Foliage

Fabulous
Foliage

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Design Tip:

Utilizing colorful, textural foliage as a complement to bright blooms helps create visually engaging landscape designs that withstand the test of time. As you walk around the garden center, you’ll find foliage in a rainbow of different colors and textures, from delicate and graceful Muhly grass with it’s arching, pastel tendrils, to bold, evergreen Loropetalum with its rich, burgundy leaves and tendril-like fuchsia blooms.

Japanese Maples

Japanese maples are your best bet for colorful fall foliage in Florida. Vibrant foliage emerges in spring, shows off its beautiful texture all summer, and sets the landscape ablaze with color every fall. Undulating branches take on unique formations that provide interest in winter after the leaves have dropped. This timeless beauty brings excitement to any garden, and makes a wonderful companion to azaleas, hydrangeas and shade-loving perennials.

Care & Culture

Japanese Maples thrive when planted in moist,slightly acidic, well-drained soil rich with organic materials. Poor soil should be amended using Michigan peat prior to planting. Add a generous scoop of Bio-tone starter fertilizer to the hole at the time of planting to encourage rapid root development and faster growth. Be sure to provide ample irrigation in the weeks after planting, especially during summer months. Perennials and ground-covers planted around the base of the tree add additional color to the area while helping protect the trunk from mower or weed-eater injury.

Companion Plants

: Camellias

: Caladiums

: Azaleas

: Hostas

: Heuchera

: Hydrangeas

Filligree Japanese Maple: Light green to yellow-green leaves darken to crimson as the season progresses. Leaves are overlaid with specks of pale gold or cream. Rich gold color on larger leaves in fall. Cascading, pendulous to 13'

Katsura Japanese Maple: Green spring leaves are pale yellow-orange with bright orange margins. Yellowish green in summer. Fall colors are bright yellow and orange. Dense growth - upright to 20’

Nuresagi Japanese Maple: Deep purple-black-red color; leaf veins are strong red in contrast at end of summer; white striations on bark; upright & vigorous to 20’

Osakazuki Japanese Maple: Intense crimson fall color seems to glow. Known as the tree with a “leaf like a sake cup”. Rounded tree to 26’; hardy and sturdy

Trompenburg Japanese Maple: Unique leaf shape gives appearance of fingers extending from a hand. Sun tolerant. Deep purple-red into summer, changing to reddish-green-bronze. Fall color is crimson. 26’-16’ finger-like leaves reach out and down

Ukigumo Japanese Maple: Blended pastel toned leaves marked with varying degrees of pink, white, and light green. Fall color is yellow-orange. Leaves curl, twist, & undulate. Protect from sun; 10’ slow grower

Suminagashi Japanese Maple: Large-tapered pointed leaves. Bright purple-red in spring, black-red to maroon in summer, brown-red to crimson in fall. Prefers afternoon shade; semi-upright; vigorous to 20’

Attraction Japanese Maple: Seedling selection; leaf color almost as deep as ‘Bloodgood’. Burns in hot sun. Fall color is bright crimson. Hardy landscape specimen; upright, rounded tree to 23’

Shigure Bato Japanese Maple: A slow growing small tree with fairly large, feathery leaves that emerge green with red edges and brilliant yellow or orange fall color. Shrubby habit to 6'

Shojo Shidare Japanese Maple: Great performance in hot weather. Purple color emerges in spring and holds well into summer, fall color is almost scarlett. Fast-growing and pendulous to 5'

Ornamental grasses

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Care & Culture

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Companion Plants

: Sedum

: Bubblegum Petunias

: Black-Eyed Susans

: Echinacea

: Buddleia

: Perennial Salvia

Muhly Grass: One of the most beautiful and easy-going native grasses around! Muhly tolerates a range of soil types as long as they are well-drained. It also tolerates salinity, making it a great option for coastal landscapes. Grows in clumps to 4’

Lomandra Breeze Grass: Long arching, bright green blades that dance gently with the slightest breeze. Lomandra is low maintenance, drought tolerant, evergreen, thrives in sun or shade, and grows to 3'.

Adagio Grass: Dense clumps of upward-arching stems and leaves give Adagio a rounded, fountain-like appearance. One of the shortest members of the Miscanthus family, this variety tops out at about 4'