Part 1. Displaying the Colors Year-Round
By Mary Free, Certified Extension Master Gardener
As winter slowly winds down, you may find yourself yearning for those summer days that melt the cold and brighten the dreary. Perhaps you are dreaming of your summer gardens and feeling a bit patriotic this Presidents’ Day, wondering how they would look abloom in red, white, and blue for the Fourth of July. Or, perhaps you are feeling even more ambitious and would like to pursue a patriotic theme for various groupings or gardens year-round.
If so, we can help you on both counts. First, we want to introduce you to five Virginia Cooperative Extension (VCE) “Patriotic Gardens” publications to aid you in planting and planning for red, white, and blue color in all four seasons. Additionally, in the second part of this series, “Displaying the Colors on Independence Day” (to be posted February 27, 2019), we will identify the red, white, and blue perennial plants that we have found blooming in Northern Virginia on or around July 4 over the past several years.
The first VCE publication (426-210), “Patriotic Gardens: How to Plant a Red, White and Blue Garden,” illustrates two garden designs for full sun: a 30-inch wide container garden using annuals and an 8-foot-by-10-foot garden bed using a small tree, shrubs, perennials and annuals. Besides suggesting plant selections, it provides tips on soil preparation, planting, watering and mulching.
A second publication (426-211), “Patriotic Gardens: Developing A Statewide Corridor and Entrance Enhancement Program,” focuses on public corridor and entrance gardens. Although the three designs offered may be too large for some private residences, they suggest groupings of easy-to-maintain annuals, perennials, shrubs, and small trees, which could be used as starting points.
The third publication (426-220), “Patriotic Gardens: Bulbs for a Red, White, and Blue Spring Garden,” provides suggestions on garden design, soil preparation and planting (including raised berms for heavy clay soil), and maintenance for bulbs. Of course, spring flowering bulbs are planted in fall—October through early December—when nurseries display a wide assortment of alliums, anemones, crocuses, daffodils, hyacinths, reticulated irises, snowdrops, squills, and tulips. Gardening companies usually deluge mailboxes with catalogues at that time, although most have websites for those who wish to peruse and order online.
Although bulbs dot the demonstration Quarry Shade Garden in spring, some Master Gardeners, who have tended the plants there, are partial to blue native perennials like Iris cristata (dwarf iris), Mertensia virginica (Virginia bluebell), Polemonium reptans (Jacob’s Ladder), and Phlox divaricata (woodland phlox) and non-natives Omphalodes verna (blue-eyed Mary) and Pulmonaria species (lungwort). Shade-loving, white, spring-flowering, native perennials include Sedum ternatum (wild stonecrop) and Tiarella cordifolia (foamflower) as well as non-native hellebores. For red spring accents, try native perennial Aquilegia canadensis (wild columbine), which attracts hummingbirds, or the non-native perennial Epimedium x rubrum (red barrenwort), whose crimson flowers are complemented by red-tinged green, young leaves.
Nothing shouts spring, though, like flowering ornamental trees and shrubs. For white-flowering trees consider natives Amelanchier arborea (downy serviceberry), Chionanthus virginicus (fringetree), and Cornus species, all of which can be seen in the Quarry Shade or Sunny Gardens at Bon Air Park, and Magnolia virginiana (sweetbay magnolia), which can be viewed at Simpson Park Demonstration Garden in Alexandria, Virginia. White-flowering native shrubs include Fothergilla gardenii (dwarf fothergilla) on display at the Glencarlyn Library Community Garden in Arlington, Virginia, and Itea virginica (Virginia sweetspire) located at the Quarry Shade Garden. As an added bonus, both of these shrubs produce brilliant red leaves in fall. The branch-hugging, fuchsia (reddish) flower clusters of Cercis canadensis (eastern redbud) are stunning in early to mid-spring at the Quarry Shade Garden.
Photo © 2019 Mary Free
A fourth Virginia Cooperative Extension publication (426-223), “America’s Anniversary Garden: Native Plants” includes a chart with 41 native plants with red, white, or blue flowers, and briefly touches on the importance of native plants, planning, design, soil preparation, and maintenance.
