New plants and plant prospects

What's your approach to buying plants for your garden?  Do you research candidates to fit your climate and space requirements and draw plans to determine how they might complement other plants?  There was a time when I did that, especially when I was addressing a vacant bed or renovating a large area.  It's easier for me to make decisions on purchases when I'm dealing with a relatively blank slate.  As my garden's matured, it's now more common that I find a plant I like, bring it home, and then shove it in somewhere.  With the arrival of our peak planting season, I've been buying new plants here and there for the past month but my purchases have been haphazard at best.

Buying plants to fill pots is the simplest, most guilt-free kind of plant shopping.  I can always buy another pot if I come up short.

I'm always looking for new begonias to tuck into my lath (shade) house.  This one is Rex Begonia 'Jurassic Snowball'.

I fell in love at first sight with this little Geogenanthus poeppigii (aka seersucker plant).  It also found a home in my lath house.

The last new addition to the lath house is Peperomia caperata 'Schumi Red'

I bought this Vriesea splendens (aka flaming sword) to replace the bromeliad that formerly occupied this pot

Filling wider empty spaces in a bed that's already half-occupied by plants I want to keep is more of a challenge.  The bed shown below is dominated by a tree-like shrub, Leucadendron 'Pisa', and a large Acacia cognata 'Cousin Itt', recently pruned to uncover the space below it.  My thought was to focus on low groundcovers that would complement the existing plants with yellow flowers, including Hippeastrum 'Luna', Hemerocallis 'For Pete's Sake', and Lantana 'Samantha'.  I recently picked up plants that filled those basic requirements because they were available at the local garden center.  It remains to be seen if the mix comes together.

The new plants are Ceanothus griseus horizontalis 'Yankee Point' (upper right) and Hesperozygis 'Midnight Mojito' (lower right).  The Ceanothus will take time to spread so I need interim fillers.  I'm trying the "tree houseleek" (Aeonium hierrense, left) I received as a gift with purchase there for now to echo the succulents on one side of the bed.  I also placed a large terracotta container, planted with Dutch Iris 'Tiger Blend', there to fill space for awhile.

I'm a sucker for sales.  I took advantage of a California native plant sale promoted by Annie's Annuals & Perennials.  The six plants shipped on October 4th and should be delivered sometime today.  Here's the list with links to photos in the meantime:

• Heuchera maxima - two plants to go in next to one I already have in my front garden
• Penstemon heterophyllus 'Blue Springs' - to plant next to other foothill penstemons in my back garden
• Ribes sanguineum glutinosum - a pink flowered shrub with low water needs for a shady area below one of the western redbud trees I inherited with the garden
  
• Rubus calycinoides (aka creeping raspberry - to try out as a drought tolerant groundcover under the Magnolia
  
•  Trichostemma lanatum x purpusii 'Midnight Magic' - to replace a half-dead specimen I've had for years

The local garden center offered some other possibilities:

I have more shade now then I used to but I want shade plants that don't need a lot of water, which drastically reduces the number of possibilities.  I recognized some of the plants but thought I needed to research their water requirements before jumping into a purchase.  The prices on the large 2-gallon containers the plants were in were also a turf-off.

I think this was labeled as Blechnum brasiliense, a dwarf tree fern.  It's pretty but it requires moist soil so I could only grow it as pot plant and even then it's probably not a good choice for my garden.

I recognized this Coniogramme emeiensis 'Golden Zebra' but it's another plant that likes plenty of water.  At $40+ dollars I'd never buy it in this size as an experiment either.

Loree of danger garden has convinced me that a Pyrrosia lingua (tongue fern) might make a useful groundcover here in shady areas.  I've got a small one in a pot in my lath house now but I'm not ready to trade up to a 2-gallon plant for $45 so a broader search is required.

One sun lover appealed to me; however, I've no idea where I could put it:

The foliage color of this Myrsine africana 'Scarlett Margolin' (aka African boxwood) is interesting.  It's drought tolerant and slow growing but I'm having difficulty deciding where it could be placed to complement surrounding plants rather than distracting from them.

A friend and I had a plant shopping trip planned for this weekend before we were hit with a heatwave.  We've put it off for two weeks (following my annual tree trimming extravaganza).  I'll be seeking inspiration.

All material © 2012-2023 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party