The Grounded Gardener: Show put spotlight back on charming plants

By MARTY WINGATE
SPECIAL TO THE P-I

Plants made a comeback at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show last month. Not that there weren't always plants, but several displays at the show highlighted the breadth of ornamentals that grow well in our gardens.

Always on the lookout for one of my favorites, I spotted a cultivar of the New Zealand native Pittosporum tenuifolium in the exuberant garden "Arabesque," designed by Judith Jones of Fancy Fronds Nursery and Vanca Lumsden of Albe Rustics.

It was 'Gold Star,' and the light-gold center gives the evergreen shrub a starry effect. It's one of the many available cultivars of this fabulous small- to medium-size shrub for sun or a little shade. Hunt one down in a local nursery or by mail order.

The fine art of dry-stacked stone gardening was shown to great effect in the display by Exteriorscapes and Borrowed Ground, titled "From an Ordinary Pile of Rocks." The garden also displayed a great use for Azara microphylla. This Chilean evergreen shrub has tiny leaves and grows into a large, finely textured, airy mass, perfect for use in a protected, part-shade area as a scrim.

Scrims made of cheesecloth-like material and used in theater sets effectively divide spaces. When the stage light shines on a scrim, it is a wall; when the light shines behind it, you see through the gauzy layer to what's beyond. Many a garden could use the soft effect of a natural scrim to disguise something, instead of a solid wall or hedge.

The unofficial award for "plant of the show" must go to the coral bark maple (Acer palmatum 'Sango Kaku'), which glowed in several displays. Its bare, bright red branches -- brightest on the newest growth -- seemed to create its own spotlight, as in the Kinssies Landscaping display, "Tranquility in the Wilderness."

Be advised that, to get the most colorful new growth, you cannot coppice a coral bark maple as you can a redtwig dogwood (and there were quite a few of those in the show, too). It works on a shrubby dogwood to cut it to the ground every year or so, but the maple is a tree and will look terrible if you head back branches; the result will be a Medusa-like growth of unlovely twigs.

Plants were the entire focus of the Arboretum Foundation's display, which was based on the new Pacific Connections garden at the south end of Washington Park Arboretum.

The display showcased plants from Pacific Rim countries, including Northwest natives (called Cascadia), Chile, New Zealand, Australia and China.

Familiar plants appeared, such as spiky New Zealand flax (Phormium), the evergreen shrub boxleaf honeysuckle (Lonicera nitida) and Viburnum davidii.

Our region was well represented with cultivars of native red-flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum), including 'Pokey's Pink' (light pink flowers) and 'King Edward VII' (deep pink-red flowers), and inside-out flower Vancouveria hexandra, a herbaceous groundcover.

Those plants were joined by uncommon trees and shrubs, such as the Chilean myrtle, Luma apiculata. This small evergreen tree has glossy leaves and exfoliating bark that results in a mottled trunk with a fuzzy feel. White flowers in summer are followed by blue-black fruit.

The daisy bush (Olearia), a genus of large, evergreen shrubs native to New Zealand, was represented by O. ilicifolia -- the name refers to its leaves ("folia"), which look much like a holly leaf (Ilex).

In early summer, masses of white daisies cover the shrub, which does best in full sun. It's the same with other members of the genus, also good in our gardens, such as O. macrodonta, which tolerates sea air (it grows well on the wild west coast of Scotland).

The Arboretum display also held an impressively tall monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana), which will be planted in the real Pacific Connections garden.

And it wasn't just the large display gardens that gave us ideas, the container displays on the skybridge showed plants and pots for patios and balconies.

Old Goat Farm had a variegated agave (Agave angustifolia var. marginata), a decidedly hot and dry succulent well-suited to a pot on a sunny patio. It needs exceptional drainage and a mulch of crushed rock or gravel to keep the crown of the plant dry. It is hardy to zone 8, and so with protection from winter wet, should make it.

Also on the skybridge, Poly Pots showed off hens-and-chicks and various sedums in shallow dishes. We may not be the desert, but we don't need to turn our backs on plants that give the effect of a dry climate.