As the flowers of summer begin to fade I thought I would take you all on a walk around the garden to look at the wide variety of foliage we have. I’m not talking about the colors of autumn but rather the use of colored foliage (other than green) within your garden to create interest.
Here is a look at the north side of our yard. Every few shrubs is one with red foliage. From left to right you will see the red foliage of the ninebark, columnar barberry, smoke bush, standard barberry and on the far right is a columnar red birch.
In the closer view (and below) you can also see the smaller shrubs. A yellow variegated foliage dwarf weigela and the red foliage weigela.

Dwarf red weigela and dwarf yellow variegated weigela
Spilled Wine® Weigela florida ‘Bokraspiwi’ and My Monet® Sunset Weigela florida ‘Sunset’
As you can see the foliage can be red or yellow.
This is one of my favorite parts of our garden. I just love the contrast of the red leaves of the maple and yellow barberry. It also helps to draw your eye to the weeping structure of the Alaska Cedar evergreen (Chamaecyparis nootkatensis ‘Pendula’) behind them.
Moving around the yard we see more pops of the red foliage.
The variegated foliage of this dwarf weigela has it all from red to green to white.
This corner of the yard shows that some of the shrubs can be ground hugging too. The weep of the Japanese maple coming down to the yellow juniper (Juniperus horizontalis “Mother Lode”) is a wonderful contrast.
Not all the contrasting foliage is found in the shrub border. We also have some in the perennial garden. Here a My Monet® weigela is contrasted against the red foliage of a heuchera.
I hope you enjoyed this tour of our garden to see the variety of foliage we have used to enhance the look. Maybe on another post I can show you some of the different textures we have in our garden?
As always we have to thank Charlie for his excellent care of our gardens.
Even though this was mostly a foliage post we are joining Dory for Flower Friday.
On another note I want to apologize for being absent from the blog for a while. As the membership secretary for a large (350 members) quilting club I have had a lot of work to do to prepare for our upcoming first meeting of the year. I’ve also been working on a few crafty projects and all of it has kept me away from blogging. We have been keeping up with reading all of your blogs but our commenting may not be as much as we usually do. Thanks for your understanding. We hope to get back to blogging more soon.
Your garden is beginning to show the fall colors of burgundy….love it
Hugs Madi and Mom
I can’t decide how I feel about the summer coming to an end. We have had weird weather out here (almost uncomfortable) but on the other hand I don’t do the cold and rainy very well. I guess one way or another…it is coming!
Your yard looks wonderful. We love the contrast and the colours. No worries we see you when we see you. Have a fabulous Friday.
Best wishes Molly
Sure is pretty around there. 🙂
Your yard sure is pretty! Momma says she’s jealous…she loves Japanese red maples, such a pretty tree!
You have the most INTERESTING colors and textures. Just LOVELY.
Mom would like your yard cuz she says sometimes she suffers from a lack of green stuff cuz things are real green around here. Beautiful!
Your Pals,
Murphy & Stanley
Mayorz For All Paws
“Use Your Noodle & Vote For a Doodle!”
Oh, that was supposed to say things are NOT real green around here.
Oh my gosh- look at all the prettys!
love
tweedles
It is obvious that your yard gets a lot of attention and lots of planning and thought – it is all so beautiful. Mom says she wouldn’t want to have to trim all those gorgeous shrubs – she can hardly keep up with what we have.
Happy weekend. and no worries about the comments – we all understand.
Woos – Phantom, Ciara, and Lightning
Oh man, I LOVES your yardie!!!! I would loves to taste, um, SNIFF all your most FABulous greens and blooms! I bets zoomies are amazin’ on your lawn!! ☺
Kisses,
Ruby ♥
The foliage was lovely. Thank you for sharing. ~Tuiren and Family
You have such a beautiful yard, thanks so much for joining us for Flower Friday!
Smileys!
Dory, Jakey, Arty & Bilbo
You guys really have the BEST yard!! Thank you both for sharing it with us!!
Your yard is absolutely gorgeous!
Love ya lots♥
Mitch and Molly
what a wonderful place, I love your japanes maple! The color is just great!
So green and beautiful
Lily & Edward
Your yard is beautiful. Mommy tries, but her thumbs are for sure not green.
Loveys Sasha
hello millie and walter its dennis the vizsla dog hay yore lawns and gardins ar lukking byootiful as always!!! owrs ar lukking kind of ded maybe dada needs to kall in sumwun like charlie!!! ha ha ok bye
Your yard is so beautiful. I wish enjoyed gardening the way I did when I was younger…
Wow, that’s pretty pretty! But I admit,I is so ready for fall and fall colors!!
We have been absent for a long time too! Love your beautiful yard – it’s inspiring.