Colorful leaves

People say they want more color in their yards, and flowers are the traditional way to do that.

Now’s a good time to thumb your nose at tradition.

So many plants have such colorful leaves these days that it’s possible to grow a whole landscape as lively as the Land of Oz without a single flower.

I’m not dissing flowers by any means. But one big advantage of colorful foliage is that it sticks around all season. The flowers of most trees, shrubs and perennials come and go in a fleeting few weeks.

Thanks to the lure of wire-to-wire color, foliage has become the hot item in plant-breeding lately.

Look no farther than the glut of coralbells (Heuchera), foamflowers (Tiarella) and that marriage of the two – foamybells (Heucherella) – as proof.

Dan Heims at Oregon’s cutting-edge Terra Nova Nurseries has been churning out scores of these wide-leafed perennials in a rainbow of colors. They all flower, too, but who cares?

One of Heims’ favorites is coralbells ‘Hollywood,’ a seductive beauty of silvery white foliage with green veining and a hint of burgundy.