In the Garden Articles

Fall Planting: Burgundy Foliage

by Joan S. Bolton

Aren't there times when you wish you could hang onto fall's brilliant colors all year?

If you're particularly fond of the burgundy glow, you don't have to settle for a few fleeting moments. You can make the look permanent by collecting plants with "evergreen" leaves in shades of purple, bronze, copper, wine and red. We're talking foundation foliage, not flashy flowers.

Put these burgundy beauties in the ground now, and you'll be able to take advantage of all the benefits that fall planting brings. With the days growing cooler and shorter, your plants will undergo less stress than they would during summer's heat and drying winds. With the ground still warm, their roots will venture out, ready to receive winter's cleansing rains. Next spring, they'll be poised to take off.

Getting Started

You may already have a few burgundy plants scattered about your garden. Strappy New Zealand flax, for example, has become a popular standard on the Central Coast.

But even if you don't, the design approach is the same: build continuity with color by picking up and repeating those warm, burgundy tones.

Plan to lift the color overhead with trees. Place it at eye level and below with shrubs, perennials and ground covers. Purposefully plant drifts throughout your landscape, and the rich shades will flow from one end to the other.

In between, you can invoke contrast with plants that bear leaves that are light green, dark green, variegated or in shades of silver, gray or blue. If your intent is to create a low-maintenance garden, focus on repeating and contrasting plants that are big on leaves, rather than scoring mad flowers that you'll have to spend lots of time dead-heading.

Roll Call

Most purple and red foliage trees for the Central Coast are deciduous, so you'll have three seasons of color, not four. Textures vary from the delicate puffs of smoke tree (Cotinus coggygria), which is a tough, small, multi-trunk tree that holds up well to wind, to the broad, heart-shaped leaves of Forest Pansy redbud (Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy'), a small, single-trunk tree that grows relatively fast and bears small, bright-pink flowers just before its purple leaves appear in spring.

The many Japanese maples (Acer palmatum hybrids) offer an incredible range of delicate leaf patterns. Be sure to buy yours before it drops its leaves, so you can see its particular color. These trees detest wind. They prefer dappled sunlight, such as beneath the canopy of larger trees. However, Bloodgood and Oshio-Beni will tolerate sun most of the day.

Fast-growing purple-leaf plums (Prunus cerasifera) include Krauter Vesuvius, which is taller than wide and tops out at 18 to 20 feet, and Purple Pony, which is rounder and reaches only 12 to 15 feet high.

Spanning the gap between tree and shrub is the willow-like purple hopseed bush (Dodonaea viscosa 'Purpurea'). Left alone, the evergreen grows into a large bush, 10 to 15 feet tall and wide. Yet it's easy to prune it into a single or multi-trunk small tree.

One of my favorite burgundy shrubs is Chinese fringe flower (Loropetalum chinense), which grows about 5 feet tall and wide and bears unusual, thread-like, hot pink flowers. Not all of the hybrids stay purple year-round: Plum Delight and Hines Purple are among the most reliable.

New Zealand flax (Phormium) runs the gamut in size -- and comes in many stripes and color combinations. The best burgundies, bronzes and maroons include Guardsman and Atropurpureum, which hold their stiff leaves 6 to 8 feet tall; Bronze Baby, which grows 4 to 6 feet tall; Dusky Chief, another one of my favorites, which tops out at a more manageable 3 to 4 feet tall; and narrow-leaved Jack Spratt, which grows only knee-high.

Cordylines may be best described as New Zealand flax on a stick. Appearing in several combinations of green, cream, maroon, purple and pink, they start out with the same V-shaped form, with stiff leaves branching out from a base at the ground. However, over time, they rise up on a skinny trunk, branch out, produce several spiky heads and reach 20 to 30 feet tall. Hot, new hybrids include Festival Grass, Electric Pink and Renegade, all of which are said to remain trunkless and grow only 3 to 4 feet tall and wide. We'll see.

