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Sunday, March 13, 2011

Philadelphia Flower Show 2011 - Dark Plants 1

 
I love dark, dramatic plants. Of course they are best when paired with plants with light or bright foliage and blossoms.

ipomoea sweet potato vine

I'm sure some of you will recognize the first one. It is often used in planters. This is the sweet potato vine, Ipomoea batatas. Two popular colors are this one, and a bright, yellow-green one.

dark coleus

This one might be a surprise. It's a Coleus, yes, related to those easy-to-grow planter favorites with the bright-colored leaves. This one is solenostemon scutellarioides 'Defiance'. I tried really hard to do a better job of getting the names of the plants that interested me this year.

Calthea Dottie
This is a Calthea, variety 'Dottie.' It's a tropical plant, usually grown just for the foliage, the same as the two previous plants. It comes in a huge variety of colors, and is sometimes called Prayer Plant.

I have several more dark plants for another day, and one very special one that even won a blue ribbon. I've already collected a few really cool pictures from here at home, too. Well, I sure won't run out of things to blog about any time soon!



7 comments:

Ann said...

I've had Coleus before and mine were like you said, t he bright colored leaves.
I like that last one. I love the leaves on it.

Arti said...

Very beautiful, looks quite good...
Never seen these here in India!
Have a good day:)

Unknown said...

I'm not familiar with any of these, but they all look pretty gorgeous. That's the beauty of these kind of shows. You nearly always see everything at its best.

Duxbury Ramblers said...

I have grown all sorts of plants during my life but never had much luck with coleus - always loved the leaves and I love the contrast among plants.

vanilla said...

Enjoying the show and looking forward to the next installment.

jeanlivingsimple said...

I like the dark leaved Coleus. It is amazing at the new "plants" we have each year.

Sharkbytes said...

Ann- A good friend of mine decorates her deck with planters of awesome coleus each year... she hunts far and wide for special ones.

Arti- Well, for all I know, some of the tropicals that were at the show might even come from India. Shows like that can use flowers from all over the world.

Jean- no kidding! They often put things together that would never grow/bloom together in real life. It's a fantasy, but a wonderful one!

Carol- I wonder if it likes our climate better. It's a really easy one to grow here. Once it gets roots, you just have to keep pinching it back so it doesn't bloom.

Vanilla- That's good, 'cause there is a LOT more.

Jean- It's so much fun, to see so many options, even if you know they won't work in your garden.