Elegant Silvers : Striking Plants for Every Garden

by Gardner, Jo Ann

• ISBN13: 9780881927030
• ISBN10: 0881927031
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-02-10
• Publisher: Timber Pr

Summary

Silver plants bring a luminous beauty to the landscape. Their distinctive colors, textures, and silhouettes enrich garden design; their ability to withstand extremes of heat, cold, drought, wind, and, for variegated silvers, shade makes them indispensable for gardeners. The geographic range of silver plants is broader than many assume. Silver conifers evoke snowy, colder regions and thrive in the most frigid sites. Even in four-season climates where they are frost tender, stunning agaves, yuccas, and echeverias can be grown outdoors in containers, then wintered over indoors, while other silvers, including tropicals like the downy-leaved Plectranthus argentatus, can be treated as annuals. In this comprehensive and inspirational compendium, silver aficionados Jo Ann Gardner and Karen Bussolini have selected and vividly illustrated the best candidates for a broad range of growing and design needs. Whether you decide to add a dash of quicksilver or the soothing perfume of an ancient herb, this in-depth guide to plants of uncommon beauty and versatility is certain to change the way you see and plant your garden.

Table of Contents

A history of silvers	p. 15
Sorting silvers	p. 35
Designing with silvers	p. 51
Encyclopedia of silvers from A to Z	p. 83
Beautiful silvers for tough places	p. 271
Where to see silvers	p. 276
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Although we call all of them silvers, their silveriness varies from near glittering white and absolute silver to green-gray, grays, and silvery blues, and from spotted and streaked leaves to types covered with a metallic sheen. Silvers can be found in most plant groups, although few true annual species exist, since these occur mostly in winter rainfall areas where conditions are unfavorable to silver adaptation. We think of many of the silvers, such as the dusty millers (senecios), as annuals, but they are actually shrubby perennials in their warm, native climate. Although silvers are represented in many families in the plant kingdom, they are especially well represented in the sun-loving family Asteraceae. Silver plants dominate some genera (green plants are the exceptions among artemisias), while in others, they are anomalies. Their natural habitats around the world range from dry deserts to rain forests, from treeless plains swept by searing winds and intense heat to frigid mountain tops, rocky cliffs, and salt-sprayed coastlines. Some silvers even grow in alpine bogs. They live and thrive in such forbidding conditions because they have adapted to their environment by becoming silver. Silvers are of three types: downy, waxy, and variegated. With the recent introduction of new silvery pulmonarias, heucheras, ferns, and brunneras, variegated plants have assumed more importance. While downy and waxy types are predominantly sun-lovers, variegated silvers thrive in shade, so their inclusion in the silver palette greatly extends landscaping possibilities. Silver plants encompass the spectrum from tiny, compact alpines to soaring evergreens. Leaves can be long and thick or small and dainty, curled, cupped, or needlelike, with textures from soft and velvety to hard and leathery. Some plants are deeply rooted to anchor them from the wind and to enable them to draw down, others spread wide (as in a desert) for moisture. Many silvers contain toxic sap, give off sharp aromas, or display forbidding thorns to discourage hungry animals, for silvers inhabit difficult terrain where it pays to be armed. The world of silvers is complex and can be confusing, but if you enter it with a basic knowledge of the general types and the special language used to describe them the vocabulary of silvers hunting for the right silver for the right place will be a rewarding endeavor. Plants within the downy group, the largest of the three, spring to mind when we hear the phrase "silver plant." Leaves (in some cases, the entire plant) are covered with a protective layer of down or hairs over the plant's natural green. The length, density, and position (upright or flattened), and the plant's exposure to bright sun determines the plant's coloring through all the shades of silver from near white and sterling to green-grays. The function of down is to maintain a layer of humidity close to the plant's surface that protects it from extremes of heat and cold. The

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Excerpted from Elegant Silvers: Striking Plants for Every Garden by Jo Ann Gardner, Karen Bussolini
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.