With the garden season winding down to winter, I made a trip to the
New York Botanic Garden to get a look at their last hurrah in the Irwin Perenial Garden. It's always a great show, from the large scale of the inviting entryway, to the smallest detail.
As always, I was on the lookout for sizzling combos created by juxtaposing bold, broad-leafed thingies against more delicate, airy companions. like, for example, the bigger-than-a-bathmat leaves of this banana rising from a surround of Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) , coleus, assorted dahlias and more.
Color ruled the day in this similarly scaled community of canna, accented by an orange swoon of cigar plant (Cuphea 'David Verity'), with its emberlike tube-shaped flowers all aglow in the overcast. Further firing up the scene were the bigger blooms of a few orange dahlias, smoldering like floating campfires. I know, I know...not everyone likes orange. But I do! Unapologetically. It's more accommodating than red, not as strident as yellow. I find it to be at once both fiery hot and pleasingly mellow.
Back to bold, how about these cool elephant ears (Colocasia esculenta 'Tea Cup'), floating above the filmy firmament of thread leaf bluestar (Amsonia hubrichtii) without benefit of saucers? Oh, and a few red zingers, courtesy of Dahlia royalty 'Bishop of Landaff', make the display ever so much more pleasing.
More thread leaf bluestar never hurts this time of year. While many may plant this standout for the galaxies of starry blue flowers that cover it in late spring, I find it far more valuable in fall, when its fine foliage turns a shimmering gold.
Speaking of gold, if there's a plant that's worth its weight in that precious substance, I'd have to say it's gold Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa macra 'Aureola'), or any of the similar cultivars that bring so much bling to whatever setting they are placed in. Not only is there that gloooooooooorious color (typo, and it stays), there's the plant's ever-so-appealing lax habit, likened by so many to a waterfall. Long may it flow!
One of the most valuable yet simple garden design techniques is repetition. Repetition. You can never go wrong by adding more than one of a kind, and it gets even better when they are spaced out at roughly equal intervals, or if you're more eclectic kind of gardener, at irregular intervals. My feeling is that regular intervals are best because they bring an element of structural formality to a planting, and the more structure you've got, the freer you are to make merry with the rest of the plants. So, ironically, the rigor of regular repeats are ultimately a liberating force. And speaking of repetition, I'm going to have to get back to this garden soon.
My efforts at garden making, diverse though they may be, tend to rely largely on contrasting the shapes and textures of foliage. Flowers too (and how about those way cool dahlias and Lantana trfolia-a plant I am so hunting for next year.) And since, when it comes to gardening, I'm one of those more-is-better guys, I like dramatic juxtapositions of plants with wildly differing attributes. But on a recent whirl of garden visiting I had to admire an approach almost opposite to mine, an approach that often groups plants by their similarites rather than their differences, an approach that I find ethereal, airy--almost to the point of spectral, and oh-so appealing. Perhaps its allure lies in the likelihood that this is an effect I rarely strive for--with any measure of success--in my own gardens, because the truth is that I have utterly no idea how to go about achieving it, so...I'll just appreciate this vaguely impressionistic effect that to me uderscores a garden's fragility and its transitory beauty.
Furcraea are freakin' fantastic! I've proclamied my undying love for all things bromeliaceous or agavaceous in the past, and my ardor shows no sign of abating. Here's why: These plants have a supremely sculptural quality, for my money, one of the best shapes in the whole plant kingdom. Its sturdy, meaty leaves thrust purposefully from the ground. Like broadswords, they parry the elements, slashing at wind, and cutting through the rain. The plant's resolute nature gives it an elegant, classical quality.
It's always good news to hear about the discovery of new species, rather than the disappearance of those already known. Happening upon unknown life forms reveals magic and mystery in the world we inhabit, and offers proof positive that one need not journey to the bottom of a deep ocean trench or distant star system to encounter terra incognita. 
Our ongoing search for magical places that fuse our passions for amazing landscapes, abundant plant life and exotic birds led us to Mindo, Ecuador, a tiny town clinging to the cloud-forested western slopes of the Andes. This teeny little place, not much more than a wide spot in the dirt road, was worth every bit of effort it took to get us there. Even the fruit stands were a work of art. 
There are few bridges in this part of the world so to cross the flow, we had to hop aboard a tarabita--a sort of hand-hauled cable car with seating for one-to reach our absurdly oversized cabin. Birdboy loved this kind of commute. I did too. 
Wherever we walked, outageously oversized tropical foliage was everywhere. It was so tactile, begging to be touched. And it came in handy as umbrellas for the Artiste and Birdboy, and, in the case of this dried out cecropia leaf, a hat. 
We bumped along for a couple hours befiore dismounting and plunging into steep and deep jungle, where our most excellent guide Fernando led us to a research station in the middle of absolutely nowhere. There we had a tasty surpise-a breakfast of all kinds of fruits, eggs, bread and hot black coffee (all very welcome, since we'd set out well before dawn). We followed paths through valleys darkened by layer after layer after layer of vegetation. Butterflies flitted about, and birdcall--more than 350 species can be found hereabouts--provided a musical soundtrack. Finally we emerged at this spectacular waterfall.
