COOL PLANTS
Here are this month’s featured plants that we have available for purchase at Falling Water Gardens nursery. We think this selection would look great in your garden right now. Visit our plant database to learn more about aquatic & terrestrial plants.
Rick’s Favorite Plant of the Month:
Osmanthus heterophyllus
Common names:
- Sweet Olive
- Tea Olive
- False Holly
- Holly Osmanthus
- Holly Olive
Osmanthus heterophyllus is one of my favorite large shrubs. I try to sneak several into almost every garden design I create. I love this shrub because it has glossy evergreen leaves and it flowers right now, in the Fall, when almost everything else is dying back and getting ready for winter. The fragrant flowers are so small as to go unnoticed so as you walk through the garden you can’t tell where the intoxicating scent is coming from.
Most Osmanthus get about 6’ wide and about 8’ high in our area. I have seen them a bit wider but while you can find information saying they can grow to 21’ I have personally never seen them anything above 8’. Some people mistake a true Holly for Osmanthus. Many varieties have pointy leaves just like a Holly but they don’t get the red berries and stay much smaller. They are perfect for the back of the border, against a fence where they can grow tall and hide the fence. They are somewhat slow growing and can take quite a few years to get to full size so if you need instant privacy there are faster growing solutions.
Osmanthus are easy to care for requiring almost no pruning and they barely shed leaves. They can take heavy shearing though and I have seen them kept as sheared hedges. They prefer full sun to part shade.
Osmanthus come in many varieties so there is one that is perfect for almost every garden.
Some of my favorites include:
Osmanthus heterophyllus ‘Purpureus’ – Old leaves are solid shiny green but all the new growth has a dark purple sheen to them. I love this with other purple or black plants in the garden. As the summer progresses the purple leaves turn to green.
Osmanthus heterophyllus ‘Variegatus’ has beautiful cream and green leaves. Perfect for gardens with other cream or yellow foliage.
Osmanthus heterophyllus ‘Goshiki’ is one of my favorites. It has bright yellow, green, some pink and cream in the leaves. Goshiki means five colors in Japanese.
Osmanathus heterophyllus ‘Sasaba’ has solid shiny green leaves but in a three-pointed shape similar to Ivy, so it looks much less like a Holly.
Osmanthus heterophyllus ‘Rotundifolius’ – this one has shiny green oblong to round, wavey leaves so no spikes!
Falling Water Gardens has all of these varieties in stock and ready to take home right now!
TERRESTRIAL PLANTS
Nandina Domestica ‘Gulf Stream’
Very hardy shrub displays attractive foliage in all seasons. Intense red new growth and fall color is its hallmark. Ideal for use around foundations or in mixed borders. Small white flowers are a bonus. Virtually pest and disease free.
- Light Need: Full shade to partial sun
- Water Need: Moist, well-drained soil
Rosmarinus Officinalis ‘Rosemary’
Quickly forms an upright hedge of aromatic needle-like foliage. Profuse clear blue flowers add to the effect. Foliage can be used as a flavorful spice in cooking. Takes to pruning well, perfect for screens. Perfect for minimal care, water-wise gardens.
- Light Need: Full Sun
- Water Need: Dry to Medium, Well-Drained Soil
Heuchera ‘Forever Purple’
‘Forever Purple’ is a knockout with ultra-purple glossy leaves with fluted edges and great vigor. Very short spikes of purple-pink flowers in summer and four seasons of purple.
- Light Need: Full Sun to Full Shade
- Water Need: Average, better too dry than too wet when established.
Heuchera ‘Marmalade’
Dramatic foliage ranges from deep golden to glowing reddish pink with undulating margins. Golden mature foliage features contrasting hot pink undersides. An outstanding seasonal accent for border or woodland garden.
- Light Need: Full Sun to Full Shade
- Water Need: Average, better too dry than too wet when established.
AQUATIC PLANTS
Rumex Sanguineus ‘Bloody Dock’
Rumex sanguineus, known by a number of different common names including bloody dock or red-veined dock, is a tap-rooted rosette-forming perennial of the buckwheat family that typically grows in a rounded foliage clump to 18” tall and as wide. It is native to ditches, clearings and forests in Europe and Asia, but has over time escaped gardens and naturalized in certain areas of the U. S. and Canada. It is primarily grown as a decorative foliage accent to showcase its oblong to lance-shaped medium green leaves (to 6” long) which are prominently veined with contrasting red to purple. It is also sometimes grown in vegetable/herb gardens for harvest of its edible young leaves. In early summer, tiny star-shaped flowers appear in panicles atop reddish-tinged stems growing to 30” tall. Flowers emerge green, but mature to reddish brown. Flowers are followed by reddish-brown fruit.
- Light Need: Full Sun
- Water Need: Consistently Moist Soil
Scirpus tabernaemontani ‘Zebra Rush’
For those who love the variegation of Zebra Grass, Scirpus tabernaemontani ‘Zebrinus’ offers that same color combination in a rush to complement the other bog and marsh plants in the water garden. Zebra Rush has tapered tubular stems that are horizontally banded with green and white and grows to 30″.
- Light Need: Full Sun
- Water Need: Wet soil
Juncus Effusus ‘Lemon Swirl’
Aptly named, this unique rush with glossy green, pencil-thin stems that spiral outward from the clump in all directions. A great deer-resistant accent plant that collectors dare not do without. This low maintenance plant prefers to be sited in a bog or other very moist environment in partial shade. Evergreen in mild winter areas.
- Light Need: Partial Sun
- Water Need: Very Moist Environment
Plant Database
Have you checked out our plant database? It contains information about the plants that we sell at the nursery and more!
We have even taken it one step further and have incorporated QR codes into the database to help you save and recall information on the plants you are interested in at home or have bought from our nursery. You can bring us the saved plants from this data base to help us locate the ones you want. As well as when you come to Falling Water Gardens you will be able to scan the plant signs to get further information about the plants and flowers.
What is a QR code? In the simplest terms a QR code is a bar code. Most smart phones come equipped with a bar code/QR code reader that will scan the QR code and bring you to the web page of information about our plants. From there you can bookmark the page. If yours does not contain a QR code reader already, you can download one for free through your phone’s app store.
