Released May 28, 2009
URBANA, Ill. — If you're looking for a way to brighten up your home garden, using dramatic colors to add interest, University of Illinois Extension has a revised website to help you achieve those goals. "Fabulous Foliage" (http://urbanext.illinois.edu/foliage/) was recently revised and is also available in Spanish.
"While flowers are the mainstay for color in the garden, with proper plant selection, leaves can become the color focal point in the landscape," explained Greg Stack, U of I Extension horticulture educator who developed the website.
"Many plants ranging from trees and shrubs, annuals, perennials and many tropicals offer a riot of color with just their leaves."
At the website, you can learn how to introduce season long color into the garden by choosing plants with colorful and interesting foliage.
"Many flowering plants have swings from 'high color' to 'low color' depending on when they bloom and how many flowers they produce," said Stack. "Because of this, there is often 'color downtime'."
Stack added that using plants whose primary source of color lies in their foliage reduces "color downtime" to a minimum because plants will always produce leaves but may not always produce blooms.
Extensive plantings can be designed around plants with colorful foliage or small simple containers with a few well-chosen plants with fabulous foliage can become the high note in the garden.
The website includes a directory of colorful foliage plants plus guidelines for their use in the garden.
--30--
http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/news/stories/news4800.html
Source: Greg Stack, (630) 685-2355
Writer: Amanda Barth, (217) 244-1561, mandyb@uiuc.edu
