For a great Wilmington garden, try these sweet shrubs packed with color and texture
In the interest of encouraging new and interesting trends in horticulture, I want to share some thoughts on simple steps you can take in your landscape to be very up-to-date with your yard’s fashion. These ideas may capture your attention if you seek to exhibit your stylishness and flair to the passing public.
For an infusion of trending color, let’s start with Pantone’s Color of the Year, Viva Magenta. Recognized globally as a leading source of color expertise, Pantone Color Institute says “Viva Magenta 18-1750, vibrates with vim and vigor. It is a shade rooted in nature descending from the red family and expressive of a new signal of strength. Viva Magenta is brave and fearless, and a pulsating color whose exuberance promotes a joyous and optimistic celebration, writing a new narrative.” Consider punctuating your home landscape with this color found in the flowers of Florida Anise shrub, Illicium ‘Miss Scarlet’ or ‘Aztec Fire’. Other shrubs suited to southeastern North Carolina with magenta blooms include Grateful Red Hydrangea, October Magic Ruby Camellia, and LightShow Bottlebrush. A special sweetshrub hybrid introduced by North Carolina State University is the Calycanthus Aphrodite, with some attributes of a native.
Some magenta-colored perennial choices may include Raspberry Coneflower. A native hybrid, it may not be as useful to wildlife as the straight native species, but the flowers are still known to be attractive to bees and butterflies. Ember’s Wish Salvia is great summer color in the vein of Viva Magenta and it typically hardy as a perennial in our zone for all but the most extreme of cold winters. A colorful plant best used as a summer annual here, Inferno, Redhead, or Campfire Coleus will keep you with the trend. The varieties. For indoor high-fashion color, try a potted winter-blooming bulb of Double Dream Amaryllis.
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Beyond color, look to the trend of contrasting textures by including native ferns, ornamental grasses in your planting beds. Christmas fern, Polystichum acrostichoides, is an evergreen native fern with tall, arching fronds. Pink muhly grass, Muhlenbergia capillaris, is a native, warm-season clumping grass, tolerant of drought in full sun or partial shade, sporting pink, feathery plumes in late fall. This grass also creates excellent cover and nesting materials for wildlife.
Incorporating native plant species into your landscape is an important step to being horticulturally fashionable. Here is a link to some suggested plants for our area: https://ncwf.org/habitat/native-pollinator-plants/regional-native-plant-list/. Doing your part to support our native wildlife may make you the trendsetter in your neighborhood. If you’re paying attention to the decline of wildlife species, you know that the days of the monoculture turf lawn with an invasive Mimosa tree and a line of some Privet shrubs (also invasive) are passé. Go with the fashion for 2023!
Lloyd Singleton is the director of NC Cooperative Extension – New Hanover County Center and Arboretum. He can be reached at lsingleton@nhcgov.com or 910-798-7660. The arboretum grounds are free and open daily 8 a.m.–5 p.m.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: For a great Wilmington garden, try these shrubs full of color, texture
