? You can come up with your own design palette with even the smallest pieces of fabric for an outfit or for an entire room, then springboard into all of the other details from there.
How about taking that same idea and creating a foliage palette for a container or garden space in a similar way? Create mini-arrangements of various types in a little shot glass or small bowl to see what you like together. Winter and early spring is particularly great for this as you’re looking at your building block essentials in the garden at this time of the year.
In this vignette you see Artemisia ‘Cirrus’, a plant that ranks high on my must have list. Helleborus sternii ‘Silver Dollar’, Parahebe perfoliata and Heuchera ‘Green Spice’. All of these are hardy here in my part sun, zone 7-8 (Seattle area), but check with your local nursery expert or Master Gardener about hardiness in your area.
This palette of silvers that range from whites to blue tones is rich with the winter bronze on the Heuchera that has that hint of milk chocolate in the veining. In the spring, the Heuchera will revert to its soft silvery-green with burgundy veining as an elegant foil to all that silver.
The good manners caveat here is that you don’t ever snip where it’s not invited. A good friend or a neighbors garden with permission is different than snipping without permission in a nursery or botanical garden.