The fifth and final publication (426-228), “Patriotic Gardens: Red, White, and Blue in Fall and Winter Gardens,” addresses the challenges of finding plants that will display red, white, or blue colors, especially in late fall and winter. This is where creativity comes into play and we look beyond flowers to foliage, fruits and seedpods, and bark to enhance a garden’s design and impact. This publication provides excellent suggestions on annual, perennial, and woody species that brighten your landscape with leaves, fruits, and bark in patriotic colors during different seasons. It also discusses how to arrange for a progression of color as well as tips to transition your garden from one season to another. Additionally, if you missed these articles when they were first posted on the Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia website, then you might want to read “Seeing in the Winter Garden,” “Native Plants for Winter Interest,” and “The Long View—Meditations on Gardening (Color and Texture Sustain the Winter Garden),” which recommend plants with winter attraction, including some with red, white, or blue features. This fifth VCE publication as well as the three MGNV blogs may reveal plants to you in a new light.
Foliage for summer color
With this in mind, we suggest that to augment the red, white, and blue blooms of Independence Day, listed in Part 2, that you also consider patriotic foliage, bark, and fruit. For patches of blue foliage consider specific varieties of ornamental grasses like native Schizachyrium scoparium (little bluestem), hostas (e.g., Hosta ‘Blue Mammoth,’ Hosta ‘Blue Moon’), or stonecrops (e.g., Sedum ‘Blue Spruce’). For year-round blue foliage, consider an ornamental conifer, like dwarf Colorado blue spruce. By July 4, the blue flowers of native Baptisia australis (blue wild indigo) will have given way to 2.5-inch long, blue-black seed pods that rise above bluish-green leaves—lovely in dried arrangements. For variegated foliage with splashes of red consider annual coleus, Begonia grandis (stunning red veining beneath the leaves), Heuchera cultivars, ground covers like native Persicaria virginiana ‘Painter’s Palette.’ and stonecrops (e.g., Sedum spurium ‘Schorbuser Blut,’ also sold as DRAGON’S BLOOD) , or dwarf deciduous trees like Acer palmatum var. dissectum ‘Crimson Queen.’
Bark, seed heads, and fruit for summer color
If you have a fondness for bark, then Cornus sericea, aka C. stolonifera, (red-osier dogwood, historically native along the Potomac River in Fairfax County), will not disappoint. Its red bark is striking in a snow-covered landscape. In July, its intermittent small, white flowers give way to clusters of whitish (blue-tinged) drupes (berries), which are particularly attractive to birds once they ripen in late summer into fall. If you are looking for something that you can eat, then the red berries of Rubus fruticosus ‘Chester’ (thornless blackberry) will soon turn black for the picking if birds don’t devour them first. (This tasty blackberry is usually used as a food crop rather than for ornamentation, but if you are interested, then check with your local extension office first to make sure that it is not invasive in your area. Master Gardeners have been pleased with its performance in the Glencarlyn Library Community Garden and have never had any problem with it migrating.)
When choosing plants for your gardens, consider all of their attributes. Be creative! Have fun!
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Sources (in order of appearance)
- “America’s Anniversary Garden: Native Plants.” Virginia Cooperative Extension (VCE) Publication 426-223. https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/48226/426-223_pdf.pdf?sequence=1
- “Patriotic Gardens: Bulbs for a Red, White, and Blue Spring Garden.” Virginia Cooperative Extension (VCE) Publication 426-220. https://www.thebeaconnewspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/426-220-pdf.pdf
- “Patriotic Gardens: Developing A Statewide Corridor and Entrance Enhancement Program.” Virginia Cooperative Extension (VCE) Publication 426-211. http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/content/dam/pubs_ext_vt_edu/426/426-211/426-211_pdf.pdf
- “Patriotic Gardens: How to Plant a Red, White, and Blue Garden.” Virginia Cooperative Extension (VCE) Publication 426-210. https://pubs.ext.vt.edu/content/dam/pubs_ext_vt_edu/426/426-210/426-210_pdf.pdf
- “Patriotic Gardens: Red, White, and Blue in Fall and Winter Gardens.” Virginia Cooperative Extension (VCE) Publication 426-228. https://fdocuments.us/document/publication-426-22-patriotic-gardens-red-white-and-blue-in-fall-patriotic-gardens.html?page=1
- Funderburk, Judy, Extension Certified Master Gardener. “Seeing in the Winter Garden.” https://mgnv.org/2018/12/12/seeing-in-the-winter-garden/
- Mills, Elaine, Extension Certified Master Gardener.“Native Plants for Winter Interest.” https://mgnv.org/2017/11/27/native-plants-for-winter-interest/
- Watters, Christa, Extension Certified Master Gardener. “The Long View—Meditations on Gardening (Color and Texture Sustain the Winter Garden).” https://mgnv.org/2017/02/07/the-long-view-meditations-on-gardening-5/