Red fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum 'Rubrum'), with its purple, red or copper fluffy plumes, presents a softer, yet still spiky silhouette. In the fall, it's beautiful when backlit by the sun. The straight species grows 4 to 5 tall and 6 feet wide. Eaten Canyon is a smaller version that grows about 3 feet tall and wide.

Shrubby purple succulents include several aeoniums. At 3 to 4 feet tall, Zwartkop is the inkiest, darkest and tallest, and bears flat rosettes of nearly black leaves. Atropurpureum is slightly shorter and more compact, while Blushing Beauty bears cupped purple petals with green centers on shorter, fatter stems. Some of the stonecrops (Sedum) bear leaves tinged with burgundy or red, including purple autumn stonecrop (Sedum 'Postman's Pride') and Voodoo stonecrop (Sedum spurium 'Voodoo'). Red echeveria (Echeveria 'Pulv-Oliver') is among the many hens-and-chicks that bear primarily green, blue or gray leaves that are edged in elegant maroon, red or purple.

Burgundy perennials to consider include the many purple-leaf coral bells (Heuchera). Among the most vigorous for the Central Coast are Crimson Curls, Plum Pudding and Cathedral Windows. New varieties are coming out, so don't be constrained by the names. Treat your coral bells as short-lived perennials or long-lived annuals; they may flourish for two to three years, then collapse.

Carpet bugle (Ajuga reptans) forms a low, dense mat of bronze or purple leaves. Some of the varieties even have a metallic sheen. Spires of blue flowers cap the foliage from spring to summer. Carpet bugle grows fast and holds its color best in full sun.

Okay, it may be cheating because the small, crinkly leaves are light gray-green. But Kalwerbossie geranium (Pelargonium sidoides) is about the only perennial I know that bears a true burgundy flower. The delicate flowers bloom in great profusion year-round, hovering above tight clumps of foliage.

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A Study in Contrasts

Plant your burgundy plants in a dark corner or against a dark wall, and they'll fade away.

But pair your burgundies with lighter, contrasting colors, and suddenly their special hues will really pop.

A classic combination is burgundy with white and green variegated plants, such as variegated mirror plant (Coprosma 'Marble Queen'), variegated Tasman flax lily (Dianella tasmanica 'Variegata'), Silver Dragon grass (Liriope spicata 'Silver Dragon') or lemon-scented geranium (Pelargonium crispum 'French Lace').

Soft blue grasses to try include knee-high blue oat grass (Helictotrichon sempervirens) or ankle-high Elijah Blue fescue (Festuca 'Elijah Blue'). For blue flowering contrast, consider ground morning glory (Convolvulus sabatius).

Soft, silvery gray for contrasting includes hairy canaryflower (Dorycnium hirsutum), which forms little mounds only 1 to 2 feet tall, waist-high wormwood (Artemisia 'Powis Castle'), low-growing coastal sagewort (Artemisia pycnocephala 'David's Choice') or creeping, velvety lamb's ears (Stachys byzantina 'Silver Carpet').

Light green or chartreuse can really perk up the moment. Look for Limelight licorice plant (Helichrysum petiolare 'Limelight'), a spreading ground cover with round, fuzzy leaves. Golden stonecrop (Sedum rupestre 'Angelina') is a great contrast in succulent gardens. Its stubby clusters of leaves are apple-green in spring. The tips turn bright yellow in summer, then shift toward orange in fall. It's quite the dazzler, planted beneath purple aeoniums.

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Seeds of Wisdom

Let loose burgundy and its companion tones in your vegetable garden. Ruby Red chard's upright, crimson stalks are a great contrast to crinkly-leaved Melody Hybrid spinach. Alternate loose-leafed Red Oakleaf lettuce with the tight heads of Buttercrunch for a checkerboard effect. Train Roger's California grape on a trellis or fence and watch its leaves turn scarlet before winter.